Indians didn't agree to any of our proposals: Prof Abdul Gani Bhat

Former Hurriyat Conference chairman Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, it is said, once made a strange will. After his death, he had said, his body should be buried in Pakistan if Kashmir wouldn’t become its part. But today, the former professor of Persian who calls Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah his political ideologue, says it’s difficult to find a solution to Kashmir with the UN resolutions in the mind, something contrary to Pakistan’s traditional stand on Kashmir. No wonder Prof Bhat has run out of Islamabad’s favour—for the first time he has been left out of the upcoming visit of the Hurriyat leaders to Pakistan—and he doesn’t want to discuss his will, either. He says the “weak and divided” pro-freedom leadership of Kashmir could not capitalize on the enormous sacrifices the people paid in material, blood and honour. Prof Bhat says there’re many controversies including the split of Hurriyat that he would like to talk about but in the form a book he plans to write. Excerpts of the interview with Conveyor Correspondent M. FAROOQ SHAH:

The peace process received a jolt after 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Where do you see the talks going now?

I agree with you, the Mumbai terror attacks literally derailed the peace process between India and Pakistan that could not only ensure peace in South Asian region but could result in a meaningful solution to the problem of Jammu and Kashmir. Any act of terror, be it in India, Pakistan or in Kashmir for that matter, is abhorrent and more abhorrent, I believe, is an act of terror sponsored by a state anywhere in the world. However, Kashmir’s movement is not a terrorist movement but a movement that involves people’s inalienable right to determine their future in accordance with their wishes. You’ve to draw lines, and that’s why I’ve been saying, for God’s sake, don’t link Kashmir problem with terrorism. That is being unjust to us. 

It’s claimed both the countries were close to achieving a solution with regard to Kashmir. How far is it true?

Absolutely. I don’t have to mince words to say that. Even the then (Pakistan) President General Pervez Musharraf and the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh said they were close to achieving a solution to their problems including Jammu and Kashmir. Everybody knows Indians and Pakistanis were talking, not weather but discussing problems constituting a potential threat to peace in the South Asian region. Not only this, they were talking about the economic issues as well which in today’s era determine the relationships of nation states with the rest of the world. I have every reason to believe that Kashmir constitutes a stumbling block between India and Pakistan unless they talk sensibly with open heartedness.

Has pro-freedom leadership any role in the talks?

India and Pakistan as such are not the masters or the arbitrators to the fate of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. I refuse to submit to hegemony of whatever kind. Hurriyat represents not only the sentiment rooted deep into the soul of Kashmiris’ but the dynamics of the change sweeping across the globe. That’s where I say the Hurriyat has a role, and if I represent Kashmir I should be talking to India and Pakistan and as a matter of principle I should offer talks to them which have to be Kashmir-centric and more importantly result-oriented.

Which Hurriyat are you talking about? There’re two Hurriyats on ground.

I wouldn’t like to get involved in any controversy, it yields nothing. I feel the faction I belong to is the real Hurriyat. The original headquarter lies with Hurriyat (M), so does the constitution. Hurriyat as Hurriyat has to be pragmatic, moderate and supportive of talks. If you’re not, I don’t know what you are and wouldn’t comment on that. 

But you, Bilal Gani Lone and Moulana Abbas Ansari have been left out of the upcoming visit of the Hurriyat leaders to Islamabad. 

There’s a habit with some friends, not only in Kashmir but elsewhere as well, that they concoct stories. The Pakistanis have invited the chairman Hurriyat (M) and it’s for him to decide whether he goes alone or with a team. If the invitation is to be discussed at the executive council level, we’ll take a decision, and I for one would love to see Mirwaiz Umar Farooq going alone to Pakistan because the team may create problems. Let him go alone what if I don’t go, he’ll be representing me there at the meeting. Wherever he goes—Geneva, America, Britain, India or Pakistan—he goes with my mandate and I’m being represented through him.

Hurriyat (M) says it has been working hard to rally people around the four-point proposal of General Musharraf, but Pakistan’s raising a renewed pitch for the self-determination has put your grouping in a difficult situation. Isn’t it? 

