Between the Great Divide

by Anam Zakaria

  Just as it had during the ‘tribal’ raids, in the late 1980s and 1990s, India accused Pakistan of infiltrating its territory and the lines between a Pakistan-sponsored and indigenous Kashmiri movement for freedom became blurred. Just as many considered the ‘tribal’ raids a mistake on Pakistan’s part, several people I would interview were critical of Pakistan’s alleged policies during this time. The nationalist struggle was soon labelled as a terrorist ploy and Pakistan was accused of arming civilians, similar to the allegations levelled against the country in 1947. It is this period of the 1980s and 1990s that I shall now turn to.

  3

  HURRIYAT’S MAN IN PAKISTAN

  Musings of a retired mujahid

  ‘I was a mujahideen commander, I led the mujahideen movement for many years,’ Ashfaq (the name has been changed to protect his identity) says with a cautious laugh, his head tilting sideways. This announcement comes within the first two minutes of our interaction on a sunny winter afternoon in Islamabad in November 2015. I had been given Ashfaq’s number by a local Kashmiri friend who mentioned his affiliation with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), an alliance of political parties established in 1993 to raise the cause of Kashmir’s self-determination.1 Over the past few days, I had seen APHC put up posters around Islamabad highlighting the atrocities allegedly committed by the Indian forces in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pictures of wailing mothers and police crackdowns surrounded the main Margalla Road, which runs through the federal capital of Pakistan. Some of the slogans read:

  Juvenile torture in Indian-occupied Kashmir

  Monstrous Indian forces disgracing Kashmiri mothers

  Kashmiris demand political and human rights

  Our cries will not go in vain

  Who will bring back her son?

  How long will the Kashmiris bury their dead?

  Cries of an orphan still unheard

  Kashmiris have a right to live in honour

  State terrorism in Indian-occupied Kashmir

  Pakistanis and Kashmiris are one

  I wondered if these posters had anything to do with the Indian reaction to Pakistan’s invitation to Hurriyat leaders to attend the then Pakistani foreign policy advisor, Sartaj Aziz’s reception ceremony in India in August 2015. Earlier that year also, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, had invited Hurriyat leaders to celebrate Pakistan Day on 23 March in New Delhi. Both times, India’s response was curt and dismissive to such cordiality between Pakistan and the Hurriyat leaders. The Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson, Syed Akbaruddin, stated in March 2015, ‘Let me reiterate that there are only two parties and there is no place for a third party in resolution of Indo-Pakistan issues.’2 In other words, there was no place for Hurriyat leaders in the peace talks. They were a ‘third party’ in the Kashmir context. In fact, in August 2014, India called off talks between the foreign secretaries of both countries over the meeting between Hurriyat leaders and the Pakistan high commissioner.

  The stance reinforces the current political reality: Kashmir has been consumed by the bilateral politics of India and Pakistan and is entirely sidelined in all decision-making processes of its own future.3 In all likelihood, Pakistan has been open to bringing in the Hurriyat leaders because their demands would strengthen the Pakistani argument: Kashmiris needed to decide their own future through a plebiscite. Seven decades after Partition, policy-makers and ordinary Pakistanis continue to strongly believe that given a choice, Indian-administered Kashmir would join hands with Pakistan. According to a survey carried out in 2015 by Gallup Pakistan, 68 per cent of Pakistanis believed that Pakistan has a greater right to Kashmir than India does.4 The focus tends to remain on the Muslim-dominated Valley while Jammu and Ladakh, which have a significant Hindu and Buddhist population, don’t seem to factor into the equation. India, too, is apprehensive about the Hurriyat leaders endorsing Pakistan’s claim and thus affecting India’s position internationally. The Hurriyat is often seen as pro-Pakistan in India and there have been allegations that some of its leaders receive funding from Pakistan-based groups. In 2017, The Indian Express reported that the ‘National Investigation Agency has registered a PE (preliminary enquiry) into the funding of Hurriyat leaders, namely Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Naeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Gazi Javed Baba and others in J&K by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and other Pakistan-based terrorists and agencies to carry out subversive activities in Kashmir and for damaging public property, stone-pelting on security forces, burning of schools and other government establishments.’5 Thus, while Pakistan keeps engaging with Hurriyat leaders to further its own agenda—of Kashmir joining Pakistan—, India keeps pushing them back to the periphery. Each nation has one goal: ensure maximum stakes in Kashmir and strengthen its position against the other. (In October 2017, in what is being termed as a U-turn,6 India agreed to ‘initiate and carry forward a dialogue with elected representatives, various organizations and concerned individuals in [J&K]’,7 including the Hurriyat. Though it is too early to determine whether these talks will have any meaningful impact on the Kashmir conflict, some analysts are viewing this shift in strategy as India’s recognition that force alone cannot resolve the Kashmir issue and sustained dialogue is required. According to Indian journalist Jyoti Malhotra, the decision shows that the Narendra Modi government has acknowledged that the ‘barrel of the gun could never successfully mediate a solution in the troubled state, that the salve of human dialogue was an essential and fundamental modicum of behaviour between leaders and those they led’. She further points out that the fact that this decision was taken on the eve of the then US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson’s visit to South Asia in October 2017, indicates that the Modi government wants to ‘show the Americans that he is amenable and has no problem reaching out to his own people in Jammu & Kashmir, in order to avert US pressure to “do something” and tone down hostilities in this part of the world’8.)

