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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Omar to Hurriyat in Shahr-e-Khaas: “Read the writing on the wall”

Dastaarbandi at shrine after months of stone pelting in downtown Srinagar

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jan 13: Downtown Srinagar remained out of bounds for every pro-India politician for five months of the street turbulence in 2010. ‘Go India Go Back’ was literally the only writing on all walls. This is not exactly a ‘Come India Come Back’ but what was witnessed in the core of the intellectually decorated Shahr-e-Khaas today, after 120 days of shutdown and 114 ‘killings by Police’, is a contrast by all interpretations. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was honoured with the traditional ‘Dastaarbandi’ (ritual of girdling a turban around a very respected pilgrim’s head) at a much revered shrine. Minutes later, he advised both factions of the separatist Hurriyat Conference to “read the writing on the wall” and respond positively to New Delhi’s offer of resolving the Kashmir problem by way of dialogue.

It was a chilly day of the core of winter---Chilla Kalaan---but there was no rain, no snow contrary to the predictions of the weatherman. The political weather was not hostile either. There was no curfew, no shutdown in this Capital city of 15 Lakh residents. Suddenly, a flowing cavalcade screeched to halt and the man in the hot seat walked straight into the shrine of Kashmir’s revered saint Ameer-e-Kabeer Mir Syed Ali Hamadani---a founder preacher of Islam known as Shah-e-Hamadan. Omar, faithfully escorted by senior party colleague and Minister of Rural Development, Ali Mohammad Sagar, offered a Fatiha to Shah-e-Hamadan and his followers.

Next moment, custodians of nearly 700-year-old shrine performed the rare ritual of Dastaarbandi on Omar, and also Sagar---known for his firm faith in shrines and saints. In next few moments, Omar inaugurated Shah-e-Hamadan Community Centre in the city interior of Chalpan Kocha, Zainakadal, where a restricted crowd of 1,000 people seemed to be eagerly waiting for the young Chief Minister they had seen nowhere before other than on television and front pages of local newspapers. Few in the gathering turned to their nostalgia----when Omar’s mother, Molly, drove all alone in her black Ambassador to her duty at then fast coming up Sher-e-Kshmir Institute of Medical Sciences in 1980; when all the top Indian Opposition leaders hosted by Farooq Abdullah drowned dangerously in the Jhelum as their boat capsized well in front of Shah-e-Hamadan’s shrine in 1983.

Buntings and banners on the incoming alleys in the congested locality communicated to the VVIP that there was nothing in the air to make him fumble or turn him pale. So, there was no reference to Kashmir being “essentially a political problem”, to withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, withdrawal of troops and inquiries against the Police officials. There was also no reference to Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s 5 points, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s 4 points or the UPA Government’s 8 points.

Omar straightaway referred to the greater transformation and advised his separatist rivals to read “today’s only writing on the wall”. He emphasized that neither rigidity of politicians nor any kind of violence---bullets or stones---would help in resolving the Kashmir problem. “Be it Geelani’s Hurriyat or Mirwaiz’s Hurriyat, everyone needs to realize that nothing but a political process of dialogue would churn out a solution”, Omar asserted.

According to him, it was high time that Kashmiri separatists abandoned their “double speak” and entered into a process of dialogue (with Government of India). Without naming hardliner Geelani, Omar ridiculed the practice of the separatists’ meetings with men like Ram Villas Paswan even as they had been continuously shying away from interacting with the Centre’s interlocutors. “This double speak”, he asseted “shall have to go now”. He described the senior Hurriyat leader Prof Abdul Gani Bhat’s recent admission---that Kashmir’s political leaders and intellectuals were killed “by our own men”---as an eye-opener for all separatist politicians and asked how long they could hide the facts.

Omar also assailed the principal opposition parties, PDP and BJP over their “divisive politics”. He spurned PDP’s lantern rally and claimed that his coalition had done much more than what had been done on the development front by the previous government. Referring to the BJP’s proposed flag Yatra, Omar said it was strange that after 1992 when BJP hoisted flag in Lal Chowk, after 19 years it had again struck to their minds to hoist national flag, adding that it had exposed their intentions of creating trouble in the valley.

Chief Minister later flew to Baramulla to attend passing-out ceremony at a Police school at Sheeri. In the evening, he returned to the winter capital of Jammu.

END

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