I don’t know what Pakistan is up to. They asked Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to go ahead with the talks with India keeping in view General Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula on Kashmir. Later they changed their stand. How could we, for God’s sake, return to our people to tell them ‘look since Pakistan has changed its mood, we would not be talking anymore’? It sure makes a dent in the credibility of leaders. We did not take the turnaround very conveniently. Musharraf’s four-point formula is a pragmatic approach to Kashmir problem.

You’ve said recently in an interview with Indian Express that neither the right to self-determination nor the UN resolutions can solve the Kashmir issue. That’s exactly the Indian stand on Kashmir.

Absolutely right. The United Nations resolutions on Kashmir and the call for right to self-determination are contradictory to each other. It’s practically difficult to find any solution with such concepts in the mind. Therefore, we have to look towards the global changes vis-à-vis two nuclear-countries engaged in a confrontation over Kashmir. I don’t want to be bracketed with Indian or Pakistani stand. The dispute has to go. Moreover, the UN has been insensitive towards Kashmir. It could administer a referendum in East Timor which didn’t figure in its agenda, and here you’ve Kashmir very much there but they’ve not been doing anything at all. I can’t beat my breast, why not accept the reality? I can’t mount pressure on them because I’m not a sovereign state. Pakistan has its own problems; Indians seek a berth in the UN. Besides, India’s a huge market, and commercial diplomacy works in its favour. You may do whatever you want, but given the international scenario, you can’t turn the tide in your favour.

Then you must have prepared your own vision document on which you’d go to the table and tell India and Pakistan: here we’re with our case, come on and solve Kashmir?

We’ve prepared our vision document and I may not take it up with you here. I propose to meet people who matter where I would give the outline of my position on Kashmir for India and Pakistan to consider. We’ll seek peoples’ mandate and if they ask us to go ahead with them, we’ll proceed. Should they disagree, we’ll go back home and deceive neither ourselves nor the people.

You’ve said many a time that Mohammad Ali Jinnah is your political ideologue and you believed in his doctrine of freedom struggle. Then why this sudden change? 

Qaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was my ideologue and he will remain my ideologue but in a wider sense and implication. I’ve not changed. I stand for people’s right to determine their future in accordance with their wishes. But if you can’t come to the terms with the realities confronting us, you’ll reach nowhere. You’ve to understand the dynamics of the change. There’s a war going on against terrorism and extremism and you can’t move forward with terrorist or extremist ideas. Disputes are solved through dialogue, not by guns. You’ve to be pragmatic, imaginative and accommodating. If I put blinkers on my eyes, I may not be able to move at all.

Globalisation at the expanse of the aspirations of the people of Kashmir?

Kashmir is not Kashmir alone; it has Jammu and Ladakh with it. Jammu is a different world, so is Ladakh. Where do these three different worlds converge on with different ethnicity, geography and more importantly political aspirations? If this part of Kashmir which India has occupied has to be free, it has to take Jammu and Ladakh along. 

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah recently said the quiet diplomacy initiated by New Delhi in the state is on, and ‘its results will be made public at an appropriate time.’ Is the government of India in touch with you on quiet talks?

We did a couple of rounds in the quiet dialogue and it was preceded with a change in Pakistan that it wouldn’t be result-oriented. We don’t want to come between the relationship of India and Pakistan on which hinges any possible solution to Kashmir. Right now, we’re not talking at all.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has told Guardian: ‘We have tried our best but we have not been able to do anything. We have been involved in dialogue (with New Delhi) since 2004 but not one of our proposals has gone through.’

What Omar Sahab has said is right. I don’t have to dispute his statement...Indians didn’t agree to any of the five points we put forth. We proposed to them that the routes should be opened between two Kashmirs without cumbersome procedures...that the gradual withdrawal of troops should start, the release of prisoners be given a priority. We said the draconian laws be annulled, this also did not happen. Indians did not do it. Why they did not do it is for the Indians to say.

Are you then not banging your head against a wall?

It’s not like that if you can’t achieve a thing today it can’t be achieved in future. It would be a negative approach if we don’t tread the path of dialogue. We’re not banging a head against a wall; we’ll repeatedly tell India to accept our proposals until it agrees to them. Indians understand that we’ve highlighted our issues before the international community as effectively as we probably could.

