NEW DELHI: Leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, predictably, rejected elections as a solution to the insurgency in Kashmir and insisted that Pakistan had to be a party to tripartite talks for a solution.

Addressing about 300 political leaders, opinion leaders, diplomats and journalists at a function for the inauguration of the APHC’s Delhi office, the organization’s acting chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani focused on the right to self-determination, which had been guaranteed by India and World bodies.

Obviously with an eye to the diploma is there, Geelani also harped on the need to save India and Pakistan from “a nuclear disaster.”

CPI general secretary Inderjit Gupta, former Union minister LK. Gujral of the Janata Dal and human rights activists Nikhil Chakrovority, Rajinder Sachar and Kuldip Nayar were among the audience.

Geelani, who heads the Jamiat e Islami, subtly painted India as a Hindu nation, saying atrocities were being carried out by soldiers of a country that worships Sita and Ram and burns effigies of Rayana for showing disrespect to women.

Geelani, JKLF leader Yasin Malik and People’s League leader Shabbir Shah invoked the peaceful and nonviolent ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and the Buddha, to stop what they described as atrocities against the people of Kashmir.

While Geelani, an experience politician, limited himself to demanding the right of self-determination Malik Clearly stated that, “cither the movement will reach its logical conclusion, independence, or every Kashmiri will ‘be martyred.”

‘Shah pointed out that the US, Boutros Ghali, Iran and the UK had offered to mediate and that Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir had accepted but not the government of India.

Responding to Inderjit Gupta’s point that violent movements in places like Mizoram and Nagaland had come around to other methods to settle their problems, Shah said there was a difference between those movements and that of Kashmir, since the latter had ‘been declared to be a dispute by India and the UN.

Many of the speakers, including opposition leaders, sought to separate the government of India from the people of India, saying the latter wanted dialogue. “Kashmir has become a bleeding wound,” said Gupta, adding that the gun was no way to solve the problem.

He pointed out that Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had wanted self-determination for his Pathan people at the time of independence but was denied the right and had to stay with Pakistan “because the country was partitioned by people at the top.”

“Their vociferous opposition to the Kashmir polls notwithstanding, certain members of the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is expected to put up front candidates in the coming, elections.

 It is reliably learnt that three member groups of the Hurriyat the People’s League, led by Shabbir Shah, the People’s Conference, led by Abdul Ghani Lone, and the Muslim Conference, led by Prof Ghani Bhatt are considering lending support to individuals in the polls.

Basically being politicians, leaders like Mr. Shabbir Shah, Mr, Lone and Mr. Bhatt, were always confused about their attitude to elections in Kashmir, They know the role of politicians gets scuppered when the gun is used to settle issues. They also know that elections might result in the political class becoming more relevant than they are now.

But the deep anti New Delhi sentiments and to that extent, anti-poll sentiments in the Valley as well the fear of physical harm from militants have caught these leaders in a dilemma. To stay away from the polls might result in their political marginalization the kind of fate Mr. Prakash Singh Badal has suffered in Punjab.

They have, therefore, settled on this subterfuge support front candidates without participating in the polls.

The sources say that while a large section of people in the Valley are angry with New Delhi, they also want an end to the bloodshed and violence which has destroyed every semblance of normalcy. This being the case, if the elected representatives are successful in improving the situation, the people might feel even if with the benefit of hindsight that the polls were not as undesirable as they thought.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 10, 1995