On April 7, as evening fell over Karimabad, which otherwise had nothing to distinguish it from a typical south Kashmir hamlet, an unprecedented scene was witnessed. If the village is a tiny punctuation mark en route to Pulwama, that moment too was like an inflection point in a long, tortured narrative. Some six gunmen appeared, out of the blue, at slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Naseer Ahmad Pandit바카라s grave to pay respect. Nothing unusual yet.
But the backstory first. Pandit was killed the same day last year in a gunfight in Shopian바카라another Hizbul militant, Waseem Ahmad Malla, too was killed in that scrimmage. But Pandit바카라s was an odd trajectory: he was a cop-turned-militant. In 2015, the then 28-year-old constable with the Jammu and Kashmir Police decamped with two AK-47s and joined the Hizbul. He was a young man of principles, who was disillusioned after seeing the police up close, hand-in-glove with drug traffickers, says his father Ghulam Rasool Pandit. Pandit was seen as close to Hizb바카라s 22-year-old commander Burhan Wani, whose killing last year inaugurated a new phase of street protests in Kashmir.
But this April evening came as a marker of something else, a gene mutation in Kashmir바카라s quarter-century-old secessionist struggle. Witnesses recount that, after a few shots fired in the air, a masked gunman told the people, 바카라Do not wave the 바카라un-Islamic Pakistani flag바카라 during funerals of slain militants.바카라 Now, in the south Kashmir countryside, which has seen a surge in pro-azadi sentiment, that flag has been the default visual tool of protest바카라an instrument to mock the Indian establishment as much as to affirm itself.
Why, then, would that act suddenly become not kosher in some eyes? And why would the message be delivered by an outfit that has been overtly Pakistan바카라s cat바카라s-paw over the years, as against the purely pro-azadi JKLF of old? The masked Hizbul man had the line down pat. The insurgency, he told the crowd, is 바카라a fight for the implementation of Islam바카라 and not for the power interests of any group or entity like Pakistan. After Kashmir, he continued, they would march to India and Pakistan for establishing an Islamic system. The struggle, he said, is about Shariat and shahadat (martyrdom) and the Pakistani flag doesn바카라t fall within the pure realm of Shariat 바카라because the Kalimah has not been inscribed on it바카라. The Kalimah is the Islamic testimony of Allah바카라s oneness and Prophet Mohammed바카라s prophethood, and the allusion is to Pakistan바카라s presumably lesser existence as a modern nation-state, as defined against a global caliphate.
As for a Hizbul man voicing this message, some fault-lines that became visible the next day explained it. On April 8, the United Jehad Council (UJC), the Muzaffarabad-based amalgam of militant groups, warned the group that gave the speech at Karimabad of 바카라dire consequences바카라 for opposing Pakistan and its flag. UJC spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain said it 바카라reflects only the intentions of a group of gunmen masquerading as mujahideen at Naseer바카라s grave바카라. Small, rebellious outliers...that was the implied characterisation. For the time being, it seemed 바카라order바카라 was restored and the rift settled. On May 8, a month after Karimabad, the Hurriyat Conference phalanx of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik closed behind this too, declaring Kashmir바카라s struggle as 바카라indigenous바카라. 바카라Terrorism and freedom movement are poles apart. Our movement has nothing to do with바카라ISIS, Al Qaeda.바카라 These 바카라world-level groups바카라 are 바카라practically non-existent바카라 in Kashmir, they said, pretty much accusing Indian agencies of using the names 바카라to create a wedge바카라.
The blowback came four days later, May 12, when Zakir Musa, a 24-year-old Hizbul commander, rattled the Hurriyat바카라and a lot of ordinary Kashmiris바카라by calling the separatist leadership 바카라hypocrites, infidels, followers of evil바카라. If the Kashmir struggle is not an Islamic one, 바카라why do you call the mujahids (militants) your own and participate in their funerals,바카라 he asked in a widely-watched video clip.
After deriding them for pinning their hopes on the UN and the international community, Musa let loose a stunning fusillade on the Hurriyat. 바카라They are political leaders, not Islamic leaders. They cannot be our leaders. If they have to run their politics, they shouldn바카라t become thorns in our path to Shariat. Otherwise, we will cut their neck and hang them in Lal Chowk. I am warning these people바카라they would be first to be hung.바카라
A militant offers a gun salute at the funeral of a colleague
The Response: For a secessionist leadership already left behind by the 바카라leaderless바카라 intifada on the streets, and left with little room for manoeuvre with the formal stakeholders, a dangerous new flank had opened up. It바카라s for the first time that top separatists have faced such a serious ideological challenge from a militant commander over their definition of the Kashmir struggle. For much of the 27-year-long insurgency, the separatist leadership occupied the position of a vanguard elite바카라and now they were receiving threats of beheading.