  In November 2015, when Prime Minister Modi visited Srinagar, Hurriyat members, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, leaders of two separate factions of the Hurriyat Conference, were immediately put under house arrest.9 The Hurriyat claims that the Indian ‘occupation’ of Kashmir is illegal10 and that Kashmiris need to have the right to decide their own future, either as an independent state or by joining hands with Pakistan. Many in India see them as anti-state actors and troublemakers, deeming it necessary to curb their opposition to Indian rule. Hence, when Hurriyat leaders wanted to hold a ‘Million March’ during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Srinagar, reportedly ‘one of the biggest crackdowns on separatists in recent times… detaining hundreds of pro-azadi political activists’, was launched.11

  Some have even alleged that the Hurriyat Conference is no less than a militant organization. As The Indian Express reported in August 2015: ‘At a time when militancy was at its peak, this conglomerate represented the political face of the militant movement, and claimed to “represent the wishes and aspirations of the people”. It had brought together two separate, but strong ideologies: those who sought J&K’s independence from both India and Pakistan, and those who wanted J&K to become part of Pakistan. Most of the groups that were part of the Hurriyat had their militant wings, or were linked to a militant outfit.’12

  However, others deny that the Hurriyat Conference is linked with militancy. In 2017, two years after my interview with Ashfaq, I reached out to Pakistani journalist Kamil Ahsan, who has been researching and writing on Indian-administered Kashmir, to enquire more about the Hurriyat’s role. He told me, ‘While Indian media outlets maintain that the Hurriyat has links with the local militancy, the truth, as always, is a bit more complicated. It is undeniable that much of Kashmir, as well as the Hurriyat, sees the leaders of the local militancy as homegrown fighters and therefore considers them martyrs. However, there is little evidence that the Hurriyat has actively sought out or contributed to the local militancy: its involvement, especially in the months after Wani’s death (the death of Hizbul Mujahidee
n commander Burhan Wani, which took place several months after my interview with Ashfaq, will be discussed in the course of this chapter and the book), was to encourage people to observe curfews and release protest calendars, the large majority of which were peaceful and got great response from the people.’

  And so, as I walk in to meet Ashfaq—who seems to be in his fifties—in one of the most affluent and flourishing sectors of Islamabad, where he works for a human rights organization dedicated to highlighting grievances of people in Indian-administered Kashmir, I am not necessarily expecting militancy to come up in our conversation, not least because we have spoken on the phone only once before, and that too, just yesterday, to set up this meeting. Instead, I anticipate a conversation about the Hurriyat Conference, about its role in ‘Azad’ Kashmir and about his own personal politics and grievances related to the Kashmir conflict. When he openly announces that he was not only linked to militancy in Kashmir but in fact founded and commanded his own militant outfit, I am certainly out of words for the first few minutes.

