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CHAPTER 7
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front: An Insider Account
Zafar Khan
Introduction
In March 2019, India and Pakistan engaged in a military standoff over an alleged terror attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir. During the same period, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was declared a terrorist organisation by India and subsequently banned from operating within Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir. Outlawing an organisation as prominent as the JKLF and incarcerating its chairman, Yasin Malik, sent a clear message regarding India’s ability to quash resistance movements and flex control over the region. The government’s hard stance toward both Pakistan and Kashmiri resistance was viewed by many to be part of a well-timed strategy to gain wins in the upcoming election (The Kashmir Walla 2019).
The JKLF was founded on May 29, 19771, in the British city of Birmingham. It was established to revive the resistance movement across the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) generally referred to as Kashmir, in the fight for self-determination (Schofield 2003).
Z. Khan (B)
London Metropolitan University, London, UK
© The Author(s) 2021
S. Hussain (ed.), Society and Politics of Jammu and Kashmir, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56481-0_7
1 The published volume lists incorrect year of JKLF’s founding, which is corrected with the actual year of May 29th 1977.
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Throughout its existence, the JKLF has been linked with several high- profile controversies, including hijacking and kidnapping. The JKLF has had a tumultuous relationship with Pakistan and an explicitly hostile one with India, which currently criminalises the organisation. The JKLF’s founders and subsequent leaders have been periodically imprisoned by both countries, with one of its leaders, Maqbool Bhat discussed below, becoming a symbol of Kashmiri resistance after his execution by India in 1984. This chapter describes the development of the insurgency in Kashmir. It does so from a very clear and deliberate position, as the author, although an academic scholar, is also a senior member of the JKLF. It draws upon autobiographies and personal accounts of key members of the front in order to share the perspectives of the very individuals who founded the movement. More notably, it incorporates the experience of the author himself, thus providing an “insider narrative” in order to convey to the reader the rationale behind the ideology and methods of activism employed by the JKLF. In doing so, the chapter offers a rare insight into the inner motivations of an organisation whose members view themselves as freedom fighters branded as terrorists and militants by the governments from which they seek their autonomy.
The chapter commences with a historical overview of how the people of J&K became marginalised within their own state, its subsequent fracture, and human rights violations at the hands of the nation-states entrusted to administer the disputed territory (OHCHR 2018). It goes on to describe how the establishment of the JKLF reflects this sense of historic loss, exploitation, and oppression experienced by Kashmiris at the behest of their rulers. The chapter, therefore, describes how the JKLF has become one of the few movements to succeed in establishing an inclusive organisation for freedom across the divided state. Furthermore, the fact that its birth occurred in Britain, among the diaspora, also marks an important historical point, noting a change within Kashmiri activism from a regional focus to one of international reach. During a seminar organised by the front in London in October 2017,
Muhammad Yasin Malik, the current chairman of the JKLF, drew on the teachings of Nelson Mandela stating: “It is the oppressors who determine the mode of resistance not the oppressed, and our mode of resistance against the tyranny of Indian oppression in Kashmir may vary from time to time.” The message here is one of adaptation and shifting strategies, which this chapter concludes has been key to the longevity of the organisation and JKLF’s strength in remaining the most active resistance movement in J&K.
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Kashmir and the Bilateral “Tug of War”
This section briefly identifies events—both internal and external to Kashmir—that have been central to the development of the “Kashmir question,” and that have resulted in the marginalisation of the people of the state. As we will see, unfolding events across the Indian subcontinent have had a lasting and detrimental impact on the sovereign will of Kashmiris, which relates directly to the struggle for independence, and the emergence of the JKLF.
In August 1947, British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. At the time, there were 562 semi-autonomous princely states with direct treaty arrangements with the British Crown. Kashmir was one of the largest states to regain its sovereignty as Britain’s paramountcy over the princely states lapsed. The rulers under the partition plan were allowed the option to accede to a successor state of their choice. However, as Lamb (1994, p. 53) argues, after the transfer of power and the decision by Kashmir’s ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, not to accede to either India or Pakistan, he essentially “entered the new post-British era in the subcontinent as, to all intents and purposes, the ruler of a sovereign and independent country with all the challenges and responsibilities which such a status implies.”
