Takes dig at top separatists, who were not invited to his book release
Making one of his most eloquent and straightforward talks so far, former Hurriyat Conference chairman Abdul Gani Bhat today said the separatist leadership of Kashmir lacked the strategy for a political movement.
Stating that ‘blind men are riding lame horses’ in Kashmir, Bhat said the current situation demanded that “capable people” should come forward and “deliver”.
The senior separatist leader, who is also an executive member of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was speaking during a function here organised by him to release his new book and memoir “Beyond Me”, chronicling his early days and the political events up to 1987.
None of the three separatist leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, who are at the forefront of the current unrest were present at the book release as Bhat had not invited them.
In an oblique reference to the current happenings in Kashmir, which is under lockdown for over four months, Bhat urged his fellow Kashmiri men to “seek the light of wisdom”, “understand the dynamics of the situation” and accordingly “strategise”.
“If you don’t have a strategy, where will you end? Where do you go?” he asked, adding that the political movements require a defined strategy and identified goals.
The statement from Bhat comes even as the “joint resistance camp” had last week called a meeting of the civil society groups and other “stakeholders’ to suggest ways for carrying forward the unrest which today completed 126 days.
“Somebody told us let’s jump into the river not knowing the fact that whether we can swim or not. Where do we go from here? That is why it requires a strategy,” Bhat said while commenting upon the current phase of shutdown in an oblique manner.
“In Kashmiri we call it “langin gurin, aunn sawar (blind men riding lame horses),” he said. “There are all sorts of leaders around but no people around them. Everybody says I am a leader. This will have to end and the people will have to choose the most honest and the most sagacious persons as their leaders,” Bhat said in an indirect reference to the current separatist leadership which is spearheading the Kashmir unrest. He was quick to add that he would never contest elections or seek power for himself.
“But I want capable people to come forward and deliver,” Bhat said. “The current situation demands that you shall have to belong to all and then all will belong to you,” he said suggesting that the leadership should take all people along.
Delineating the history of the Partition, Bhat said in 1947 a line was drawn across British India and then broken, which he termed as the “first phase of darkness” in the subcontinent.
“The Kashmir dispute is the basis of this darkness. And this dispute is not about land or wealth of the region but a dispute about the wounded spirit of its people,” Bhat said, adding that “India entered Kashmir with the roar of guns amidst the noise of democracy.”
The former Hurriyat chairman suggested that all political parties and leaders of J&K (both mainstream and separatist) should “break the walls and sit together” and “adopt a joint draft resolution urging both India and Pakistan to resume the stalled dialogue process.
