SOUTH ASIA: New Chance Rises for Democratic Politics in Kashmir

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jan 22 2002 (IPS) - Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s crackdown on ‘jihadist’ militancy in his country has started to show results in the disputed northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, where they are signs of a revival of political, instead of armed, activitiy.

The All-Party Hurriyet Committee (APHC), an umbrella organisation for some 23 political parties in the state, indicated over the weekend that the militant phase of a struggle for self-determination in Kashmir was over.

“The boys with the guns have done their duty,” Abdul Ghani Bhat, chairman of the APHC told journalists in Srinagar, capital of the Indian part of the divided state.

Bhat, considered a moderate, explained the change in tack by saying that the “boys had done their jobs by highlighting the movement”. He added: “Now it is time for the politicians to capitalise on it.”

Significantly, Bhat rejected the idea that the Kashmir movement was a religious one, a premise on which Pakistan has openly backed militancy in India’s only Muslim-majority state.

Bhat’s predecessor as chairman of the APHC, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who leads the Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Congregation), has consistently held that the Kashmir movement was a religious one.

“He (Geelani) who talks in terms of religious issues perhaps forgets that if and when the right of self-determination is granted to the people of the state, it will be exercised by each one of us irrespective of caste, creed, colour and religion,” Bhat declared.

The Indian part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir consists of the largely Buddhist Ladakh to the north of the Srinagar valley, while the Jammu region to the south of it is Hindu- dominated.

A third of Kashmir (called Azad Kashmir) was seized by Pakistan in 1947 and a ceasefire line (Line of Control) drawn where the armies of the two South Asian neighbours came to standstill has since served as the border.

The new stand of the powerful APHC, said to be working in tandem with leading militant organisations, appears to be an indication that it is ready to contest provincial assembly elections in the state due to be held in September this year.

Elections held in the state five years ago resulted in a victory for the National Conference party of chief minister Farooq Abdullah, but most political groups boycotted it and voters were threatened by militant groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-eToiba (Soldiers of God) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed)

These groups figured in a list of terrorist organisations proscribed by U.S. President George W Bush in the wake of the devastating. Sep. 11 aerial attacks on Washington and New York, which Washington believes was carried out by al-Qaeda network led by the fugitive Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.

India has blamed the two groups of waging a terrorist war in Kashmir marked by killings, kidnappings, extortions and sabotage, including a sucide attack on the Kashmir provincial assembly on Oct. 1, which resulted in the deaths of 50 people.

Both groups were finally ordered banned by Musharraf on Jan. 12 in a televised address pledging to rid Pakistan of ‘jihadist’ elements. He followed through with a crackdown on the premises of scores militant outfits and the arrest of top ‘jihadist’ leaders.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed satisfaction with the crackdown ordered by Musharraf when he visited India last week and assured Indian leaders that he had the general’s word that the action would groups operating out of Azad Kashmir or Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), as it is officially called in India.

But the so-called prime minister of PoK, Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, has refused to arrest or seal the offices of either group. He has also opposed any move by Islamabad to extradite to India any “freedom fighter”.

“The United Nations recognises Kashmir as a disputed territory and Kashmiris are waging a legitimate struggle. We don’t recognise the LoC and no one can stop Kashmiris from crossing it,” Khan was quoted as sayingin Muzaffarabad, capital of PoK.

A report in the ‘New York Times’ Service, earlier this month, quoted senior Pakistani officials as saying that Musharraf had ordered the shadowy Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to stop support for ‘jihadist’ groups linked to the al-Qaeda network, but had asked it to continue support for Kashmiri militant groups.

Powell’s mission to India, and immediately before that to Pakistan, was to encourage the two countries to disengage from a military stand- off that resulted from an attack on the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13 by a five-man suicide squad, for which New Delhi blamed its neighbour.

India’s leaders have accused Pakistan of joining the international coalition fighting terrorism in Afghanistan but continuing to promote violent separatism in Kashmir, the complete possession of which is desired by both countries.

Neither Powell’s mission, nor an earlier one this month by British Prime Minister Tony Blair have persuaded New Delhi to resume dialogue with Pakistan or pull any of the nearly million troops it has massed on the two countries’ common border.

New Delhi has demanded that Pakistan first extradite 20 persons in a list of people wanted in this country for terrorist acts, including the founder of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Maulana Masood Azhar.

Azhar was released from jail in India along with two others in exchange for an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan in December 1999 with 150 passengers on board.

Pakistan has responded to India’s extradition request by saying that it too has a list of people that it wants extradited by India and which would shortly be delivered to New Delhi.

The two countries, nuclear-armed since May 1998, have fought three wars over Kashmir, the latest an undeclared but bloody one in the summer of 1999 after heavily-armed miltants crossed the LoC and occupied several mountain tops with support from the Pakistan army.

That war, in which the two countries downed each others’ aircraft and lost hundreds of men in uniform, ended after then U.S. President Bill Clinton intervened and secured a withdrawal of the intruders back across the LoC.