It is therefore quite reasonable to argue that Hari Singh offered a Standstill Agreement to India and Pakistan on the premise that he contemplated an autonomous future for his country. However, his dithering on the final disposition of his kingdom’s fate exacerbated a fraught situation among his subjects, who rose up in rebellion, especially in the Poonch and Mirpur Districts (Lamb 1991, pp. 154–55). On October 4, 1947, the rebels set up a revolutionary government in areas they had liberated and declared the state a free republic, known as Azad (or free) Kashmir.
Within weeks, however, Pashtun tribesmen from the North-West Frontier region of Pakistan entered Kashmir from Muzaffarabad, ostensibly to support its Muslim inhabitants—around 75% of the population at the time. However, the invaders failed to distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims, resulting in mass rape, abduction, and murder of Kashmiris. They killed Christian nuns in Baramulla and were motivated by a desire for booty and pillage rather than to support their co-religionists against the
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Maharaja’s troops (Wirsing 1994).
This account of events suggests that once these few thousand ill- equipped and undisciplined tribesmen had attacked Kashmir, Pakistani involvement in what was unfolding became inevitable. Schofield (2003) also refers to the tribal intervention by drawing on Indian and Pakistani accounts, which inevitably offer contradictory versions of events. Schofield appears to believe that although some members of the Pakistani government were aware of the attack, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was not involved in any way. Whatever the intention behind the invasion, during those crucial weeks between August and October 1947, the intervention of the tribesmen did not further the cause of the internal struggle raging inside Kashmir. After all, the rag-tag collection of tribal attackers could have been far more helpful to the Muslim population of the Jammu province who were massacred in their hundreds of thousands by invading Sikhs from the then state of Patiala (Punjab) and the Maharaja’s army (Lamb 1994). Lamb uses the term “ethnic cleansing” in his description of the events, which reduced what was a large, Muslim majority in Jammu province into a minority, within the space of weeks.
In an article on the 70th anniversary of the massacre of the Jammu Muslims, Geelani (2017) pieces together a series of events by drawing on credible sources. This account demonstrates how Hari Singh had a very deliberate policy to reduce the Muslim population in the province. As the accounts describe, it is clear that at the very beginning of the Kashmiri people’s movement for a free republic, outside invaders from both India and Pakistan not only disempowered the resistance but murdered, raped, and pillaged in the region within weeks of Kashmiris making gains.
India claimed that Maharaja Hari Singh had acceded Kashmir to her on October 26, 1947, a day before Indian troops landed in Srinagar, the capital of J&K. However, by this time, the Maharaja had already lost control of his country and fled to Jammu, some 200 miles to the south. It is more credible to argue that a contingency plan might already have existed for an Indian intervention under the pretext of an accession and that India was eager to enter Kashmir in order to throttle any nascent freedom movement.
Kashmiris view this event as an invasion of their country, which was an independent and sovereign nation at the time, a conclusion which Lamb (1994) also arrives at as a historical fact. He argues that neither India nor
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Pakistan can be absolved of interference in Kashmir before they emerged as successor states in British India, and that “both India and Pakistan were involved at various levels in clandestine policy concerning the State of Jammu & Kashmir long before the key dates of 22 and 27 October” (Lamb 1994, p. 104).
Rethinking the Resistance
India’s intervention in Kashmir changed the power equation as well as the nature of struggle from a people’s movement for socioeconomic emancipation and democratic representation against autocratic rule, to a struggle for national liberation and independence. The invasion also posed a threat to Pakistan of Indian encroachment. Inevitably, the Pakistani military entered liberated areas to stop the Indian advance, which might have posed a direct threat to Pakistan’s sovereign territory.
