Sidelined Geelani quits Hurriyat
A surprise move for many outsiders but anticipated by amalgam faction
Srinagar: Feeling hurt at being sidelined in certain decision-making and underhand disparagement of his role within the amalgam, Kashmir’s separatist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Monday quit the Hurriyat Conference. Sources said the politician’s move may have come as a surprise to many outside the Hurriyat Conference but within the amalgam faction it was being anticipated for quite some time.
Feeling hurt at being sidelined in certain decision-making and underhand disparagement of his role within the amalgam, Kashmir’s separatist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Monday announced his decision to quit Hurriyat Conference.
The sources privy to the development said the nonagenarian politician’s move may have come as a surprise to many outside the Hurriyat Conference but within the amalgam faction it was being anticipated for quite some time.
However, it was the endorsement by the Hurriyat Conference (G)’s Valley-based ‘advisory council’ of an earlier decision taken by its Pakistan and PoK chapter to remove his close confidante Syed Abdullah Geelani as its emissary in Islamabad that pulled the trigger, the sources said.
Geelani while announcing his decision to sever his association with the Hurriyat Conference said that Abdullah will continue to work as his representative in PoK and overseas. He accused his colleagues back in Jammu and Kashmir of having failed to respond to his repeated requests to meet up to evolve a strategy to face up to the postAugust 5, 2019 situation in the erstwhile state but huddled up at the drop of a hat in spite of the Covid-19 to endorse the “unconstitutional” decision and then getting it publicised through their “favorite broadcasting houses.”
“I sent messages to you through various means so that the next course of action could be decided but all my efforts (to get in touch) went in vain. Now that the naked sword of accountability is hanging over your heads, you have started feeling the heat of answerability, the curtain over financial irregularities is taking off and you are terrified of losing the positions you are holding (within the amalgam), you in spite of the pandemic and official curbs huddled up for the advisory committee meeting and supported and endorsed the unconstitutional decision taken by your representatives and by doing this set a strange example of solidarity and uniformity,” Geelani alleged in the signed letter.
The Hurriyat Conference launched as a conglomerate of 27 Kashmiri separatist parties and groups in March 1993 as a political platform to pursue the aazadi campaign, split in 2003 following differences between what are often referred to as being moderate and hardline factions. The battle lines were stiffen when the so-called moderate faction of the alliance headed by Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq despite sharp criticism at home began peace talks with the Centre. The rival faction had termed the moved as “betrayal” and soon elected Geelani as its chairperson. He was subsequently declared as the lifetime head of the amalgam faction.
Pakistan officially, however, recognised the Mirwaiz-led faction, the raison d’être behind which was believed to be Geelani’s stiff open opposition to General Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula on Kashmir.
It was then believed in some political circles in J&K and Pakistan that Musharraf himself had prompted the split in the Hurriyat Conference necessarily in an attempt to isolate defiant Geelani but he in an interview to this correspondent in autumn 2004 had denied the charge and said, “There are some internal difference and I don’t want to get involved in that and for the sake of peace and reconciliation they have to reunite or, at least, have common agenda on the vital issues.”
Yet, for some political watchers here, the history may tend to repeat itself as Geelani has failed to live up to Islamabad’s expectation in post-August 5, 2019 scenario in J&K whereas the Mirwaiz and other separatist leaders who are not under detention have miserably failed to play any predictable or even customary role during this period, pushing the separatist camp in disarray and its supporters in public dispirited and bewildered.
But as Geelani’s letter suggested he is not to be blamed for ‘hibernation.’ He claimed that it were his colleagues in the Hurriyat Conference who let him down. The 91-yearold leader who has been under house arrest for past many years with only occasional restricted liberty has vowed to continue to fight against “Indian colonialism” and said that his age or failing health will not act as a pediment in the “struggle.” He, however, said that it was in view of the current state of the Hurriyat Conference that he is announcing his complete dissociation from the forum.
Kashmir political watchers believe that if his health permits it, he would continue to use his veto power on issues that may surface in the separatist camp for he has the capacity and capability of holding sway on diehard Kashmiri youth with flaunting his intense views on issues.