Paradise on Fire Read online

  PARADISE

  ON FIRE

  In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

  George Orwell

  PARADISE

  ON FIRE

  Syed Ali Geelani and the Struggle

  for Freedom in Kashmir

  Abdul Hakeem

  Paradise on Fire: Syed Ali Geelani and the Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir

  Published in England by

  Revival Publications

  Markfield Conference Centre

  Ratby Lane, Markfield

  Leicestershire LE67 9SY

  United Kingdom

  Distributed by

  Kube Publishing Ltd.

  Tel: +44 (0)1530 249230

  Fax: +44 (0)1530 249656

  Email: [email protected]

  © Abdul Hakeem, 2014/1435AH

  All rights reserved

  The right of Abdul Hakeem to be identified

  as the author of this work has been asserted

  by him in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-95367-684-2 paperback

  ISBN 978-0-95367-685-9 casebound

  ISBN 978-0-95367-686-6 ebook

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Fatima Jamadar

  Book design: Naiem Qaddoura

  Typesetting: Abu Abida

  Printed by IMAK Ofset, Turkey

  CONTENTS

  List of Images

  Foreword (by Lauren Booth)

  Preface

  1.

  The Dispute

  2.

  A Lifeline of Resistance

  3.

  Neighbouring Lands and Peoples

  4.

  Imprisonment and Writings

  5.

  Kashmir’s Pandits and Its Integrity

  6.

  Human Wrongs

  7.

  Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?

  8.

  Insurgency and Counter-insurgency

  9.

  Elections and the Peace Process

  10.

  The Kargil Fiasco

  11.

  Ceasefire

  12.

  The Hurriyat Split and Efforts towards Unity

  13.

  Ailing but not Caving In

  14.

  A Bilateral or International Issue?

  15.

  The Bottom Line

  16.

  Not the End

  Appendix

  Endnotes

  References

  Image Credits

  Index

  LIST OF IMAGES

  1.1

  Map of Jammu and Kashmir

  2.1

  Geelani leading march to UN in Srinagar, 2008

  3.1

  Musharraf meeting Geelani in New Delhi, 2004

  3.2

  Musharraf meeting Bush in Islamabad, 2006

  3.3

  Muslims killed in anti-Muslim genocide, 2002

  3.4

  Mochi at Sahapur, Ahmedabad, 2002

  3.5

  Qur’an burning in New Delhi, early 1990s

  4.1

  Geelani leaving his residence for detention, 2010

  4.2

  Geelani meeting Kashmiri victims

  6.1

  CRPF personnel smashing cars, 2011

  6.2

  Sikh leaders meeting Geelani

  6.3

  Frisking in Kashmir

  8.1

  Funeral of militant in Kashmir

  8.2

  Masses carrying body of militant for funeral

  9.1

  Kashmiri leaders meeting Advani, 2004

  13.1

  Geelani addressing a public rally

  14.1

  Geelani welcoming a Japanese diplomat

  16.1

  Indian parliamentarians meeting Geelani, 2010

  FOREWORD

  When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw. —Nelson Mandela

  PEACE IS A universal human yearning. Every society and every people need peace in order to flourish and to develop their resources, both individually and nationally. Nor is peace the mere absence of war. For peace of heart, mind and society can only exist when accompanied by the weighty presence of justice.

  More than fifteen million people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have been denied justice for the past six decades. Kashmiris exist in a permanent state of violent occupation by Indian forces. An occupation that, at this time, has 800,000 troops, controlling a region of breathtaking natural beauty. The violence of these troops has turned a place of mountains, valleys and rivers, once known as ‘Paradise on Earth’, into the largest open air prison in the world. A civilian pressure cooker that would be instantly recognizable to the people of the Gaza Strip. In Kashmir, non-violent protests for water, electricity and the freedom to travel, are met with the bullets of the occupying troops. And accompanied by the threat of imprisonment. Meanwhile, the international community looks on, shakes its head, expressing ‘concern’, issuing ‘reports’ and effectively doing nothing.

  The Indian research scholar Abdul Hakim has produced a comprehensive study of the nature of the Kashmir struggle for freedom in providing a biography of its most vibrant voice, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, showing his vision and determination. For the past two decades, Syed Geelani has been the primary symbol of the Kashmiri people’s efforts towards self-determination. Like other great figures of our age, men who have committed themselves to fighting apartheid and occupation, Nelson Mandela and Shaykh Raed Salah of Palestine (to name but two), Geelani is no stranger to incarceration. His galvanising calls for a widespread non-violent resistance, including strikes, have seen him imprisoned for sixteen years in a variety of regional gulags.

  This book, then, is the story of one man’s self-sacrifice told through the struggle of an entire people. Paradise on Fire is a call to the conscience of humanity. I pray that people from every part of the world will respond to this call and join the Kashmiri people in their non-violent resistance to oppression and occupation.

