Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
It has not surprised me to see the Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah trying to rid himself of some of the flak that has come his way following the hanging in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail of Afzal Guru, one of the six accused of attacking Parliament House on December 13, 2001 killing six security personnel before the attackers were captured.
Omar couldn’t have been wholly unaware of what lay ahead, but to his credit it must be noted that given the short-sighted, secretive ways of the functioning of the lame duck UPA II, the Home Ministry would not have cared to keep him abreast of the latest on the Guru front.
Thus, the Chief Minister’s anguished cry that he was unaware of the compelling reasons for the Government to prioritise Guru’s hanging. Not so veiled was his observation that exigencies of electoral politics might have forced the Home Ministry to advance the execution of Guru. This was evident when he made it a point to mention that many other killers including those of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh were sitting pretty in the death row much before Guru.
Given the political vulnerability of the valley and its porous lines of control with Pakistan- occupied territories and the consequent inflow of sponsored terrorists, not to mention the separatists within the valley, the Guru killing has only added to the State Government’s anxieties. With the scare of a similar hanging at Tihar of the JKLF leader Maqbool Butt, refusing to die out even after three decades, Guru’s death can only add to the State’s problems.
And that alone should be reason enough for Omar Abdullah to be a much worried man. He must also live with a New Delhi shifting into a lower gear in addressing the many problems faced by the State, in the past subjected to studies/ inquiries/commissions and induction of interlocutors. Developments on the Pakistani front, with the confidence building measures, taking a virtual back-seat can only seem to be adding to the State’s problems, and hence the State Chief Minister’s sense of grave unease with the timing of Guru’s execution.
Aware as he must be, of the likely wave of protests not only from among separatist ranks but also from lay citizens who were probably hoping for leniency, the Chief Minister did make his disapproval of the avoidable (for some more time at least) Guru execution known; he was surprised how even the victim’s family had been kept in the dark about the timing. The lame explanation that the family in Baramulla had been informed by speed-mail hardly makes sense; speed-mail is a thing that exists only in the postal manuals even in some of our metros, let alone a distant Kashmiri district like Baramulla.
Omar Farooq was fair in loudly wondering in front of a TV camera on the forecourt of his Srinagar house why New Delhi had not opted in favour of asking the State government to inform the Guru family. That would have enabled him to fly out Guru’s immediate family to spend an hour or so with him before his execution.
Why this basic humane gesture was denied to Guru and his family has left the Chief Minister baffled. The final insult would seem to have been the failure to restore his few last earthly belongings like some books, a radio and some scripts, to his family who alas were kept in the dark.
It is insensitivities like this that make an action like political hanging all the more abominable. And if Home Minister Shinde and his short-sighted minions in his ministry have yet not tired of complimenting each other over “a job well done” they may well start pondering the inconsistencies enumerated above, namely, not letting Afzal Guru’s family know of the exact time of execution or that one about enabling some of his immediate family members, including his wife, spend some time with him.
Guru’s may have been a most reprehensible crime, for which he was made to pay the ultimate penalty, but how about the basic civility of a system that had hauled him up in the first place. The Indian State would not have come out a whit meaner by showing the man destined to die by the hangman’s noose a few courtesies. Going by the scanty reports one has had from Tihar Jail where he was hanged and buried one doubts if at least a cleric or two were on hand to oversee the last rites performed.
As I write, I am told the valley has already observed four days of total bandh, a popular explosion of public anger that occurred much before the usual culprits like the two Hurriyets of Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farouq had given a formal call for it. Geelani, the octogenarian, orchestrated the protests from his winter residence in New Delhi and may now have returned to the valley not to miss the opportunity to do his anti-India and pro-Pakistani drum-beating.
The execution of Guru, would have come as a godsend to him. It is an opportunity for him to warn the Muslim Umma the world over of the preponderant Muslim-baiting population of Indian Hindus baying for the blood of an innocent Muslim Youth. No one can grudge Geelani his bit; he has lived and survived to be Pakistan’s prosperous clapper boy in India. It’s another matter though that the hands of his Pakistani master’s are full even otherwise now.
What with a general election round the corner, the Supreme Court of the country will still be hoping to put a spoke in the electoral wheel, the Army must be working overtime not to allow any slip to occur between the American lip, the Afghan cup and the saucer which General Kayani is carefully hanging on to just below their chins. On the sidelines – not quite out of the picture yet – is the Muslim monk from Canada who some weeks ago threatened to takeover Islamabad at the head of a “March of a million” to the Pakistani capital. (In the event only a few thousand materalised for his rally although he did lay siege to the splendorous court outside the Aiwan-e-Sadr and the Pakistan National Assembly)
I heard the other day the young and erudite Head of Department of history of Lahore’s famed Foreman Christian College telling a group of Jamia Milia Islamia alumni and senior students that the Canadian Mullah’s sole interest was to somehow have the Pakistan elections postponed. He enumerated some sub sections of the country’s electoral law but appeared sanguine that Pakistan would perhaps be successful in holding a free and fair general election by the due date.
He was also careful to note that the Zardari government will have been the first civilian government to have completed its five year term in office. He was very wary though of the Army taking recourse to the machinations made familiar by Gen. Ziaul Haq, one of the most prominent of the country’s military dictators and one who had the duly elected leader of the country and Zardari’s father-in-law, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hanged.
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