Martyrs sans cause

In Pakistan, All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq calls for an end to the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir.

PRAVEEN SWAMI in Srinagar

MIRWAIZ MOHAMMAD FAROOQ's body lies in the Bihisht-e-Shauda-e-Kashmir in Srinagar, a sprawling graveyard built to honour those who have given their lives in the Islamist campaign against "Indian rule" that began in 1989.

His assassin, Hizbul Mujahideen-linked terrorist Abdullah Bangroo, is buried just a few metres away. Both the murderer and his victim are martyrs to the faithful: martyrs, moreover, for precisely the same cause.

If the presence of Bangroo's grave in the Bihisht-e-Shauda - Persian for `martyrs' paradise' - gives All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairperson Mirwaiz Umar Farooq offence, he has never shown it, at least not in public. Mirwaiz Farooq's authority owes not a little to his status as a spokesperson for the cause of his father's jehadist opponents, an ugly irony that has often drawn acid taunts from his opponents.

Now, however, the Srinagar cleric is finally speaking out. Addressing a January 20 dinner meeting hosted by Pakistan-administered Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq finally delivered the unequivocal rejection of violence that peace advocates have long called for - and, unnoticed by most commentators, an astonishingly candid acknowledgment that the Islamist rebellion of 1989 had failed.

"We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts," the cleric said, "which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards." While he understood the sentiments of those engaged in the armed struggle, the Mirwaiz said, "As far as the APHC is concerned, we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones".

Speaker after speaker publicly broke with long-established dogma at Ahmad Khan's dinner. APHC leader Abdul Gani Butt, for instance, dropped the secessionist coalition's long-standing demand for a place at the table in the India-Pakistan dialogue. "These talks are taking place between two sovereign states, and ours is just a disputed territory," he said. "So," he concluded, "instead of creating problems, we think our purpose is solved by separately holding negotiations with both India and Pakistan."

Pakistan Muslim League chief Chaudhuri Shujaat Hussain, in turn, aggressively defended Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's decision to abandon pursuit of United Nations resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. "Resolution or no resolution," he said, "now all sides need to consider what is in the best interests of the Kashmiri people and then push for a settlement of the dispute."

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's remarks came hours after he met with Musharraf as part of a dialogue process that is dramatically transfiguring Jammu and Kashmir's political landscape. Musharraf had turned to the APHC for the legitimisation of a four-point plan that his Islamist opponents have bitterly criticised - a plan that in essence involves accepting the Line of Control as a border in return for wide-ranging autonomy for both parts of Jammu and Kashmir, free movement and phased demilitarisation.

Realists in the APHC, in turn, needed Musharraf's endorsement of their dialogue with New Delhi, to protect them against physical attacks from Pakistan-based terrorist groups such as the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Along with Ahmad Khan, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq now plans to set up cross-party working groups to build a consensus around the core elements of Musharraf's plans.

At first glance, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's remarks are startling. Only in May 2006, after all, the APHC chairman had called for the "political, diplomatic and military fronts" of the "Kashmiri resistance" to work "in unison". In January, the cleric told a prayer congregation in Srinagar that he hoped the new U.N. Secretary-General would implement the resolutions calling for a referendum.

In reality, however, the APHC chairman's call for an end to the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir merely reflects the long-standing consensus among realists - a consensus painstakingly put together by figures such as the secessionist leader Abdul Gani Lone, a one-time supporter of far-Right jehadi groups who was eventually assassinated by a Lashkar-e-Taiba hit squad in May 2002.

Influential Islamists have been calling for an end to violence for several years. As early as 1997, the former head of the Jamaat-e-Islami - which was then the parent political organisation of the Hizbul Mujahideen - had criticised what he described as the "gun culture". In an interview given to a Srinagar-based magazine soon after his release from prison, Jamaat chief Ghulam Mohammad Bhat said that while the armed struggle had been a legitimate response to specific circumstances, it had "served its purpose". Bhat, who sought to sever the Jamaat's links with the Hizbul Mujahideen, argued that only "a political dialogue" could lead to an end to the conflict.

Such sentiments had come to form the core of secessionist discourse by April 1999. That month, Butt called for a dialogue between secessionists and pro-India political groups such as the Congress and the National Conference. The outcome of this dialogue, he suggested, would constitute the will of the people of the State and would then be communicated to the governments of India and Pakistan.

Butt's proposal - remarkably similar to the round-table dialogue instituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005 - constituted a sharp departure from the APHC's long-standing demand for a three-way dialogue involving India, Pakistan and itself. While the Kargil War interrupted efforts to put such a dialogue in place, APHC centrists were able to facilitate the unilateral ceasefire declared by dissident Hizbul Mujahideen commander Abdul Majid Dar in 2000.

