The shutdown of separatists’ leadership has entered into its fifth month and Hurriyat leadership is in no mood to end the strike that is now affecting the people’s day to day lives. Recently three separatist leaders – Syed Ali Geelani, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq invited ‘stake holders’ to the Hyderpora residence of Syed Ali Geelani to formulate a new strategy that was now criticised by cross section of people.
The meeting that lasted for an entire day couldn’t break the stalemate or formulate a new program; instead the Hurriyat leadership came out and said that stake holders who they claim are the real stake holders like members of the civil society, traders, hoteliers, Bar Association representatives of different separatist groups gave them mandate to continue the shutdown. Even they claimed that transporters who have bore the maximum brunt of the shutdown also gave them a go ahead to continue the shutdown and the next weekly protest calendar was just the repetition of old programs. On ground the separatist calendar is now failing to attract the masses other than shutdown and closure of educational intuitions everything is now functioning normally. The traffic has increased on the roads even at places frequent traffic jams could be witnessed; likewise all the government offices are open and shopkeepers are also doing business clandestinely. The programs of Hurriyat like march towards one or another place doesn’t attract masses as it used to be soon after the killing of Hizb commander, Burhan Wani when thousands of people used to follow programs of the joint resistance leadership. And with continuous shutdown and fast approaching winter when people in Kashmir needs many things to survive harsh winter months all eyes were set on the leadership whose release was also facilitated by the government, however at the end three separatist leaders failed to give relief to the common masses and portray top leadership capabilities. Even they had nothing to offer for the lakhs of students who are sitting idle at their homes from more than 130 days. The joint leadership even had proposed a march to Lal Chowk on the day, examinations for XII class was being held, though the call was later rescinded. However, this also exposed the plans of resistance leaders who had made it a point to deprive young students from education though they have been issuing customary statements on the importance of the education. The government especially the Education Ministry managed to conduct exams of the students of X and XII that is a welcome step, however at the same time the government should also adopt lenient view towards the cases of young students especially juveniles and try to bring them back in the schools. The killings of civilians that were a routine affair in the past three months have stopped and the message needs to be send to the forces on ground to adopt reconciliatory approach towards the masses as every killing in Kashmir becomes a trigger for a bigger protest and then it grows into a vicious cycle of unending violence.
And if the government is sincere they should try to work on the recommendations of the delegation led by former BJP Union Minister Yashwant Sinha who held series of meetings with all the stakeholders and separatist leadership. The time has come that those recommendations should be taken forward to bring Valley back on track.