The nascent political and military resistance and the popular alignment against the Maharaja’s ascendancy thus lost their momentum. Consequently, although it had mobilised in Poonch and Mirpur, the people’s movement failed to gain the necessary support in the Kashmir Valley. The ultimate result was the state being split into two, with Mirpur, Western Poonch, and Muzaffarabad under Pakistani administration and the rest of J&K—including the valley—under Indian control. This marked the official start of the first Kashmir war between India and Pakistan, tossing Kashmiris from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. The war between the two nation-states over Kashmir halted in January 1949, and under the United Nations auspices, a Ceasefire Line (CfL) came into existence, solidifying into the de facto border partitioning Kashmir. The CfL was converted into the Line of Control (LoC) under the Shimla Accord of 1972 between India and Pakistan.
Many Kashmiris do not recognise the Shimla Accord as they consider it inimical to their national interests. It is for this reason that Kashmiris often refuse to use the term “Line of Control” to describe the de facto border since doing so would imply accepting it as a formal division— the decision over which they had no say and the consequences of which have devastated the state. Amanullah Khan, the founder of the JKLF, points out in his 1992 autobiography that by 1957 India had completely reneged on commitments regarding the Kashmir issue. India had previously committed to the self-determination of Kashmir, as evidenced by
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their statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting in 1948. Ayyangar, the official Indian representative, stated:
Whether she [Kashmir] should withdraw from her accession to India, and either accede to Pakistan or remain independent with a right to claim admission as a member of the United Nations—all this we have recognised to be a matter for unfettered decision by the people of Kashmir after normal life is restored to them. (cited in Abdullah 1965, p. 530)
However, when opportunities were presented for conciliation between India and Pakistan, such as U.S. President Kennedy’s offer of mediation, India hesitated. In this instance, India was forced to reconsider due to a short border war with China in 1962. India engaged in talks with Pakistan at the behest of the U.S. and the UK, fearing that Pakistan might join China in the war and attack across the CfL in Kashmir. Six rounds of negotiations ensued between the foreign ministers of both India and Pakistan. However, the mediation ended in failure, which Khan (1992) argues served India well since it bought New Delhi time and dissuaded Pakistan from taking advantage of the Sino–Indian confrontation. This view is also supported by Maxwell (1970), who suggests that Nehru’s government was only interested in engaging in talks to cement its current position rather than for meaningful negotiations with Pakistan over Kashmir.
These developments sent a clear message to Kashmiris, who watched
and waited as each round of negotiations ended in disappointment. Grass- roots activists and Kashmiri leaders alike feared the permanent division of their country as proposed, in their absence, during Indo-Pakistani talks. Consequently, on May 12, 1963, Kashmiri leaders convened a meeting in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to formulate a strategy for resistance. This meeting resulted in the formation of the Kashmir Independence Committee (KIC). The KIC included several key figures involved in the liberation struggle. Among them were Amanullah Khan, who some 14 years later would become the founder of JKLF, and Maqbool Bhat, who would come to symbolise and epitomise the very spirit of the liberation struggle as a result of his execution by the Indian authorities in 1984. Also in attendance were Abdul Khaliq Ansari, who two years later would become the first president of the Plebiscite Front (PF), and Abdul Majeed Malick, who became chief justice of Azad Kashmir during the 1980s.
According to Khan (1992), the KIC quickly faded into inactivity and
by 1965, its leaders had already formed the PF. By this point, the situation
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in Indian-held Kashmir had become desperate, with an utter disregard for constitutional delineations on the part of the Indian authorities. By August 1953, less than five years after Kashmir’s conditional accession, the prime minister of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, was thrown out of office due to his criticism of the Indian government’s policies in the region. Abdullah remained estranged with India for more than two decades and was imprisoned and banished from his native land.
Despite his absence, Abdullah and his supporters continued to press for the promised plebiscite. In 1955, with this goal in mind, the PF was formed in Indian-held Kashmir by his trusted lieutenant, Afzal Beg. However, in a U-turn on February 23, 1975, Abdullah signed the Delhi Accord, and his “reinstatement and agreeing to drop his demand for a plebiscite greatly strengthened India’s hold on the disputed territory” (Lockwood 1975, p. 249). Thus, the “Lion of Kashmir” lost his roar, along with the unquestioned affection and respect of his compatriots.