  Free Kashmir, free Palestine!

  Lauren Booth

  London

  October 2013

  PREFACE

  WALTER SISULU, the long-time comrade of Nelson Mandela, and for twenty years his prison mate, urged Mandela on his 57th birthday (18 July 1975) to write his memoirs: ‘such a story, told truly and fairly, would serve to remind people of what we had fought and were still fighting for’ and be ‘a source of inspiration for young freedom fighters.’1 That prompt explains my motivation for narrating Syed Ali Geelani’s contribution to the Kashmiri freedom struggle. The Economist (29 December 2010) referred to Geelani as the ‘highest-profile’ Kashmiri leader and ‘elderly icon’, and doubted ‘that anyone among a handful of potential successors could command as much local respect’.

  The Arab News (17 August 2010) declared him ‘the undisputed leader of the insurgency’ and confirmed that ‘India has consistently tried to court him but he has refused to take the bait.’ Geelani has spent over sixteen of his eighty-three years of life in prison, and written (in Urdu) about thirty books. The second edition of his autobiography Wular Kinaray (On the bank of Lake Wular) was released in July 2012. ‘Its first edition was completely sold out within a week. Those who were keen to read it included […] civil and military elites of every shade of opinion’ (review in Greater Kashmir, 30 July 2011). However, the story of his self-sacrificing contributions to freedom and justice in Kashmir has not been communicated plainly to the wider audience that can be reached by writing in English.

  I have known Geelani for about twenty years and had dozens of meetings with him. Of course, he is not my only source. I have sought information from a variety of public and private sources, especially those close to Geelani. For reasons of confidentiality and security, I have withheld the dates and venues of personal interviews and other detail about some of my sources. This book is the outcome of decades of closely following events in Kashmir, and some four years of reflection and further enquiry during the writing. I have strived to present Geelani ‘as he is’, without seeking to build him up as a hero or a vilian.

  I have done my best to cover briefly the major events of Geelani’s political life. My narrative does not follow a strictly chronological line; it is, instead, arranged around broad topics that are crucial to understanding Geelani and the Kashmiri freedom movement over the last quarter century. While he is not present on every page, Geelani’s own views are cited or referred to throughout the book.

  Geelani took on the might of India and almost single-handedly put the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) dispute on the international stage. His personality can be summed up in Nelson Mandela’s words: ‘time and again, I have seen men and women risk and give their lives for an idea. I have seen men standing up to attacks and torture without breaking, showing strength and resilience that defies the imagination.’2 Geelani has dedicated a lifetime to advocacy of justice and piety; that is why this book cannot just be an individual’s life story, it has to present the major ideas that he has lived and sacrificed for.

  Under the Indian Independence Act of 1947, J&K was free to accede to India or Pakistan. Its Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, wanted to stay independent but eventually signed over key powers to the Indian g
overnment in return for military aid and a promised referendum. The promised referendum never happened. Kashmir has been the flashpoint for two of the three India–Pakistan wars: in 1947–48 and 1965. In 1999, India fought a short, bitter battle with Pakistan-backed militants who had moved into the Kargil area.

  Over the course of their struggle, many Kashmiri ‘pro-freedom leaders’ have sold out in one way or another and earned the approbation of the Indian establishment as ‘moderates’. Geelani on the other hand has always been called an ‘extremist’. When the ‘Quit Kashmir’ movement was launched in the summer of 2010, the entire ‘moderate leadership’ looked like quislings next to ‘extremist’ Geelani.

  The late Barry Goldwater, Republican Senator for Arizona, said: ‘Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.’3 Geelani’s life-long mission has been to compel India to fulfil its explicit commitment, to the international community and to the people of J&K, to allow Kashmiris to determine their future. Like all freedom fighters struggling under occupation, he has had to endure immense personal suffering, including torture, intimidation, assassination attempts and frequent incarcerations.

  ‘To openly stress that Kashmir is disputed and hence needs to be settled is to stand accused of being anti-national’, wrote Rahul Bedi (The Pioneer, 1 June 1996). Similarly, Oxford scholar Sarmila Bose argued: ‘The Kashmir conflict not only inflicts unspeakable suffering on all its people, it affects the well-being of the rest of India. It weakens India’s constitutional structure, pollutes the political system, drains the economy, misplaces security forces, destabilizes regional and international relations, and destroys India’s moral position in the world community.’ (The Telegraph, 5 April 1996)

  I happily disclose that I am an Indian Muslim; I grew up in a highly secular environment, studied and worked with Hindus, and count some of them among best friends. I can vouch for their decency and sense of justice in general. I love my country dearly and do not wish it to be counted among the most brutal regimes in the world. As a civilized country, it should gracefully and honestly fulfil all its commitments made in the past to both Kashmiris and its own citizens – particularly minorities.

