Srinagar: President J&K People’s Conference, Sajad Gani Lone on Monday said that the party “will do everything in its power to protect a common Kashmiri from being victimised”.
He said the leadership in the “present challenging times means rising up to the occasion and rescuing the Kashmiris instead of feeding them to hungry lions”.
Lone made the remarks in a statement after chairing a meeting of the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) to discuss important organisational matters and contemporary political situation, a party press release said.
It said the meeting was attended by senior VP Abdul Gani Vakil, general secretary Imran Reza Ansari, Nizamuddin Bhat, Basharat Bukhari, Mansoor Hussain Soharvardi, Nazir Ahmed Laway, Fayaz Ahmed Mir, Abid Ansari, Adv. Bashir Ahmed Dar, Mohammad Abbas Wani, Khursheed Alam, Safina Baig, Yasir Reshi, Raja Aijaz Ali, Mohammad Ashraf Mir, Sheikh Imran, Irfan Ansari, Irfan Panditpori, Rashid Mehmood, Syed Najeeb Naqvi, Adnan Ashraf Mir and Mudasir Karim.
“The situation in J&K is unambiguously extraordinary. People are in pain and there is helplessness all around. The process of disempowerment started on August 05 refuses to abate. Disempowerment has become a continuous process and is achieved incrementally with unfailing frequency. Rarely a day passes when there is not some sort of law aimed at belittling the Kashmiris, humiliating them and further disempowering them,” Lone said.
He said compounding the problems further “there is an alien administration which has nothing in common with people of J&K. Resolution of basic issues of day-to-day survival faced by masses are matters of prime luxury and a rarity.”
He said it is imperative to define what leadership in Kashmir entails. “What does leadership in Kashmir mean today? We firmly believe that Leadership means rising up to the occasion and rescuing the Kashmiris instead of feeding them to hungry lions. The luxury to perform to pre scripted theatres in Kashmir is long gone. It is time the leadership rose from its slumber and understood that every word that the leadership utters has a consequence for the people of Kashmir,” he added.
“Every confrontation ends up with a victim and a victor. We have to ask ourselves who will be the new victims if there is going to be a new round of confrontation,” Lone said adding the “confrontation needs victims – someone who is willing to die; someone who is willing to go to jail; someone who is willing to be thrown out of his job; someone who is willing to be beaten up, interrogated.
“Our simple question to those who are keen to start a new round of confrontation is that from whom the new victims will be selected. Will it be from the political elite, will it be from their families or will it as per tradition be the poor man’s son?” Lone asked.
He stated that it was a “cruel paradox that those parties or leaders who are in search of victims through their quest for confrontation have been victors of the past while creating victims amongst the Kashmiris.
“The poor man’s son, it seems, is destined to be the victim yet again, ironically at the hands of the victors of the past,” he said.
“Manufacturing victims and discoursing victimhood cannot be a substitute for ideology. It seems that some leaders see their survival in strife, struggle and pain of the Kashmiris. They by virtue of their utterances want to incite and goad New Delhi to act harshly against the people of Kashmir. Their utterances are creating an enabling environment for further victimisation of the Kashmiris. The least that these leaders can do is to not facilitate the punishment of Kashmiris through their hollow and high-pitched rhetoric,” he added.
The JKPC, Lone said, has a “million disagreements with the ruling regime and its leadership”.
“Our ideological differences with the union government are steep and irreconcilable. However, the harsh reality is that they wield unbridled powers to further erode and hurt the interest of Kashmir. The irrational and theatrical provocations of a section of our leadership are only becoming a catalyst for new changes and erosions,” he added.
“It is our firm belief that true to the age-old Kashmiri adage that the bravado of allowing something to be taken away needs the skills of a magician to get it back. We believe there is no space for further bravado. We on our part have to create an enabling environment for deliverance by Delhi. We are in a hurry that democracy is restored, we are in a hurry that whatever has been taken away be restored. New Delhi is not in any hurry,” he emphasised.
He said the PC “will not let the ideological difference with the union government become a catalyst for further erosion and an impediment towards the re-empowerment of the people of J&K”.
“The conscience of the leadership of our party does not permit us to throw more innocent Kashmiris in harm’s way. We will not do the predatory politics on the victimhood of poor Kashmiri’s children. We will do everything in our power to protect a common Kashmiri from being victimized,” he added.