A combination of the inconclusive Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, the breakup up of Pakistan in 1971 and the subsequent emergence of Bangladesh, the Shimla Accord of 1972, and above all, Abdullah’s change of position regarding the plebiscite, firmly pushed the Kashmir question to the margins. Khan, Bhat, and their colleagues continued to call upon Kashmiris on both sides of the CfL to voice their condemnation of the Shimla and Delhi Accords.
In Azad Kashmir, leading pro-independent figures within the Azad Kashmir PF became increasingly disillusioned in light of the events above and embarked on what they considered practical action, involving armed resistance backed by a popular uprising in Indian-held Kashmir. Thus, Bhat and Khan—who both favoured an armed approach to the resistance and wanted the PF to support their stance—took the momentous decision to back this strategy. At the inaugural meeting of its working committee in Mirpur on July 12, 1965, the majority of PF members, including its then president Ansari, rejected the proposition. Deeply disappointed, on August 13, 1965, Khan and Bhat set up the National Liberation Front (NLF), a clandestine organisation to support an armed insurgency in the state. The NLF was established just four months after the PF was founded and became the precursor organisation of the JKLF. By June 10, 1966, Bhat was able to cross the CfL into Indian-held Kashmir and began to organise the resistance in earnest. However, upon his return journey to Azad Kashmir, he and his colleagues were captured.
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Between 1965 and 1968, the leadership of the PF distanced them- selves from the NLF’s position of armed insurgency against India, arguing that the armed struggle was unconstitutional. The JKLF was, therefore, a response to a cleavage between the two positions, as well as an attempt to unite Pakistani-administered Kashmir with Indian-controlled J&K. For Kashmiris, the JKLF asserted their inherent right to sovereignty over the entire state—the fundamental principle at the heart of the conflict—as it existed before the partition of British India on August 14/15, 1947. The incorporation of all the “state subjects” of J&K across the CfL, regardless of their current governance situation is therefore the cornerstone of the inclusive national ideology underpinning JKLF’s struggle.
Khan provides a concise and succinct account of these events in his
memoirs (Khan 1992, 2005). He describes how up until that point, the PF had no idea of the NLF’s activities in Indian-occupied Kashmir and that relations had become tumultuous at the news of the organisation’s (NLF’s) existence, ideology, and armed approach—and of course, Bhat’s arrest. The PF was split into two clear groups—those who supported the NLF’s approach and those who were against it. However, as Khan explains, after intense lobbying, the adoption of armed resistance was finally accepted by the PF at an organisational level. Nevertheless, internal opposition remained with many considering the actions of the NLF to be unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, Bhat was tried in Indian held Kashmir, and in 1968 was given, along with his colleague, Mir Ahmed, the death sentence. Both, however, escaped from Srinagar jail, and after an arduous 16-day trek over snow-capped mountains, reached Azad Kashmir, only to be arrested by the Pakistani army. They were imprisoned but eventually released after several months of interrogation. In November 1969, Bhat was elected president of the PF and officially declared NLF its armed wing. Khan describes how he was uneasy with this decision, believing that opponents of the NLF lurked below the surface—for this reason, the NLF would be better off remaining independent (Khan 1992).
The Ganga Hijacking
Despite NLF’s reach across the CfL, its activities were unknown on both sides of the divide in Kashmir. It was important for Bhat and Khan to demonstrate to followers that the NLF could mount a serious challenge against Indian occupation, and so a plan was hatched to carry
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out a spectacular activity that would catapult their cause into the public consciousness. In January 1971, to attract international attention, an Indian Airlines aircraft named Ganga was hijacked en route from Srinagar to Delhi. The plane was diverted to Lahore in Pakistan.
Although it achieved its aims at drawing the world’s attention to Kashmir, any sense of success was short-lived, as the Pakistan government rounded up hundreds of activists, as well as NLF and PF leaders. They were charged with sedition, conspiracy and being agents of India (Swami 2007). The case lasted over a year and a half, and by May 1973, the court had exonerated all, except Hashim Qureshi, who was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. However, his appeal before the Pakistan Supreme Court in 1980 resulted in his release.