  I show in this book that Indian minorities in general and Muslims in particular are suffering equally, if not more, at the hands of the same Indian rulers who are brutalizing and slaughtering Kashmiris. According to prominent Indian journalist Siddhartha Vardarajan, ‘most large scale incidents of communal violence [against Muslims] have occurred only because the ruling party has either willed them or allowed them to happen’.4 The chapter devoted to Kashmir’s neighbors Afghanistan, Pakistan and Muslims in India touches upon the sufferings of these peoples as a result of the Western/Indian ‘war on terror’. It may be of some comfort to Kashmiris to know that they are not standing alone in the line of Indian fire.

  The renowned political commentator, A. G. Noorani wrote (Economic & Political Weekly, 6 August 1994): ‘politicians in power and journalists close to them do suggest that it is unpatriotic to criticize the government’s policies or the misdeeds of the security forces.’ In a recent article, Pritish Nandy said of India: ‘We are a nation in desperate search of villains.’5 That is why I have opted to write under a pseudonym. If I did not, the Indian government would detain me for sedition; the intelligence agencies label me a ‘Pakistani agent’; the police harass and the security forces torture me; the media would demonize me and the judiciary convict me. Also the society would, by and large, isolate me and my entire family.

  I must state the obvious that these components of Indian establishment, individually or collectively, are not naïve. They will not do any of the above to me for writing this book. They will instead implicate me for some state-orchestrated violence or any other trumped up charge. In future, I will gladly reveal my identity if ever India behaves constitutionally and practises secular democracy.

  To borrow from American filmmaker and activitist Michael Moore (Financial Times, 16 September 2011): ‘I love this country but loving it doesn’t mean silence or turning your head the other way when you see things are going wrong.’ Indian Muslims are patriots. They have no secessionist aspirations. Nor do they have more violent tendencies than any other ethnic group. When Pakistan came into being, they chose to stay in plural India, to live side-by-side with their Hindu fellow citizens. They continue to live in and love their homeland despite the many atrocities committed over the last sixty-six years. On any objective assessment, the biggest threat to India’s security and stability is not posed by Muslims but Maoists; and a handful of what a senior Indian National Congress leader called ‘saffron terrorists’.

  The vast majority of Indian Muslims have never been terrorists and will never carry out terrorist activities: doing so is against their religious teachings. It was not Muslims who killed Gandhi, or Indira, or Rajiv, or Karkare. Yes, for the first time in independent India, a brave and honest police officer Hemant Karkare was trying to pin down saffron terrorists. He was conveniently eliminated by those he was about to unmask! Ram Puniyani’s Malegaon to Ajmer gives ample details.6 India needs many Karkares and Puniyanis to liberate itself from the clutches of the real terrorists.

  Fascist Indians regularly threaten India’s Muslims with grave consequences if Kashmir is separated from India. But in reality, Muslims have been slaughtered throughout the country since 1947 while Kashmir has remained very much a part of India. Sarmila Bose (The Telegraph, 5 April 1996): ‘The political exit of any part of Kashmir will not cause the rest of India to fall apart. Rather its forcible inclusion insults India’s professed political values, obstructs the economic prosperity of the whole region and disgraces Indians in terms of morality, humanity and civilization. India should own up to its shameful record in Kashmir and start to set things right. It is the only way forward and it is the only decent thing to do.’

  Throughout the book I have indicated parallels between the Kashmiri freedom struggle and two other great freedom movements in the last part of the twentieth century, South Africa and Bosnia. Like Kashmir, both these countries experienced widespread bloodshed but, in the end, there was nowhere to go except the negotiation table. In both cases, the freedom movement won. The sooner India negotiates with Geelani and his party, the better it will be for Kashmir and the whole South Asian region.

  Indian sociologist and writer Ashish Nandy observed (Hindustan Times, 6 August 2011): ‘During the last century [the] most atrocious cruelty has been committed not in the name of religion (though we might like to believe that) but in the name of reason and aesthetics. And secular states have killed more people than non-secular states.’ Geelani is a deeply religious man, about whom Dr. Javid Iqbal wrote: ‘Take it or not, it has to be understood that his politics is Islam-centric’ (Greater Kashmir, 8 August 2011). That is why it is appropriate to present many aspects of Geelani’s struggle in the light of the Qur’an and the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, God pray over him and grant him peace.

  The US and its allies – both Muslim and non-Muslim – are commiting crimes against humanity in general and Muslims in particular. On the other side, there are (among Muslims and non-Muslims) forces of truth and compassion, of which Geelani is a part. Muslims are weak and divided at the moment but picking up strength in scattered pockets here and there. I refer in places to topics not directly connected to Geelani or Kashmir but relevant to how the US sustains its hegemony and how it impacts Geelani and Kashmir. Kashmiris are most unlikely to achieve their right of self-determination until truly independent Muslims (not compliant US allies), regionally and globally, regain a certain power threshold.