Lessons for Molvi Umar

Mirwaiz should learn from Prachanda

STATECRAFT BY HAPPYMON JACOB

What it takes to become the mainstream leader of a country from being an outlawed rebel in the dense forests is not the might of the guns, rather the legitimacy of the people. The recent National Assembly election in Nepal has made it abundantly clear that the path from rebellion against the state to being part of the state need not be bloody and divisive: it can well be democratic, inclusive and in the interests of all sections of the country. Till a few years ago, it was next to impossible to imagine that Nepal’s battle-hardened Maoist rebels would give up their weapons, help demolish monarchy (through bloodless means), fight elections, and win enough seats to form a government. That too in a country where the monarchy, military, elite and the landed gentry were vehemently against the Maoist program. While the 2006 decision of the Maoists to join the interim government with the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist-UML) was seen as a bold move by the rebels, the recent victory by the rebels was unexpected. The people have given their mandate to the rebel force for their past sacrifices and promises of deliverance. The ten year old war came to a stop in 2006 but it was far from completely over. Had the Maoists lost the Constituent Assembly elections last week, many believe that they would have probably gone back to their rebel days. This may or may not be true but the fact is that they are today the rulers of a state that they fought for 10 long years. While the ten year fight was bloody, the fight that got them power was not. What implications does it have for the various struggles in the region? The Maoist victory in Nepal has two implications: 1) that violence is no solution to any problem (let us face it, the Nepali citizenry did not vote for the Maoists due to fear) and, 2) the real path to power is through democracy and the mandate of the people. This realization has a great deal of salience in a world where violence is increasingly considered to be an option only to be discarded, and where economic and material progress is what people need at the end of the day. What does this Maoist ‘revolution’ mean for Kashmir and especially the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat Conference? This bloodless revolution holds many lessons for the APHC and its leader. The APHC is different from the other non-mainstream political parties in Kashmir: unlike the Yaseen Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which seeks complete separation from the Indian Union, Mirwaiz does not ask for complete independence. He has a political programme (the United States of Kashmir formula), leads a number of respectable parties in Kashimr, and is willing to negotiate with the Indian government. Jamaat-e-Islami led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani also does not fall into the category that Mirwaiz and APHC falls in as the former is avowedly pro-Pakistan. In other words, Mirwaiz is closer to the mainstream and is willing to negotiate with the mainstream and indeed can join the mainstream at some point of time. In fact, apart from Sajad Lone, no other major dissident party in Kashmir can or is able to do it. Thus Mirwaiz Omar Farooq is better placed in his political maneuverability than anybody else. There are around six months to go for the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. If the APHC has to make an entry into the political arena, it has to begin to do so now. How long can the APHC and its leader talk about the aspirations of the people, without actually testing their political acceptability through popular political processes? This is where the Maoists in Nepal took a reasonable risk: they were willing to turn their well-oiled military machine into a machine for political campaign; they were willing to come out of the ‘comfort’ of the forests and test the acceptability of their political programme. One understands that the APHC needs an entry point and needs to be sure that the risk it takes is a reasonable one. It needs time, yes, but it also needs efforts. Why would the Mirwaiz not hold meetings with his people in Kashmir to seek their opinions, to begin with? As a political ideology the APHC falls between, as pointed out above, the mainstream and the extreme. This position has many disadvantages. First of all, they can’t use the definitive language of the mainstream and the extremist language of the extremists: the language of the moderate is always handicapped and has to sound moderate and in-between. This will contribute towards eroding their acceptability especially when political passions rise. Secondly, in a fast changing polity, political polarization is a constant possibility: moderates tend to lose out under conditions of political polarization. Thirdly, in the specific context of Kashmir where mainstream parties like the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is bridging the gap between the traditional mainstream and the orthodox rebels, it is the moderate elements like the APHC who will lose out. Therefore, the moderate Kashmiri leader has to soon make up his mind about his party’s political programme. The comparison between the Hurriyat and the Maoists stems from the fact that as the latter came to power without dividing the country, without bloodshed and without extremist measures, so can the APHC think on those lines. No other political organization in today’s Kashmir has that political space. Thus there is a lot the moderate rebel of Kashmir can learn from the Maoist leader of Nepal Prachanda.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, April 16, 2008. RUL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=16_4_2008&ItemID=18&cat=11 )