Although they had been acquitted, the Ganga episode vindicated the NLF leadership in the eyes of the public and their position as patriotic Kashmiris. As a result, the activities of the PF and NLF were closely monitored by both India and Pakistan. Naseer Wani, a member of the defence committee for those arrested and an important eyewitness to the momentous developments from the formation of the KIC up to the Ganga episode, aptly sums up the atmosphere at the time in a note to the author1:
I met Amanullah Khan and told him in no ambiguous terms that my stand on independent Kashmir will remain unchanged and advised him to continue the movement. He felt strange but encouraged by my steadfast adherence. It was clear that he wanted to hear that. After my appearance, Mr. Bhat asked me to stay with him and the other two in the rented house. He said that I would be “LOB” (“left out of the battle”) in the event [that they] were all arrested. Subsequently, all ended up in the Lahore Fort. The most atrocious treatment and physical torture were perpetrated on all.
As the quote illustrates, it became extremely challenging for the NLF and PF to continue their activities. Yet, for Khan and Bhat in particular, resistance to the overall hostile political and diplomatic environment in Pakistan and in Azad Kashmir had become ever more urgent.
This acute situation meant the two most prominent ideologues of the struggle were compelled to take alternative steps and embark upon another phase for the independence of their country. Khan left for Britain to propagate the issue at the international level and Bhat crossed the CfL into Indian-held Kashmir to mobilise resistance. Soon after reaching his
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destination, in June 1976, Bhat and his two colleagues, Hameed Butt and Riaz Dar, were arrested. He never returned to either part of his divided beloved homeland, as he was transferred to Tihar Jail in India where on February 11, 1984, he was executed, and remains buried. Hameed Butt and Riaz Dar were released after serving their 14-year imprisonment.2
The Front and the Journey Home
The historical developments described above set the backdrop against which the JKLF was established. When Khan came to Britain in 1976, he felt the vision of the existing PF was lacking, primarily because it was only active within Azad Kashmir, and the NLF had by now found it increasingly difficult to operate both in Azad Kashmir and in Indian- held Kashmir. He persuaded Ansari, the president of the PF, to convert the British branch of the PF to a new organisation that would span across the entire state of J&K. This suggestion was supported by several others, as Ansari states in his autobiography: “We consulted with friends and accepted their decision to convert branches of PF in Britain to become branches of the [Jammu Kashmir Liberation] Front” (Ansari 2014, p. 565).
The JKLF’s emergence needs to be viewed in terms of its ideological
role in the Kashmir issue and the overall political and historical context after 1947, as outlined above. Its journey in the struggle to assert Kashmir’s sovereign right, as a basis for a solution of the dispute, has been seen by its leaders from a broad, national (state-wide) perspective. They have done so in order that the Kashmir question would shift from one concerning a historical–ideological cleavage between India and Pakistan into self-determination for a socially, ethnically and religiously diverse nation—one that has been striving for centuries to assert its right for freedom, long before India and Pakistan even existed (Ansari 2014). The JKLF aimed to challenge the notion that India and Pakistan alone can achieve a lasting settlement on the status of Kashmir. Its formation was a conscious step toward an ideological direction relevant to and consistent with a predominately Muslim—but equally plural and diverse—nation struggling against foreign subjugation (Lamb 1994).
The JKLF established itself among its diaspora overseas in Britain, from
where it developed a clear strategy of inclusion and self-determination. It set up branches across Europe, the Middle East and the United States. In 1982, it finally established itself in Azad Kashmir and by 1988 had
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launched across the CfL into Indian held Kashmir (Cheema 2015). By the time JKLF had come home to Kashmir, both India and Pakistan had their respective constituencies firmly in place, reinforced with their military, political, civil, economic, and cultural dimensions. As such, the JKLF’s homecoming was not problem-free, not least because in Azad Kashmir it was met with opposition by the established PF. Although JKLF members supported fraternal relations with the PF, they considered it as having outlived its relevance in the struggle.
