“These colonies (for Kashmiri Pandits) are aimed to give special status to minority community and treat majority community as third class citizens”

– Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Chairman Hurriyat Conference (G)

That the Hurriyat Conference (G) Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani sees a ‘conspiracy’ in everything is well known to all and perhaps that is why his accusations are seldom taken seriously. However, his latest outburst on the establishment of separate zones for Kashmir Pandits (‘’KP Return Welcome, But No Separate Clusters” Kashmir Observer, July 02) is bound to create ripples as it is detrimental to already precarious inter-community relations in J&K.

Many of my KP colleagues and friends in Delhi have taken offence to the racist tenor and accusatory nature of the statements issued by Geelani sahib. And I tend to agree with them. What was the requirement of such a mature leader who heads the most influential separatist conglomerate in Kashmir, to say that the proposal was “on the pattern of settling of Jews by Israel in Palestinian territories”? What makes him compare the KPs with Jews? While the Jews may have encroached upon Palestinian territory, haven’t the KPs always been a part and parcel of Kashmir? Where was the requirement of saying that, “The aim of the plan is to settle outsiders to change the demography of the state and the nature of the Kashmir dispute. In these settlement colonies, fundamentalists would be trained and armed to trigger civil war in Kashmir,”?  Is it to suggest or imply that KPs are a communally minded community and thus a potential threat to the majority Muslims due to which they should not be allowed to reside in community clusters?

At a time when sagacious leaders of the majority community in Kashmir are doing their best to dispel the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion within their own people, Geelani sahib’s outburst could not have been more ill-timed. His statement that, “Pandits are our brothers and important part of our society. We welcome their return and assure them that they won’t face any threat from the majority community,” may have sincerely been meant to reassure the KPs. But his subsequent statement that, “These colonies are aimed to give special status to minority community and treat majority community as third class citizens” blatantly smacks of a veiled threat regarding the status of KPs on their return to the valley!

We always complain that Kashmir has been in the throes of misery due to the machinations of external forces. Though, while this may to a great extent be true, we too must accept our own follies which have contributed to the sorry state of affairs. “Too much of everything is bad,” goes an old proverb we learnt in school. But, we never tire of complaining only about not getting the ‘right to self determination’. Our social and moral values are fast declining but it does not seem bother our leaders since they feel that they have fulfilled their social responsibilities by blaming a New Delhi authored ‘grand conspiracy’ for the same! It is high time that our leaders realised that a ‘fractured’ society cannot achieve ‘azadi’. They must also bear in mind that the international community takes serious notice of what they speak and this influences their stance on the Kashmir problem. So, let us not shoot ourselves in the foot by foolishly shooting off our mouths!

Niloofar Qureshi

niloofar.qureshi@yahoo.com