The Legitimate Desk
On June 29, the people of Jammu and Kashmir received the news that Syed Ali Shah Geelani had resigned as a chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. In his farewell letter, he referred to inaction by the Hurriyat members post the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and the division of the erstwhile state into two Union territories.
He also damned the Pakistan branch of his Hurriyat Conference group over their suspected efforts to stir up a rebellion against him and refefred to some financial irregularities and nepotism in the party.
“I believed that the Hurriyat leaders would take a stand against the decision of India in Jammu Kashmir and fulfill their tasks to encourage and unite people,” Geelani said in the letter. “Despite unparalleled precincts and detention, I tried my best to reach out to you people, but unfortunately, you were never available,” he said.
Geelani had been leading the hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference while the moderate faction is helmed by cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
The beginning of Hurriyat Conference
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), a coalition of separatist parties and leaders, was formed on 9 March 1993, as a political face for JK’s right to self-determination. Its primary purpose was to provide a platform for such a struggle to resolve the Kashmir issue under UN resolutions and to create awareness around the world about Kashmir Issue.
Hurriyat considers itself the only true representative party of the people of Jammu and Kashmir….
APHC is an extension of a group of parties that came together to contest the 1987 Assembly elections against the National Conference-Congress Coalition –the process widely accused for rigging.
Hurriyat Conference being the bag of mixed ideologies; it brought two different, but strong creeds: those seeking sovereignty from both India and Pakistan and those who wanted Jammu and Kashmir to be part of Pakistan.
According to the Hurriyat Conference, Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed region and needs to be resolved as per the resolutions of United Nations. The idea is equally backed by Pakistan that describes Kashmir as an unfinished agenda of 1947 partition.
On December 27, 1992, 19-year-old Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, following the murder of his father Mirwaiz Farooq, he became the successor and Mirwaiz of Kashmir. He called a meeting to lay the foundation for a broad alliance of parties against “Indian rule” in Jammu and Kashmir. Seven months later, the APHC was born, and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was the first chairman.
Hurriyat Protocol
The APHC constitution describes itself as a union of political, social and religious parties of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, set up to:
- Carry out a peaceful struggle to secure the exercise of the right to self-determination following the UN Charter and the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, which shall also include the right to freedom.
- Make efforts for a negotiation between all the three parties to the dispute — India, Pakistan and people of the Jammu and Kashmir — under the backing of the United Nations, provided that such resolution is carried as per the will of the people of Kashmir.
- Present the Freedom struggle of the state before the world in its proper perspective, as being a “struggle aimed against the violent and deceitful occupation of the state by India”.
The Split
Since Hurriyat is a mixed bag of ideologies and personalities, ‘clash of ideas’ is a permanent feature. Disagreements often sprung up in public.
The tug-of-war between the two factions of the leadership was simmering inside and then one day it came to the fore when, according to the media reports, Sajjad Lone fielded his proxies in the 2002 Assembly elections. Syed Ali Geelani ousted him form the party.
This was the first break up in All party Huriyat Conference and it got divided into two groups, one led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and the other by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. With Geelani possessing a staunch ideology and advocates for Kashmiri’s merger with Pakistan, Mirwaiz, a moderate faction backs any middle path that could resolve the dispute between India and Pakistan. He even appreciated and supported the four-point formula proposed by former Pakistan President Parveez Musharaf.
Meanwhile, on 7 September 2003, Hurriyat replaced Abbas Ansari with Masrat Alam as interim chief of the Geelani group. The seven-member executive council was also suspended and a five-member committee was formed to review the Hurriyat constitution.
Geelani also left Jamaat-e-Islami and formed his party, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir, in August 2004.
The Mirwaiz group believing in dialogue process unlike Geelani who wants India to accept Kashmir as dispute first also interacted with the then Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 2004.
The leaders of the Mirwaiz group were facilitated by the Vajpayee government to visit Pakistan along with Yasin Malik via the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road in June 2005 and held talks with various Muzaffarabad based Kashmiri separatist leaders as a part of its Kashmir peace process.
Later in 2014, the Mirwaiz faction split when four of its leaders —Shabir Ahmad Shah, National Front chairman Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Mohammad Azam Inqlabi and Mohammad Yousuf Naqash — left.
The present discourse of Hurriyat
While the Kashmir movement has entered into a crucial phase following the abrogation of article 37 in August last year, the resignation of Geelani has left his millions of followers into puzzle. The resignation of Geelani was shocking and surprising for all of them. Those who were hoping to see the dawn of Azadi and Geelani its torch bearers are yet to accept the reality that their leader has left the party.
In a separatist camp with massive following in Kashmir, Geelani was followed religiously. He was never questioned; his decisions were final though they could not lead to anywhere in the end. The uprisings of 2008, 10 and 16 are some of the examples.