Although Islamist groups, with the support of Pakistan, succeeded in sabotaging the ceasefire, a succession of developments worked to strengthen the APHC centrists. In mid-April 2002, APHC leaders travelled to Sharjah for discussions with the powerful Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir leader Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan. Pakistan's then Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief, Lieutenant-General Ehsan-ul-Haq, is also believed to have been present on the sidelines of that meeting.

"If the [Indian] government is not ready to allow self-determination," Lone said soon after, "the alternative is that they should be ready to settle the dispute through a meaningful dialogue involving all parties concerned."

Ever since 2004, when the APHC leadership first held formal discussions with the Government of India, that dialogue process has been in place. What the APHC has not been able to do, though, is find the resolve needed to make it meaningful. If Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's courageous Pakistan speech is to prove of more value than just fighting words, the APHC centrists he represents will have to find the courage to face the inevitable backlash.

Here, the record is not comforting: having seen great personal tragedy, and without an heir to inherit his clerical position, the Mirwaiz's appetite for risk is limited. After meeting with Manmohan Singh in 2005, APHC leaders promised to come back with detailed proposals for discussion through an institutional mechanism. The promise was not kept, for fear of upsetting jehadi groups hostile to the APHC's engagement with New Delhi.

Again, in March 2006, APHC leaders promised mediators they would attend Manmohan Singh's second round-table talks on Jammu and Kashmir but backed off after threats from the Hizbul Mujahideen. Although New Delhi met key APHC conditions, such as reducing the number of participants in the discussions, the secessionist coalition chose to resile on its commitments.

Now, the APHC hopes that Musharraf's support will secure them from personal attack - and thus facilitate a serious dialogue with New Delhi. Just how well founded this belief will prove, though, is not clear. On January 15, terrorists lobbed grenades at Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's home in suburban Srinagar, in a move clearly intended to signal displeasure - and to intimidate him. Like all other secessionist leaders of consequence bar Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is protected by Jammu and Kashmir Police guards - an unequivocal admission of where the threat to his life comes from.

Such threats are likely to mount. After his speech in Pakistan, a United Jehad Council spokesperson suggested that the Mirwaiz "and other leaders of his ilk have become tired, disenchanted or hopeless about the future of the freedom struggle, and owing to adverse circumstances sit back in their homes to lead a life of comfort. But they should not teach the lesson of cowardice and hopelessness to the caravan of freedom-seekers".

Geelani, for his part, has made no secret of his anger. Speaking to journalists on January 21, the Islamist leader asserted that "leaders who are today talking of ending militancy owe their popularity to these militants only". "Jehadist cadre," he said, "took to the armed struggle after the complete failure of democratic institutions in the State." To those familiar with history, there is little doubt that the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat leader's polemic is economical with the truth. As late as August 19, 1989, Geelani participated in an all-party meeting on the Islamist rebellion in his capacity as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, a fact that suggests he was not among those disenchanted with Indian democracy at the time. However, hardline rhetoric has enabled him to emerge as the sole spokesperson of the jehad, a position of great power.

For once, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has responded to Geelani's attacks with some feisty inv ective of his own - but the fact is that the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat has the support of terrorist groups, while the APHC centrists do not. On January 17, as the APHC delegation prepared to leave for Pakistan, a strike called by Tehreek-e-Hurriyat succeeded in shutting down much of the Kashmir valley. Backed by the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the strike even paralysed life in Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's downtown Srinagar heartland, a fact of no small consequence.

Still, there has been no better time for the centrists to push ahead. Under intense pressure from the United States and aware of the risks of a confrontation with India when Pakistan is under an existence-threatening siege from within, its covert services are in no position to sustain the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir at levels that would pose a serious military concern to India. On the ground, the cadre of groups such as the Hizbul Mujahideen are strapped for cash, short of weapons and low on morale.

Sensing that they are on the wrong side of history, key Geelani supporters are running out of patience. Early in January, the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat was forced to expel one of the most long-standing pro-jehad leaders in Jammu and Kashmir for opposing its official position. Mohammad Altaf Khan, who, using the somewhat vainglorious pseudonym `Azam Inqilabi,' or great revolutionary, had participated in terrorist cells such as al-Fatah from the mid-1960s, had issued a statement critical of the Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, breaking with Geelani's line.

More likely than not, the APHC leadership will succeed in securing a meeting with Manmohan Singh after its return from Pakistan. More than words will need to emerge from their discussions. If Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is indeed serious that he wants no more martyrs without a cause, he will need to join in the inclusive, multi-party dialogue that is imperative to marginalise terrorism and its spokespersons.