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It’s time to believe the believer

SRINAGAR:It was a treat to hear Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq urging Muslims how to be good Muslims.



Arun Joshi

Srinagar, June 28

It was a treat to hear Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq urging Muslims how to be good Muslims. In his powerful voice broadcast by multiple loudspeakers all across the historic Jamia Masjid in the heart of Srinagar downtown. His exhortations were in chaste Kashmiri. Focusing on seeking mercy from Allah, he asked them to pray that they were not put to tests through disasters.

Moving around the imposing mosque, which is an epitome of history and witness to the momentous events in Kashmir’s politics, and at the same time hearing the virtues of Islam from a real Islamic scholar – both by academic qualification and home schooling – was a spiritual journey in itself.

Suddenly, the language changed, and so did the tone of the Mirwaiz. In his forties, this man has seen many upheavals in his personal life following the assassination of his father Moulvi Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq on May 21, 1990. He was chosen as the founding chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in 1992. Then began his real tryst with the politics of Kashmir and its international dimensions.

“Let me make it clear that Kashmiris are the primary party, both India and Pakistan should know that no solution would be acceptable to Kashmiris unless they are taken on board. It has to be a trilateral dialogue,” his voice thundered and echoed in the huge Jamia Masjid complex.

“The present dispensation of the BJP government in Delhi thinks that everything is fine in Kashmir. It is unaware of the reality or it has shut its eyes to the ground realities here,” the Mirwaiz said while suggesting that the Centre should open dialogue with Kashmiris and Pakistan to seek an acceptable solution to the Kashmir issue.

The kneeling crowd of bearded men was coming in. Some of them were donating to mendicants. A young girl’s cries were piercing as she was urging “brothers” to help her in the treatment of her brother, who was sitting on the ground with some kind of ailment. Around the time of namaz, some volunteers appeared and asked all mendicants to clear the entry points.

This chief cleric who has clarity of thought, and is well aware that there are trespassers eyeing his turf, could chart his own course to lead the followers to real ways of Islam and peace for Kashmir. He has travelled abroad a number of times, interacted with few leaders of consequence. There is a little distinction between the ‘M’ for Mirwaiz and moderate. In fact, it is synonymous. Nowadays, however, it seems that the Mirwaiz is shackled by uncertainty in himself. 

As long as General Pervez Musharraf was at the helm of affairs in Pakistan, he was having his support and the Government of India was also willing to talk to him. Both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh knew his potential. His was the voice of reason and was flexible. “If not trilateral then let there be triangular talks —- meaning that let Kashmiri separatists talk to both Delhi and Islamabad alternatively.

Pakistan has shifted gears, and so have the separatist politics. This man who can talk to both Delhi and Islamabad and show them the mirror is alternatively wooed and discarded by the governments. But he has a standing of his own and it is time to recognize that. Both India and Pakistan can benefit from this man whose voice from the pulpit of Jamia Masjid evokes support of hundreds of believers every minute.

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