Farooq’s statement not surprising

Kashmir Valley’s political landscape is confusingly split into a binary of mainstream and separatism. On a closer analysis one finds that the difference between the two is merely material. The separatist is the one who was also a part of the mainstream once or could be in the mainstream at some other point. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, for example, has remained a part of constitutional democracy for decades before rejecting the system and seeking to break Kashmir from India. Sajjad Lone, a Minister in present government, is another example in the reverse. His father Abdul Ghani Lone was an example of Geelani’s parallel. We understand that this is oversimplification of a complex ideological context but it is the politics of intense competitive interests that confounds and complicates the life of an ordinary Kashmiri. The politicians change stances, lines, parties and ideological commitments according to their own positional requirements. The nature of politics is such that this recalibration takes place in the support base too. In the end dissent and disappointment becomes the only political identity of a whole lot of people. The Peoples Democratic Party has recently accused the National Conference of oscillating between two ideological extremes which resulted into the political chaos in Kashmir. A day after National Conference president eulogised militants for fighting “freedom struggle in Kashmir”, the PDP said that such about turns and changing political colours by the NC have sown seeds of alienation and violence in the state, particularly in the Kashmir Valley. PDP’s Naeem Akhtar said that NC has been changing its colours season after season which has cost Kashmir heavily. He went on to say “because of about turns of National Conference since 1931, Kashmir has reached today to such circumstances. In 1947 Sheikh Abdullah was a votary of accession, in 1953 he launched Plebiscite Front and sowed the seeds of alienation in Kashmir, the result of which we are reaping today.....Sheikh nurtured separatism for 22 years and then called it political waywardness. And then he could not achieve what he lost in 1953”. The most relevant paragraph of Naeem’s statement is the following: “statement made by Farooq Abdullah is in keeping the electoral exercise which is at hand”. There couldn’t have been any clearer assessment of Farooq’s statement. But is PDP any different in this politics of two extremes. In its short political journey the PDP gave the Kashmiri people an alleged ‘quasi-independence dream’ to reach power and once being there it became the NC of late 1990s. At the end of the day it is an internal power struggle which crisscrossed the political leadership through separatist and mainstream streets so frequently that becomes impossible to understand idea of each one’s destination.