In a second audio released on May 13, Musa part-retracted, this time excluding Geelani, whose hard line is seen as overlapping the most with an Islamist one, but said his fight against secularists would continue. Musa also quit Hizbul, when the militant outfit distanced itself from him. 바카라Hizbul says they have nothing to do with my statement. So, if Hizbul doesn바카라t represent me, I also don바카라t represent them. From today, I have no association with Hizbul Mujahideen,바카라 he said.
In a larger frame, it would have been a routine moment when Musa left his studies in 2013 to join the militancy. But when he succeeded Burhan Wani as the Hizbul commander operating in Tral sub-district, he was stepping into a space that already had high social media visibility. Something was almost bound to happen. Now his audio messages바카라three in all, released within a week바카라have set off a wave of heated debates and introspection about the nature of Kashmiri separatism. Was its source impulse ethno-cultural, something essentially revolving around being Kashmiri, or was it fundamentally Islamic? Can the latter be kept separate and secure from snowballing down a pan-Islamist cline? The original destination of a more pronouncedly Islamic line was seen as Pakistan, but now the spectre of ISIS looms. Is not the idea of an independent Kashmir qualitatively different from the vision of a global caliphate? Is it not possible to be Muslim and secular-democratic? The questions roiled the Kashmiri political mind.
The debates revealed a variety of opinions on the ground, searching for coherence. Unlike the 바카라90s, when militants were not criticised, Musa faced a barrage of condemnation on social media. His statement was rejected and ridiculed, even if it found pockets of endorsement. In his third audio, in which he thanked Al Qaeda, Musa acknowledged the anger. 바카라I am thankful to all those who abused me without understanding my point바카라 because of you, many of my sins would be forgiven.바카라
The reactions to Musa reveal Kashmir as an essentially Muslim political movement at present, even if distanced from Musa바카라s model, says political analyst Zafar Choudhary. Pandits and other minorities were part of Sheikh Abdullah바카라s struggle against the maharaja before 1947, he says, and that made it inclusive. 바카라If you call Sheikh바카라s struggle also communal and Islamic, then you deny the Muslim any right to fight for justice,바카라 he says. However, after 1947, Kashmiri Pandits and the Dogras of Jammu identified themselves with India바카라and 바카라in spite of being a constitutionally secular state바카라, says Choudhary, at its core was an implicit 바카라Hindu apparatus바카라. That바카라s why Pandits and Dogras didn바카라t join the National Conference바카라s plebiscite movement in 1953 after Sheikh바카라s arrest. 바카라Pandits perceived it as a Muslim struggle against a Hindu state.바카라
Mustafa Kamal, brother of Dr Farooq Abdullah and NC general secretary, paints a similar picture: Pandits were in the forefront of Sheikh바카라s resistance against the autocratic Dogra rule and later Sheikh바카라s own cabinet reflected the movement바카라s secular ethos. They, however, kept a distance from the NC바카라s mass movement against Sheikh바카라s arrest in the Kashmir conspiracy case. 바카라I will say Pandits remained very inactive in 22 years of Sheikh바카라s struggle,바카라 adds Kamal.
Despite the fraught air in which the Pandit exodus had happened, the early JKLF-led insurgency had a secular colour. Religion was reinforced when foreign fighters took over. 바카라But it continues to remain a political movement at the people바카라s level바카라no major cultural change is seen there,바카라 says Choudhary. In fact, when extremists called for women to adopt the Islamic dress code or for men to sport a beard, it failed to yield any substantial result. After September 11, says Choudhary, when American perceptions about Muslim struggles around the world changed, everyone took the opportunity to de-emphasise the Islamist element. With separatists for long seeking the West바카라s support, the present crisis has again come in handy to prove a point to sections in New Delhi keen to label the secessionism as an Islamic jehad.
But such is the sense of moment that the Hurriyat joint statement compared the situation with the 1990s, though they said that was more awful and complex. 바카라We paid a heavy loss in terms of precious lives. We were engaged in petty, non-serious matters. Instead of following logic, we were swayed by our emotions,바카라 they said, in an allusion to inter-group clashes between JKLF, Hizbul etc.
In the early 바카라90s, pro-Pakistan groups went after the JKLF, which stood for azadi. The JKLF gave up armed struggle in 1994 and adopted Gandhian means but continued to face criticism for its secular line. In 2013, Hurriyat veteran Prof Bhat reminisced about how those rifts led to the killings of Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq (1992) and Abdul Gani Lone (2002) by 바카라our own people바카라. Those killings emaciated the moderates and left a default hard line on the table.
Thus, the ideological fault-lines have always been there, and Musa바카라s videos only revealed them again. Perhaps at a more fraught juncture when global Islamist entities have mutated, as has the political climate in mainland India. The latter context too indirectly frames the debates in Kashmir, as a secular, accommodative polity was still a viable option바카라and was widely spoken of as such outside separatist circles.