  Behind me, I can sense burning questions in Haroon, who has accompanied me for the interview. He starts with a rush of queries: how Ashfaq got involved in the militant movement, who he was working with, why he left it. I look at Ashfaq to see if he will respond, if he feels we are pushing it too far, but he has already begun answering, albeit in short sentences.

  He tells us that he has worked with Sayeed Salahuddin, the chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, one of the active militant groups in Kashmir. He tells us he was involved in militancy until 2000, when his health forced him to give up arms, and that he ‘belongs to makbooza Kashmir’. He says he came to Pakistan in the mid-1990s. He then stops and asks what else we want to know. I respond by telling him I’m doing research on Kashmir, that I had first visited Keran, Neelum Valley, last year for leisure and had been moved by the experience. I tell him I want to understand the indigenous movement, the experiences of the people. I ask him to share his personal story, his journey as a Kashmiri. He tells me that he is happy to share but when I request to switch on the recorder he asks me not to. ‘I think it would be better if you just take notes.’ ‘Of course,’ I reply, and open my green notebook that has been my companion since the very first interview I took for this book. It seems to come handier than my recorder; most people are far more comfortable if I resort to taking notes rather than recording.

  ‘I was born in makbooza Kashmir, in Kupwara district, in 1960,’ he starts. ‘It is a three-hour walking distance from Keran in Neelum Valley, where you were last year. In Kashmir, every child knows we are under occupation. This is not something we are taught, it is just a belief we have from birth. I had this understanding too, for as long as I can remember. But this didn’t mean I knew I’d become a mujahid. It was in the late 1980s that the mujahideen movement gained momentum and the youth got involved. I got involved, too.’ He speaks in a mix of Urdu and English and I can tell that he is educated. I ask him what he was doing at this time, if he had finished his studies, if he was working. He tells me he had graduated from Kashmir University with an economics degree and was teaching at a high school in Kupwara.

  ‘And were there any personal reasons for you to leave your job and join the movement? Were you or your family members personally affected by what was going on in Kashmir at this time?’

  ‘The Kashmir conflict is a personal conflict for all of us,’ he replies, his tone serious and his expression pensive. ‘My parents and grandparents had lived under occupation for a very long time and there was a lot of frustration in society. They had tried every peaceful method to put forward Kashmiri grievances, to make the world listen to us Kashmiris. But after the 1987 elections, many people lost faith in the government, in the system. The elections were rigged and we youngsters saw no future unless we took things in our own hands. The products of these rigged elections were people like Sayeed Salahuddin of Hizbul Mujahideen. And me.’

  ***

  For the initial few years after Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India, Kashmir enjoyed some autonomy. While India had control over defence, foreign affairs and telecommunications, Kashmir had its own constitution and flag. A local government was also in place, with its own prime minister and president. However, by the early 1950s, this autonomy started to crumble.13 Sheikh Abdullah, once a great friend of Nehru’s, and head of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, which, at the time of Partition, was against the idea of Kashmir joining hands with Pakistan, soon came to be seen as an obstacle to Indian control. Abdullah, who was by then Kashmir’s prime minister, had begun to give speeches and garner support for an independent Kashmir, which was not an option for India. In 1953, he was arrested and replaced with rulers who supported Indian rule and the status quo.

  By the time Abdullah was released, seventeen years later, the fabric of society was as altered as his political agenda. Kashmiri autonomy and democratic rights had received a serious blow and Abdullah too agreed to sign a compromise with the Indian government to give up the demand for a plebiscite in order to remain in power. Basharat Peer writes in his memoir, Curfewed Night, that the period after Abdullah’s release was relatively peaceful but five years after his death, in 1987, Kashmir was shaken by rigged state elections; the Indian state resorted to ‘arresting opposition candidates and terrorizing their supporters’,14 coming down hard on anyone against Indian rule.

