Syed Ali Shah Geelani
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A brief biography
Kaveree Bamzai, Sep 2, 2021: The Times of India
Honouring 10-year-olds for standing up to the government in Delhi with stones in their bare hands; getting shot all over their bodies with pellets; ordering women to wear the hijab; campaigning against schools in the Valley he felt were "Indianising" young people; and calling for over 2,200 days of curfew, between 1993 and 2019, which destroyed academic calendars and the work ethic — Syed Ali Shah Geelani would stop at nothing to wage war against imperialist India. Despite being three-time MLA from Sopore, his hatred for India was permanently inscribed in his DNA.
India was not to be trusted. This was the bedrock of Geelani's personal and political philosophy. Hundreds of Kashmiris lost their lives for the dream he showed them, while he lived in comfort in his secure three-storey Hyderpora house, even as he remained medically dependent on the country he detested.
"India", as he called it, financed his surgeries to install a pacemaker, remove a kidney, gall bladder, even correct his cataract. Of course, it was partly because he had been under house arrest for about 15 years.
Perhaps, in certain quarters, his unbending stand on Kashmir was considered iconic and inspirational. But it was powered by a vision of Kashmir as a hardline Islamic state, the Nizam-e-Mustafa, which followed the Sharia, which slowly eroded the image of the state as a secular syncretic symbol of India's plurality. It was a wish in keeping with the founder of the Jamaat i Islami, Maulana Syed Maududi, whom Geelani admired greatly. There was no place for Hindus in this state, though he would always say they were welcome back — how exactly was not a question he could answer with specifics.
The three-time Muslim United Front MLA (1970, 1977 and 1987) was close to Syed Salahuddin, Hizbul Mujahideen commander, who has been in Pakistan since 1993 — like Geelani, Salahuddin, aka Mohammed Yusuf Shah, was a former teacher.
Geelani's death marks the end of an era in Kashmir militancy. He was Pakistan’s last man standing says Amarjit Singh Dulat, one of the country's foremost spymasters. “Hum Pakistani hain, Pakistan hamara hain” was his slogan, and he was more of a hardliner on Kashmir than even several Pakistanis. It was evidenced by his steadfast denial of the Pervez Musharraf formula for peace in Kashmir, which included setting aside the United Nation's resolutions on plebiscite; replacing the idea of self-determination with self-governance; and forsaking religion as a criterion.
Dulat says he was everything and, in the end, nothing. He contested eight elections, including thrice to the Lok Sabha. He was not a great advocate of militancy when it began as a movement of radicalised youth in Kashmir. It took one meeting with his Pakistani handlers in Kathmandu in 1990 that changed his mind — perhaps they were able to show him a political future as the patriarch of a revolution, a future he could never see for himself in mainstream Indian politics.
He had the blood of many on his hands, whether it be civilians or soldiers. Who can forget Sajad Lone accusing Geelani when he came to his home to mourn his father Abdul Ghani Lone. Lone Senior was shot dead in 2002 and had differed with Geelani on the presence of foreign militants in the Valley. At that point, Lone had accused "white-collar men" of ordering killings, saying if they are not stopped there will be more such assassinations. Lone may have altered his stand in public after persuasion from his mother, but it is true that the fear that Geelani once wielded over the Valley had declined. In 2014, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a leader who still has considerable clout in the Valley, had said: “Who the hell is Geelani?” when the latter accused him of a secret meeting with emissaries of then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. He too had accused him, indirectly, of getting others killed.
The man once known as “Bab Jihad” (Father of Jihad) was called “Chutti Uncle” (Uncle Who Calls for Holidays) by youngsters. But there was nothing avuncular about him. He was a man blinded by his own toxicity for a Constitution he had once sworn to uphold. He also did not deny his love for Pakistan.
Eventually, what did Geelani and the men and women who died for him achieve? The Indian state never engaged with him, because he didn’t fit into their scheme of things. Two generations lost their lives and livelihoods. A community lost its homeland. A state lost its statehood. This is the unfortunate legacy of Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Views expressed in the piece are personal
