To ask for azadi — if by that is meant independence — is not treason. And asking for it is not going to make it happen.
What credibility does like a man like Moulvi Umar have when he dare not acknowledge who assassinated his own father because he spoke of peace, and again angrily panicked when knowledge of a “quiet dialogue” with earlier government interlocutors led to a dastardly bid to assassinate his moderate Hurriyat colleague, Fazle Haq Qureshi. Men like Geelani are hirelings of Pakistan. Yet the door remains open for them and if they are willing to enter into a genuine dialogue they might yet redeem themselves.
For more than a few people, including some in the establishment, the J&K agitation is a sound business proposition that sustains their hearths and ego. Should the matter be resolved, whatever would they do? Like some of their counterparts in the Northeast, they fear peace in J&K. So does Pakistan. Its governing ideology could unravel without an object of obsessive hate while its Army and jihadi ideologues, who hold a hapless people in thrall, would lose their very raison d’etre.
Talking about azadi breaks no bones. India is talking azadi with the NSCN-IM.
Absence of “merger” does not mean that J&K is not an integral part of India. It is. This is so by virtue of its accession and inclusion in Schedule I of Article 1 that lists the constituent units of the Indian Union.
The interlocutors, and India, deserve a chance.