The front’s homecoming coincided with an important event. A new wave of political resistance had developed in Indian-held Kashmir after electoral fraud resulted in the defeat of the Muslim United Front (MUF) in the 1987 elections, which left many among the youth in particular feeling betrayed and leaderless. The MUF had threatened India’s hold on the state’ politics and the party’s supporters blamed rigged elections at the hands of the Indian authorities for the defeat. The JKLF soon became a symbol of defiance against India for disillusioned and disempowered youth. The young men of the “HAJY” group—comprised of Ashfaq Majid Wani, Yasin Malik, Hameed Sheikh and Javid Mir—became the leaders of the JKLF in Indian-held Kashmir and embodied a new spirit of the struggle for independence. A new generation in Kashmir was ready to fight, something Bhat and Khan had been attempting to mobilise since August 1965. Hundreds of young men led by the HAJY group poured across the treacherous snow-capped mountains into Azad Kashmir for training. Schofield observes how “the armed insurgency which gathered momentum after the 1987 election caught the rest of the world unawares” (2003, p. 138).
During the same period, Khan was deported from Britain under an administrative order on allegations concerning the abduction and killing of India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Birmingham. After a trial, Khan was acquitted of all the charges against him by the British government. It was no secret that he was implacably opposed to India’s occupation and Khan’s activism irked New Delhi, where he was regarded as an enemy of the state. The diplomat’s killing allowed India to have Khan removed from Britain, where he had been fervently lobbying politicians, organizing demonstrations, and mobilizing expatriates in support of the Kashmir cause. Khan travelled to the Middle East, throughout Europe and to the United States to keep the issue alive at international platforms. As Schofield describes, Khan’s deportation from Britain gave “an impetus” to the activities of the “Kashmiri nationalists” and from Pakistan,
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“he began to direct operations across the line of control.” She further points out that “he had realised, that in order for his movement to gain momentum, he had to attract support from the valley” (Schofield 2003, pp. 138–39). This meant that working across the CfL became a priority for the resistance.
A Gentleman’s Agreement with Pakistan
As large numbers of men began to cross the CfL for training in Azad Kashmir, offers of support came from the Pakistani authorities. The JKLF’s deputy chairman, Dr. Farooq Haider, together with colleagues Sardar Rashid Hasrat and Raja Muzaffar, was approached to broker a deal. An unconditional verbal agreement was made with Pakistan through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency on the direction and approval of Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq. However, in his memoirs, Khan insists that political and diplomatic departments of the JKLF would not take financial support from Pakistan, despite the prevailing view that the organisation was indeed funded by Islamabad for at least a period of time (Swami 2007).
The uprising against India was now in full swing. However, the
“gentleman’s agreement” with Pakistan, as Khan called it, did not last long. In August 1988, Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane crash, and the incoming Benazir Bhutto government did not honour the existing agreement with the JKLF. Khan describes how, after a sharp exchange of words with Bhutto in Muzaffarabad, she “allegedly instructed the ISI to clip our wings” (Khan 2005, p. 152). Wirsing (1994, p. 122) also observed that movement for independence had become so widespread that “Bhutto was advised in a meeting, which included the Chief of the Army, Gen. Beg, with the Azad Kashmir president and prime minister in attendance, to assert more Pakistani control on the uprising.” Khan discusses how Pakistan employed a strategy to do just that and Pakistani-sponsored groups began to sprout up in Kashmir. This was a setback for the JKLF, which had established itself as by far the most effective and largest organisation on the ground. Now it had to contend with a plethora of groups, including the Hizbul-Mujahedeen, believed to have been created to squeeze the JKLF’s position in the uprising. An unfortunate result of the internecine violence that came with increased militancy, was that it inevitably stymied momentum for those involved in the organisation.
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The Front’s Response
Despite attempts to side-line the JKLF and its leadership, the front continued to gain support from the masses. In 1990, for example, at a time when the direction of the movement was being subverted by the creation of a dozen or more new groups in competition with the JKLF, around half a million Kashmiris came out onto the streets of Srinagar following the organisation’s call for mass demonstrations in support of freedom. A four-day curfew was observed in the city as a result, yet it did not deter tens of thousands from participating in the funeral procession of the JKLF’s first commander-in-chief, Ashfaq Majeed Wani, in March the same year (Khan 2005, p. 151). Two years later, in February 1992, thou- sands of Azad Kashmiris responded to the JKLF’s call to storm the CfL in solidarity with those in Indian-held Kashmir, despite Pakistani troops killing twelve demonstrators (Wirsing 1994).
