Geelani leaves a yawning void in Kashmir's separatist politics

Geelani Syed Ali Shah Geelani | Umer Asif

With the death of Syed Ali Shah Geelani on September 2, Kashmir has lost the most visible face of hardline separatist politics. There is no one who can fill the 92-year-old’s shoes, and take forward his uncompromising stance that the only solution to the Kashmir issue is a UN-mandated plebiscite. Unapologetically Islamist and pro-Pakistan, Geelani had long opposed holding talks with the Union government until it accepted Kashmir as disputed region and Pakistan as being party to the dispute.

The police stormed into the room, along with commandos, and took the body away. They kept on switching off the light in the room to prevent anyone from recording the scene—Naseem Geelani, younger son of Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Geelani was born in September 1929 in Zurmanz, a village on the banks of the Wular lake in Bandipora. Before partition, he studied at the Oriental School in Lahore. He entered politics through the National Conference, but soon shifted loyalties to the Jamaat-e-Islami—the largest socio-religious organisation in Kashmir. He opposed the NC’s mainstream stance and toed the Pakistan line that Kashmir was the partition’s “unfinished agenda”.

He was elected thrice to the assembly before militancy erupted in the late 1980s. His last poll victory was in 1987, when he was one of the four Muslim Muttahida Mahaz (united front) candidates who managed to win. He resigned in 1989, after militancy gained momentum. For many militants, he was an influential and respected ideologue.

When the Hurriyat Conference was formed in 1993, Geelani represented the Jamaat-e-Islami in the seven-member executive council. He was known for his hawkish positions. Geelani and his ally Muhammad Ashraf Sehrari were the only members to object to Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Muhammad Bhat’s decision to distance the organisation from the militant group Hizbul Mujahideen.

The differences between Geelani and other Hurriyat members resulted in a moderate-hardline divide. The gulf widened in 2002, when the People’s Conference led by the moderate Abdul Ghani Lone fielded proxy candidates in the assembly polls. A year later, Geelani and Sehrari quit the Hurriyat and floated Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. Geelani, Sehrari and other hardliners like Masarat Alam of the Muslim League later formed a Hurriyat faction that elected Geelani as lifetime chairman. This led to the Jamaat suspending both Geelani and Sehrari.

Geelani’s belligerence also resulted in strained ties with Pakistan when Gen Pervez Musharraf was in power. He was the only separatist leader in Kashmir who opposed Musharraf’s four-point formula for Kashmir—self-governance, demilitarisation, free movement of people across the Line of Control, and joint management of sectors like water resources. “When Musharraf told Geelani that he should restrict himself to Kashmir, Geelani shot back saying his relations were with the people of Pakistan, not the rulers,” said a source. “The incident happened at the Pakistan embassy in New Delhi.”

Geelani often got carried away by his politics. “We are Pakistanis and Pakistan is us, because we are tied with the country through Islam,” he said in Srinagar in 2008. Two years later, when Kashmir erupted again after the Army killed three civilians in a fake encounter at Machil, Alam led a five-month-long agitation that nearly crippled the NC government.

Geelani’s twilight years were marked by long detentions and poor health. Along with Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, he formed the Joint Resistance Leadership that led the fierce 2016 separatist agitation triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. Geelani even refused to meet a group of parliamentarians who had come to Kashmir to hold talks. “He felt the visit was a gimmick,” said a source.

There is no one in Geelani’s family to take forward his politics. His elder son, Dr Nayeem Geelani, is part of the National Rural Health Mission, and his younger son, Naseem, is a scientist at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences in Jammu. The two brothers and their families have always given separatist politics a wide berth.

Geelani’s death, however, has drawn the family into controversy; the police have lodged an FIR against family members for draping his body in the Pakistani flag. Last year, Pakistan had conferred the country’s highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Pakistan, on the separatist patriarch. “We don’t know who put Pakistan’s flag on my father’s body,” said Naseem. “The police themselves took Geelani sahab’s body along with the flag.”

Naseem alleged that the police had forcibly taken custody of the body and prevented the family from attending the burial. “The police stormed into the room, along with commandos, and took the body away,” he said. “They kept on switching off the light in the room to prevent anyone from recording the scene. We requested them to keep the lights on for the sake of women, who were all terrified and crying. The next day, we had to search for our father’s grave as we had no idea where he was laid to rest.”

Weeks before Geelani’s death, his family had removed the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat signboard near his house. Sources say they are now trying to lead a “normal life”, putting the problems of the past three decades behind them. With Sehrari having died in jail in May, observers say the only person who could take Geelani’s place is Alam. Known as a close confidant of Geelani, Alam has been in jail since 2015 and is facing several charges, including sedition. He is unlikely to be released anytime soon.

What is certain for now, though, is that Geelani’s death has created a void in Kashmir’s separatist politics—one that will not be bridged soon.