Ahmed Ali Fayyaz/Srinagar

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently declared the Kashmiri separatist organization Tehreek-e-Hurriyat J&K (TeH) as an “unlawful association” under different provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act with immediate effect for 5 years.

According to a dossier, TeH has been continuously involved in “fomenting terrorism and anti-India propaganda for fuelling the secessionist activities” with its objective to “separate Jammu and Kashmir from India and establish Islamic rule”. Its members have been allegedly involved in “raising funds through various sources including Pakistan and its proxy organizations for perpetrating unlawful activities, including supporting terrorist activities and sustained stone pelting on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir”.

TeH members have been inter alia “propagating false narrative and anti-national sentiments…with the intention to cause disaffection against India and disrupt public order”.

The MHA notification came in days of a similar ban on Masarat Alam’s Muslim League. The Centre has banned over a dozen constituents of the Mirwaiz and Geelani factions of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) since February 2019. In July 1993, when most of the separatist leaders were in jail, the insurgency’s handlers in Pakistan floated a larger amalgam of 33 religious, social, political, and militant outfits under the title of APHC after which TeH was merged into the APHC.

The APHC’s Executive Council comprised seven organizations—Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) represented by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Awami Action Committee (AAC) represented by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Peoples Conference (PC) represented by Abdul Gani Lone, Peoples League (PL) represented by Sheikh Abdul Aziz, Muslim Conference (MC) represented by Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, J&K Liberation Front (JKLF) represented by Yasin Malik and Ittihadul Muslimeen represented by Maulvi Abbas Ansari.

Mirwaiz, Geelani, Bhat, and Ansari functioned as Chairpersons for different terms of two years and they held control of the entire politico-militant establishment. Without any elections or democratic framework, the constituent representatives and Chairpersons were nominated by the Pakistani deep State.

While the seven-member Executive Council retained the power of decision-making, as many as 26 other groups, including Aga Syed Hassan-led Anjuman-e-Sharayee Shiaan, a federation of the J&K Government employees and the Srinagar-based High Court Bar Association, were inducted as members of the APHC ‘General Council’.

In the year 2003, the APHC split after the hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s rift with Lone over the latter’s fielding ‘proxy candidates in the 2002 election. Ghulam Mohiuddin Sofi was elected as an ‘independent’ MLA from Handwara in this election. He also became a minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led government.

Lone was assassinated on 21 May 2002 and his son Sajad Lone blamed Geelani and the ISI for it (and later retracted it under family pressure). Geelani sought the expulsion of Lone’s party from APHC.

However, others did not agree to it and Geelani split away and formed a separate faction of the APHC, known as Hurriyat (G).

Geelani’s pro-Pakistan group Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (T-e-H) was the main constituent of his Hurriyat (G).

TeH cadres were mostly from Jamat-e-Islami, of which Geelani was a member for 50 years.

Geelani led Hurriyat’s ‘hardliner and pro-Pakistan’ faction and Mirwaiz the ‘moderate’ faction. Both, however, struggled for “resolution of the Kashmir issue either as per the United Nations Security Council resolutions of 1948-49 or through tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and the real Kashmiri leadership”. 

They claimed that the democratically elected MLAs, MLCs and MPs were “Delhi’s puppets” and the separatists and the militants were the “real representatives”. They had no takers in the world of diplomacy.

The Hurriyat’s second remarkable setback came after 2008 when world diplomats stopped visiting the separatists in Kashmir and entertaining them in New Delhi over their refusal to participate in elections.

Finally, the situation changed completely after the Pulwama attack in February 2019 in which 44 CRPF men were martyred. Most of the separatists were either jailed or placed under house arrest, organizations like JKLF and JeI were also banned. 

Masarat Alam’s Muslim League and Geelani’s TeH are the latest entries in the list.

Both Masarat Alam and Geelani were sworn pro-Pakistan leaders. Masarat, who spearheaded the four-month street turbulence before his arrest in 2010, was released by the PDP-BJP Government soon after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took over as Chief Minister in March 2015. 

Within a month, Masarat revived stone pelting, insurgency, and pro-Pakistan demonstrations leading to his arrest again in 2015. 

In 2020, Geelani’s group also split - the Pakistan-controlled coterie withdrew support from Geelani’s PoK-based nominee Abdullah Gilani and appointed Ashraf Sehrai as Chairman of Hurriyat (G). 

The J&K Police quickly arrested Sehrai and lodged him in a Jammu jail where he died during the Covid-19 wave in 2021. Following Sehrai’s death on 5 May 2021, the coterie announced Masarat Alam as the new Chairman of Hurriyat (G). Geelani died on 1 September 2021 due to old age.

With Geelani and Sehrai dying in 2021 and Masarat in jail, the Muslim League, TeH, and Hurriyat (G) became defunct and leaderless in the last two years. In these circumstances, MHA’s ban on the Muslim League and TeH is a simple formality but also a loud and clear message to separatists that any involvement with insurgency and terrorism would be no longer tolerated.

Both Masarat's Muslim League and Geelani's TeH have been prominently at the forefront of all separatist demonstrations, stone pelting, and other mob attacks on security forces and public properties and sustaining a well-knit ecosystem for secessionism, insurgency, and terrorist narratives.

Nevertheless, some questions remain unanswered: People are asking why only a few select constituents have been banned and why both factions of the Hurriyat still exist as ‘lawful associations’ despite having identical agendas and activities.