By 1992, many of the JKLF’s members had been imprisoned or killed.
In order to maintain a way of operating in the state under duress, in 1994, the current chairman Yasin Malik, while incarcerated in Tihar Jail, declared that the JKLF would end its armed resistance and instead mobilise as a political party. Khan, however, disagreed with the move, and the organisation split in two until 2010 when the factions reunified under a single agenda once more. The move toward non-violent political struggle resulted in several new campaigns. From 2003 to 2005, a petition demanding Kashmiri participation in a negotiated settlement of the conflict saw two million signatures collected from over 6000 villages and towns by the JKLF in Indian-held Kashmir.
In 1997, the JKLF launched its “Road Map for Peace and Prosperity in South Asia” before the diplomatic fraternity and media outlets in Islamabad. In 2004, Malik called upon Hindu Kashmiri Pandits—who had fled the Valley of Kashmir on mass in the 1990s—to return to the state. Many scoffed at his attempts to reach out to the group as a way of promoting Kashmiri unity. In 2006, the JKLF mobilised to highlight human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir, resulting in 500 arrests and in the following year, embarked on a 116-day safar-e-azadi (journey of freedom) to engage with people along the length and breadth of Indian-held Kashmir. These and many more activities sought to demonstrate the resolve of the organisation when put under pressure by both India and Pakistan.
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Conclusion
Over the years, the JKLF has sustained its central role in the struggle for independence despite attempts to marginalise it. The organisation’s iconic presence in the resistance movement has galvanised support for Kashmir’s sovereign status irrespective of political, ideological, ethnic or religious background. By its very existence, the JKLF asserts that people from across all parts of the geographically fractured country, are the only real stakeholders with the right to decide on its sovereignty. Since the 1950s, India has demonstrated an unrelenting reluctance to engage on the status of Kashmir, either with Kashmiris, Pakistan, or the international community. There is an unashamedly contemptuous imperviousness in the psyche of the Indian leadership and the intelligentsia, as witnessed by its vetoes in the UNSC on Kashmir (Simha 2016).
The JKLF continues to believe that an independent Kashmir will
provide India and Pakistan with an honourable way out of the ongoing dispute. Exiting Kashmir as the result of self-determination can satiate their national egos as well as allow Kashmir to become a bridge of peace, friendship and prosperity in the region, rather than a source of enmity between them. It has been the JKLF’s considered policy to engage with and influence Pakistan to recognise sovereign status of 20 million Kashmiris across the CfL as the only viable solution to the conflict. Unlike the late Zia-ul-Haq, however, those with the power to steer Pakistan’s Kashmir policy in Islamabad, have failed to appreciate this sound principle as the only logical option. As the far-right, nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government settles in for another term in India, the only way out of the conflict in South Asia is to resolve the Kashmir question. In March 2019, Pakistan and India found themselves on the brink of another war. This is a situation that cannot be taken lightly, given the potential for cross-border shelling to escalate into the nuclear annihilation of the region.
The organisation has continued to work within the constraints
imposed upon it to maintain its campaign for self-determination. As illustrated by Yasin Malik’s (2017) London speech quoted in the introduction of the chapter, the means have changed, even as the goal remains the same. The JKLF has caught the imagination of the masses like no other party in Kashmir since the 1940s. For four decades, the organisation has staunchly committed to a democratic, inclusive, free, and reunified sovereign status for the country as it existed before August 14, 1947.
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Nonetheless, a committed leadership has inspired the party faithful and grassroots Kashmiris alike, as demonstrated by slogans that continue to be used during popular protests, such as azadi (freedom) and khud-mukhtari (self-determination) (Ahmad 2018). Such slogans encapsulate the organisation’s ideology and enable the resistance to stand up to the occupation, even if faced by bullets fired by the Indian army.
Notes
Naseer. Wani shared his reflections on Amanullah Khan and Maqbool Butt with the author through a note in November 2018.
Hameed Butt is currently the senior deputy chairman of the JKLF based in Azad Kashmir, while Riaz Dar died in Muzaffarabad in 2018.
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