Is sajjad lone alone?

 

 

On the face of it, what separates People’s Conference chairman, Sajjad Gani Lone, from other separatists seeking political office is that he is the first from this camp to insist that his turnaround is confined to a change in strategy – not of ideology. But deep down, some are wondering whether this is mere verbal quibbling, so that he can savour the separatist cake without sacrificing the perks of power.

This selfsame double-edged rhetoric – that his rivals call plain doublespeak – also sets Sajjad apart from such lesser known separatists as Khaliq Haneef, once a close ally of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and militant-turned renegade commander Kuka Parrey.

Sajjad, who occupied the contentious middle ground for nearly eight years, and took the plunge only four months back, claims he was never the archetypal separatist – a claim long endorsed by many Kashmir watchers themselves. Indeed Sajjad has long been accused of fielding proxy candidates. And after the revelation by former RAW chief and old Kashmir hand A. S. Dulat that Sajjad had plans to contest elections earlier as well, this section feels all the more vindicated.

Sajjad told a press conference in Srinagar that his sole motive for entering the election fray was to be able to take the Kashmir issue to the Indian Parliament, so that the Kashmiris’ “aspirations” could be shared with the country’s other lawmakers. “But ideologically I remain unchanged,” he told reporters; just as he has been telling voters in north Kashmir. “I am here only because when you people voted in the last assembly elections I was under house arrest. It’s your vote that has inspired me to take this route.”

Sajjad’s gameplan is simple: To introduce himself to as many people as possible in the villages and towns that crisscross the north Kashmir parliamentary constituency spread over three districts. For, Lone Junior is hardly as widely recognised as his father, the late Abdul Gani Lone, who was one of the founders of the People’s Conference. The senior Lone, who was assassinated in 2001, is also believed to have been the brain behind the formation of the separatist conglomerate – the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) – in the early nineties. Sajjad is not only accused of splitting the APHC into two, but also his father’s party, the leading half of which supports his brother, Bilal Gani Lone. It is due to all these factors that Sajjad’s campaigns sound so much like special pleading. This is how it mostly goes: “Vote for me only if your heart and conscience tell you to. I can only assure you that if you send me to Parliament I shall make you proud of me. Please know that this comes from my heart, not my mind.” There is also a touchy-feely side to his campaign style – there is a great deal of shaking of hands and patting on backs! Often also, Sajjad brings in the fact that he is contesting on a shoestring, and is a late arrival. “This is precisely why you all find me going from village to village on foot,” he exclaims.

In this election the People’s Conference chief, however, is not the lone separatist seeking the popular vote for representing the Kashmiri cause. Up north, in Kupwara district, another separatist, Ghulam Rasool Shah alias Imran Rahi, is also in the fray. Now in the Awami National Conference (ANC), Rahi was a militant commander when insurgency first erupted in Kashmir in 1989. Arrested twice before his eventual release in 1995, Rahi formed the Forum for Peaceful Resolution to push for a dialogue on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute along with two other militant commanders – Babar Badr and Bilal Lodi. The group was the first to start a dialogue with New Delhi, meeting then home minister S. B. Chavan, the late P. V. Narasimha Rao and H. D. Devegowda. Rahi then floated a political party that he merged with the ANC only a few weeks back.

The line Rahi has taken is quite different from Sajjad’s. Casting himself in the mould of a “pragmatic rebel”, he says he is in this because “leaders and parties outside the mainstream are always perceived to be lacking the people’s mandate”.

Fingers in the Valley are crossed, over whether either of the two will manage to muster enough votes to make it to Parliament. And in light of the fluid political situation in Kashmir, even veteran poll analysts are chary of predicting the ultimate implication of these separatists seeking the public mandate. There are other complications too that need to be taken note of. First, Sajjad’s former close ally Engineer Abdul Rashid, an ex-People’s Conference member who contested the 2008 state assembly elections as an independent candidate and won, snapped ties with him. He is now supporting his rival from the National Conference. The second major worry is the low voter turnout. The South Kashmir constituency recorded just 26 per cent votes in the third phase of elections – far fewer than the count in the 2008 assembly elections, when its 16 segments had polled 57.95 per cent votes. (In 1999 and 2004 the percentage was 14.32 and 15.04.)

Central Kashmir, which includes Srinagar district, has traditionally been considered a “boycott constituency”. And if the fourth phase of polling justifies this ranking, there could be a ripple effect in Sajjad’s battleground – especially because of hardliner Geelani’s influence in the Sopore and Baramulla towns of north Kashmir. But according to Gul Wani, professor of political science in Kashmir University, south Kashmir’s low voting behaviour could have a far more disastrous impact on Srinagar.

Wani says the media’s portrayal of the high 2008 voter turnout as a pro-India vote could also adversely affect voter turnout. But he does not believe that a Sajjad victory would be a vindication of the separatist cause, saying, “He will be representing Kashmir after the fashion of Umar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. Human rights violations, the demand for revoking the powers of the armed forces and refurbishing the state’s crashed economy – all come within the ambit of mainstream politics.”

For his part, Sajjad rebuffs these claims, saying, “The real problem is that we have been treating our own people like slaves, which is why a strong anti-India sentiment is erroneously projected as a pro-India vote.” The informed opinion here is that in case Sajjad loses, the separatists could grow stronger, though New Delhi too will have its share of victory by taking the credit for accommodating one more dissenting voice.”

Besides the suspicion in certain quarters about Sajjad’s real motive, the other factor adding to the general confusion is the occupation of the Valley’s so-called middle ground by mainstream parties like the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In reality this space is closer to the separatist agenda than some of these threatened vested interests would have us believe. For consider, even the National Conference (NC) is now trying to lay claim on this space. For central Kashmir, the NC has fielded its president, the flamboyant Farooq Abdullah, against the PDP’s Shia cleric Iftikhar Hussain Ansari. And though both PDP president, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and Farooq Abdullah forever keep raking up old issues to embarrass each other, the fact is that the bigger ones, led by the demand for a resolution of the Kashmir tangle, remain the dominant discourse. And the crown will belong to the person who has time only for these.