The Political Face: If the militancy had a fratricidal edge, the fault-lines and paradoxes also resided in the blurred lines of overlap within the political overground. On July 31, 1993, as insurgency was going at full tilt, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was formed as a joint political platform. The parties that came on board had only six years before forged the Muslim United Front (MUF) against the NC in the ill-fated 1987 elections, widely believed to have been rigged.
The APHC, from the outset, was shaped by the fact that it was a coalition that brought two divergent, if not incompatible streams together바카라those who sought independence from both India and Pakistan, and those who wanted to join Pakistan. So its basic slogan had a 바카라common minimum바카라 touch to it: 바카라the wishes and aspirations of the people should be ascertained for a final resolution of the dispute바카라. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, then merely 19, who had taken over as Awami Action Committee (AAC) chairman and become the head priest of Kashmir after the assassination of his father, became the first APHC chairman. Its executive council had seven members: Geelani represented Jamaat-e-Islami, the young Mirwaiz AAC, Yasin (JKLF), Prof Bhat (Muslim Conference), Abdul Gani Lone (People바카라s Conference), Moulvi Ansari (Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen) and Sheikh Abdul Aziz (People바카라s League).
Despite their shades of variation in emphasis on political Islam and secularism, the Hurriyat has always used mosques to mobilise people and its cadre on the slogan of Islam, as was pointed out by Musa. The sequence of call-and-response slogans usually started with 바카라Hum kya chaahte? Azadi (What do we want? Freedom),바카라 followed by, 바카라Azadi ka matlab kya? La Ilaha Illallah (What does azadi mean? There바카라s no God but Allah)바카라 and 바카라Yahan kya chalega? Nizam-e-Mustafa (What writ will run here? The order of the Prophet)바카라. A generalised Muslimness as a language of protest, on which they all converged, became the adhesive; the rift was confined to whether J&K should go for full azadi or become part of Pakistan. And later, on whether dialogue should be held with the Centre or not.
In 2003, the Hurriyat split when Mirwaiz decided in favour of dialogue with the Centre바카라the group held talks with the then deputy PM, L.K. Advani, in 2004. The Jamaat-e-Islami too distanced itself from militancy and ousted Geelani. A miffed Geelani floated his own party, the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. Even so, analysts say the moderates, pro-azadi parties like JKLF and hardliners like Geelani share the core of their political philosophy: that the international community should intervene to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Geelani calls the struggle Islamic and Tehreek-e-Hurriyat believes in a welfare state on the pattern of Khilafat, but even he maintains the UN resolutions are the bedrock of the struggle. The distinction between his position and new ultra Islamist streams was clarified in 2015, when ISIS flags started appearing during protests in Srinagar바카라s old city: Geelani described ISIS and Taliban as Boko Haram-like organisations and called their actions un-Islamic.
Geelani has always opposed secular politics but now the young hardliners have raised the bar too high for even him. These new, tech-savvy radicals use Facebook, Twitter and other online media to ridicule the 바카라cowardliness바카라 of Hurriyat. They call Geelani and the rest crisis managers of the government who help control the masses. Contrary to the perception elsewhere of Geelani as a hardliner, these new voices say Geelani and other separatists by design avoid the question of whether the struggle is political or Islamic.
Still, in a space polarised between moderate, radical and ultra-radical, Geelani is seen by many as a uniquely stabilising figure: he still enjoys the support of people and even militants, the reason why Musa retracted his first statement saying his threat was not meant for 바카라Geelani saheb바카라. But the worry is, what after Geelani? 바카라Geelani is the person who brings some sanity in the chaos. Once he is not there, what will happen to this place?바카라 wonders a senior mainstream party leader.
However, a senior police official who has seen south Kashmir for long blames the separatists for patronising militants. 바카라Now the younglings are biting back. Musa naming Al Qaeda will put the so-called tehreek (struggle) in its true frame, an Islamic movement rather than a political one.바카라 In a long-drawn conflict with little results, this was inevitable. 바카라These young militants feel the old guard is senile and has not done enough,바카라 the official says. They say the Hurriyat was naïve to believe the militancy too will remain wedded to the original political ends. 바카라For militants, the movement is essentially Islamic, the political part is secondary,바카라 the police official said.
Sensing an opportunity in the crisis, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti went to south Kashmir on Sunday and paid homage at the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Baba Hyder Reshi, popularly known as Reshi Moul Sahib, in Anantnag. On its annual festival, people don바카라t eat meat for seven days as a mark of respect to the saint. In her speech, Mehbooba pointed towards a Sufi shrine, a mosque, a temple and a gurudwara, all close to each other in the Sher bagh area, and asked people whether they would adhere to Kashmiriyat or ISIS.
A senior mainstream leader says the challenge from Musa is real바카라an existential threat. 바카라It is a new reality and has to be engaged with.바카라 He says it바카라s an opportunity for the separatists to declare the basic credo of the Kashmir struggle before the people explicitly. As of now, the Hurriyat, after that first statement, is hesitating to take up the gauntlet.
By Naseer Ganai in Srinagar
