Strident Call for 'Azadi' in Kashmir

Huriyat rallies have witnessed large crowds

Srinagar, curfew-bound and politically tense at that, is an unusual place to observe India’s Independence Day. But then that is where I was this 15th of August.

Ever since my childhood one always read, and believed, Kashmir to be an integral part of India. It was a belief that wasn’t shaken, despite what I saw or heard during my several visits to Kashmir during the twenty years of unrest in the region.

More than once I felt uncomfortable about the highhandedness of the Indian security forces in Kashmir, I have been outraged by their excesses and shared the anger of the local people who regard the Indian army as an “occupation force”. I felt equally angry when grenades thrown by militants killed innocent tourists. I also thought much of the unrest in the valley was fomented by separatists, who were aided and abetted by Pakistan.

Crucially, I believed that a solution to the Kashmir problem lay within the framework of the Indian constitution. If the central government gave up its ham-handed approach in dealing with Kashmiri affairs and if the more sensible voices in the valley were allowed to have a say about how the valley should be governed, I always hoped the rather complex problem could be solved.

After my recent trip to the valley, I am no longer sure of that.

This time I detected a difference in the call for azadi or independence. For one thing, the call for azadi might have come from the Huriyat leadership, but it has found resonance among the masses. People on the street speak freely and without fear about their demand for azadi, about freedom from India.

On earlier occasions when I had visited the valley, the people talked about the right for self-determination. They spoke about the promise of plebiscite that Pandit Nehru had made in the United Nations and then reneged on it. In that right all the three options existed – Kashmiris could choose to remain with and in India or they could go with Pakistan, or they could choose to be independent either from India or Pakistan.

Now the demand is more strident, people quite categorically say that they do not want to be part of India. “It is not a question of good governance or bad governance. We just want the right to govern ourselves, we don’t India to do it any more”, says Sajid Lone, a young lawyer in Pampore where an impressive number of people, in hundreds of thousands, had gathered peacefully following a call by the Huriyat.

One couldn’t help but feel it would be foolish to ignore both the voice of the common people as well as the Huriyat’s ability to put so many people on the strret at such short notice. Their mobilisation, and the ability to keep such a large crowd peaceful, suggested that the Huriyat leadership enjoyed a popularity that the Indian authorities have always been unwilling to concede.

At one point of time, elements of the Huriyat were involved in the militancy in the valley. Common people were often coerced to take the streets, following calls for strike by the Huriyat leadership.

This time, though, following the land transfer controversy and the subsequent economic blocade, there has been a spontaneous outpouring of anger from the masses, and people have been more than willing to come out on the streets in support of the Huriyat.

It hasn’t helped matters that the common man in the Kashmir valley feels completely let down by the mainstream political parties (which have agreed in principle to work within the framework of the Indian Constitution) in the valley.

The Congress Party is still viewed with suspicion – as an “Indian party which first looks after India’s interests” and then the region’s. Gulam Nabi Azad, who recently resigned as chief minister, has no mass following in the valley, and is seen, not without good reason, as a pawn of the central government. No other Congress leader commands respect or following in the valley.

Nor does Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party have any credibility among the people in the valley. Kashmiris realise it was the PDP which first precipitated the current crisis over the issue of transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board. First the PDP agreed to the transfer, and once it was formalised, it backed out of the deal and eventually withdrew support to the Congress-led government in the state.

As for the National Conference, Omar Abdullah doesn’t have either his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah’s legendary popularity or his father Farooq Abdullah’s charm. Most Kashmiris see the youngest Abdullah as a central stooge, as someone who has let down the valley’s interests at critical times.

In the absence of a credible political party in the region, the mantle of political leadership has been taken over by the multi-party Huriyat Conference. The hardline faction led by Syed Ali Shah Gilani and the moderates led by Mirwaiz Farooq have tried to forge an united front and present a common face to their followers in the valley. That unity is at best fragile, but both Gilani and Mirwaiz Farooq realise a common front is the need of the hour.

Governments in Delhi have on several occasions been loathe to do business with Huriyat leaders, sometimes not without reason. Several Huriyat leaders have had a chequered past, with allegations of involvement in militant activities. Besides, at one point of time, the Huriyat propagated a blatantly pro-Pakistan line.

Now there is a change of tack, a change of strategy, if not a change of heart among the Huriyat leadership. The controversy over the land transfer and the subsequent economic blocade of the Kashmir has handed the Huriyat an issue on a platter. As I sat in the office of Mirwaiz Farooq’s office, waiting to interview him, one of his aides confided : “This time the Indian authorities have done something which Pakistan’s ISI hasn’t been able to do all these years – given us an issue that has angered and united all the people in the valley.”

Over the years, Kashmir economy has traditionally been dependent on two things – tourism and apples. Years of unrest in the valley has drastically reduced the earnings through tourism, increasing the state’s reliance on the apple trade as the major source of income.

More than the land transfer controversy, the subsequent economic blocade has hit the Kashmiris where it hurts most. As the apple season is peaking, Kasmir’s bounty lies unplucked from trees, and rotting in Sopore and other markets.

Every August about 200 trucks loaded with apples leave the wholesale apple market in Sopore every day, heading for different destinations all over India. Until August 20, only a handful of trucks would everyday venture out on the highway and brave the blocade. I interviewed the driver of one such truck in a hospital in Srinagar where he was being treated for severe burns. As his apple-laden truck crossed over from Kashmir to Jammu, two men on a motorcycle threw a petrol bomb inside his vehicle.

About 80 perecent of apple growers in the valley are marginal farmers, working on small tracts of land. Most of them have borrowed money to plant their crop, and now have no clue how to return that money.

We went to the farm of Gulam Ahmed Wani, an apple orchard owner in Sopore. Apples remained unplucked on trees in Wani’s farm, others were rotting in the baskets in which they had been packed. “I am facing financial ruin”, said a bitter Wani. “My family would be finished if I can’t get my apples to the market soon,” said the apple orchard owner who has borrowed Rs. 10 lakhs (25,000 US$) from a local bank.

In the nearby market in Sopore, said to be the second largest apple market in Asia, many farmers like Wani look for trucks that would take their produce to the market. “Our drivers are getting beaten up across the border every day. It is difficult to get people to drive our trucks,” says an offcial of the Sopore Apple Market.

As the apple trade suffers, and anger mounts on the streets of Srinagar and other areas of the Kashmir valley, the Huriyat is pressing the Indian government to open up the road to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “We don’t want to be held to ransom again, if and when someone decides to block the National Highway, the only road link that connects the Kashmir valley with the rest of India,” says Mirwaiz Farooq.

Besides, Mirwaiz Farooq points out that Kashmir had been part of the old Silk Route and has had social and trade links for centuries with Pakistan. The opening of the road to Muzaffarabad would open trading opportunities for the Kashmiris, he said.

The Indian government’s response to this demand has been characteristically ambiguous. A spokesman for the ruling Congress party at the centre said: “We are open to the idea of opening of trade routes, but if someone thinks that one can hold a gun to our head and make us do this, then they are mistaken.” Which means what, someone please explain.

As of now, the land transfer controversy which sparked off the unrest is history, and the Indian government claims the economic blocade has been lifted. In the valley, though, the people remain angry and the air is thick with calls for azadi.

In the past, Indian authorities have been accused of political myopia regarding Kashmir. New Delhi can still carry on with its short-sighted Kashmir policy. This time though the price it might have to pay could be unusually heavy.