Hurriyat split is shrouded in mystery, with many alleging that you engineered it and your like-minded colleagues fielded proxy candidates in the 2002 state elections. 

India couldn’t break the conglomerate that Hurriyat Conference was composed of. Unfortunately, we couldn’t preserve it as a single piece. All I say let Allah break the bones of the person(s) who broke it. This is not the right time to divulge into the reasons, may be I do it some other time if I live. I don’t know whether I will be spared or not, but if I’m, I will write a book and I’ll address this issue. 

You are said to have patronized an armed group, Muslim Mujahideen headed by a surrendered militant Nabi Azad who reportedly killed many Jama’at-e-Islami activists and Hizbul Mujahideen militants. Many believe this was a move to avenge your brother’s murder allegedly by the Hizbul Mujahideen.

I will have to do the explanations on many issues. I assure you I’ll be doing it. I will go the press and take up these issues including our sponsorship of the Muslim Mujahideen as to who supported them and why.

Many have alleged that the Hurriyat delegation which met Atal Bihari Vajpayee raised personal issues, with one of your senior colleagues asking for allocation of a petrol pump for his kin.

I tell you in all humility that I did most of the talking, but I didn’t ask for anything. I’ve no knowledge of any member of my delegation asking for a petrol pump.

In her book, Zamrooda Habib of Muslim Khwateen-e-Markaz has alleged that you had connived with the Delhi Police to get her arrested in 2003.

I have said it before as well that I don’t pick up arguments with women. I head neither the police forces nor the intelligent agencies of India. I don’t accept the money from Indian agencies. Her statement that I had fixed her carries no weight. If I had to do it, I could have done here why in Delhi? She had to proceed to New Zealand for a conference or something but was caught by the Delhi Police. Where does Prof Gani feature in this all?

The Hindu reported recently that upon your meeting with the Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in New Delhi, you asked Pakistan to unveil the attackers of Fazal Haque Qureshi.

Fazal Haque was not shot at by any Indian agency. The question is who did it and why. It means a lot to see leaders being shot at, and Pakistan should realize this. When you don’t spare a simple and a truthful leader such as him, who would you spare then? I raised this question and said this was unacceptable to us. Fazal Haque is not a fly that you would squash him like this. If he’s attacked as my colleague, I would go all the way to his defence.

Hurriyat (M) abstained from launching an anti-election campaign in 2004 and then again in 2008. Why?

Poll boycott in Ladakh, Jammu and some border areas of Kashmir would mean nothing. Whether people vote or not, it doesn’t affect the nature of the dispute of Kashmir at all. UN resolutions on Kashmir also say that any electoral activity in Kashmir will not affect the future dispensation of Kashmir. When I say elections are a non-issue, whatever the turnout, 65% or what, it doesn’t affect my standpoint on Kashmir. If we give a boycott call and people don’t pay any heed to it, that would be catastrophic for the Kashmir cause because the Indians would bloat over it and say ‘look, people have rejected you’. India is the second largest country of the world, and when you’re dealing with it, you’ve to be wise and tactical.

You seem to be overawed by the might of India and disheartened by the indifference of the UN towards Kashmir. Does it not project a weak image of the pro-freedom leadership?

Unfortunately, yes. I admit we couldn’t capitalize on the sacrifices of the Kashmiri people who gave everything—material, life and a more importantly their honour—without perhaps asking. We could have, for instance, exploited the mass agitation following the Amarnath land transfer row, but we could not. We are all what we’re—weak, divided and unaware of the changes happening around us.

Don’t you think the leadership took the people for a ride and toyed with their sentiments?

To a large extent, it’s true. When you ride a blind horse, it stumbles. It may not die but it can kill the rider for sure. Gone are the times when people would shout Aele kaeri wangan kaeri bab kaeri (Let Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah do whatever he wishes to do to Kashmiris). People have every right to grab me by my throat and demand what we did to their money, the blood of their sons and the honour of their daughters. People have to identify which horse to ride on. Riding a wrong horse will lead them to nowhere. 

The interview has appeared in the April issue of the Conveyor magazinewww.conveyormagazine.com being published for Srinagar, Kashmir.