  It is important to understand the turn of events prior to 1987 in order to fully grasp the implications the rigged elections were going to have on Kashmir for decades to come. In 1983, Farooq Abdullah, Sheikh Abdullah’s son, succeeded his father and won the elections. However, soon after, he fell out with the ruling Congress party, and Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, dismissed him after only a year of his being elected. It was then that Farooq, like his father, decided to strike a compromise with the Indian government to come back to power; he agreed to an alliance with the Congress. This decision was not taken well by his supporters, many of whom turned away and labelled him a traitor. However, his decline in popularity was not mirrored in the election result of 1987, and Abdullah came back to power. It is widely believed that these elections were rigged. Officials, including those in India, have also backed these allegations over the years. Khem Lata Wukhloo, leader of the Congress party at the time, recalls, ‘I remember that there was a massive rigging in 1987 elections. The losing candidates were declared winners. It shook the ordinary people’s faith in the elections and the democratic process.’15

  These elections are seen as the turning point in Kashmir not only by political analysts but also by local people like Ashfaq. Local Kashmiris, especially the youth, who had participated in the 1987 elections with great enthusiasm, were left disillusioned. In the background, the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet forces was at its peak. The Khalistan movement, a fight between Sikh separatists and the Indian state, had gained much ground by this time. And in Palestine, the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, was in full swing by late 1987. The Afghan jihad, the Sikh insurgency and the Palestinian intifada provided a critical backdrop to the Kashmir movement. Picking up arms had become the norm against what were deemed as oppressive regimes of that time. As Ashfaq puts it, ‘These movements were an inspiration to us. If they could stand up against occupation and injustice, why couldn’t the Kashmiris? We had lost all hope now. Taking up arms was the only way forward.’ Just as with the Arab Spring of this decade, the political and militant movements of the 1980s in one nation gave impetus to people in other nations to follow suit and take their destiny in their own hands. In fact, one of the popular slogans of that time was Jago jago subah huyee; Rus ne baazi haari hai, Hind par larzaan tare hain, ab Kashmir ki baaree hai (Wake up, Russia has fallen and India eyes defeat, it is the turn of Kashmir to be freed).16 The result was the outbreak of insurgency in 1989, with the creation of militant outfits.

  ***

  ‘Which organization did you join at this time?’ I a
sk Ashfaq.

  ‘The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was the main organization at that time. It was a nationalist organization founded in 1977 and after the 1987 elections, it really came to the forefront. In the late 1980s, there weren’t so many factions and jihadi groups as you see today. In fact, when I joined the JKLF, jihad wasn’t even so out in the open, not like it is today.’

  ‘And what was the JKLF’s main agenda at this time?’ I ask.

  ‘The agenda was always clear: that Kashmir needs to be liberated from Indian occupation. No matter what group you belonged to, that was the aim. Now you have different people and factions coming in, furthering their own vested interests, but in the beginning it was all very clear. Even when I left the JKLF and started my own organization (the name of the organization has been omitted to protect his identity) in the 1990s, the agenda remained the same. The agenda will always remain the same for those genuinely dedicated to the Kashmiri cause: Liberation.’

  Almost everyone I spoke to in ‘Azad’ Kashmir echoed these thoughts and asserted that Indian ‘occupation’ of Kashmir—and for some the Pakistani ‘occupation’ of ‘Azad’ Kashmir—needed to end. As for the future of Kashmir—once Indian ‘occupation’ ended—there wasn’t any consensus on what the subsequent years would look like. Some openly advocated integration with Pakistan, others subtly or overtly expressed a desire for freedom from both countries. When I asked them if J&K would be able to survive economically and politically without both India and Pakistan, several ‘Azad’ Kashmiris emphatically stated that survival was not a problem. They pointed towards rich mineral resources and asserted that if the state of J&K could survive independently prior to Partition, there was no reason why it could not stand on its own feet now. They told me that Kashmiris were running successful businesses in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. They were talented entrepreneurs. Money was flowing in from migrants in the UK. These skills and investments alone could help them become self-sufficient. They told me that if Kashmir got its fair royalty from hydroelectric projects alone (the royalty issue is discussed in further detail in Chapter 10), they could survive on their own. Further, if peace came to ‘Azad’ Kashmir and the region opened up to international tourists, revenue would flow in. They told me that given the choice, many ‘Azad’ Kashmiris would opt for independence from both countries. Others, however, felt that they would feel safer joining hands with Pakistan. ‘It is a nuclear power. It can help us defend ourselves against India,’ they said. Only the process of self-determination can truly reveal majority opinions.