Wazeer-e-Azam Omar wants a Wazeeristaan in Kashmir

3 new universities: NC’s sinister plan to divide Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian lines

Early Times Report

JAMMU, Oct 17: In a bizarre antithesis to grandfather Sheikh Abdullah’s concept of Kashmiriyat---a plural society clean of all communal and sectarian conflicts---Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has floated a sinister plan of dividing the Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian lines even before winning greater autonomy for the Valley. The would-be Wazeer-e-Azam (Prime Minister) has sown the seeds of an extremely dangerous ideological conflict by way of pushing passage of three private members’ Bills in the state legislature last fortnight. One of the Bills seeks to establish a university to promote the Valley’s secular ethos, pluralism and non-violence but another Bill is aimed at creating a university for promotion of the Wahabi ideology that would straightaway lead to creation of a Wazeeristaan in Jammu & Kashmir.

Most of the legislators in National Conference (NC) insist that the state’s religious sensibilities are Greek to the greenhorn politician but quite a few of them believe that there was more than meets the eye in passing the three particular Bills in Legislative Assembly in a hush-hush manner in the concluding moments of the autumn session on October 9^th. Some of the seniormost leaders in Sheikh Abdullah’s party have been taken aback on the way Chief Minister clandestinely instructed his MLAs to particularly support a private member’s Bill with the purpose of establishing a religious university whose funds would flow in from the self-righteous, puritanical Wahabi school of thought in Saudi Arabia.

This school of thought completely negates the form of tolerant Islam that has been in practice in Kashmir valley since 14^th century when Rishi saint Sheikh-ul-Alam Sheikh Noor-ud-din Noorani and his mystic commune laid the foundation of Reshiwari. Wahabi school of thought does not tolerate spiritualism and faith in saints or shrines that have been the bedrock of Kashmir’s secular ethos, pluralism and religious tolerance for the last over 600 years now.

This is for the first time that someone in J&K Legislature has attempted to uproot the basis of Kashmiriyat by way of floating a Bill that has every potential of dividing the Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian lines and thus pave the wave for creation of a Wazeeristaan in the Valley in the next few years.

Interestingly, the Wahabi university Bill has not been piloted by any Syed Ali Shah Geelani but NC’s own Mir Saifullah and pushed forward by Minister incharge Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Ali Mohammad Sagar, who is known for his unflinching faith in the Valley’s Sufi saints and shrines. If the highly placed bureaucratic sources are to be believed, Chief Minister’s Political Advisor, Devender Singh Rana, played a key role in arranging meetings of the behind-the-scene promoters of the Wahabi university with his boss, particularly in the last two months.

“Some Central agencies have had the agenda of dividing the Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian lines. They seem to be keen to undercut Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen by promoting an ultra-extremist ideology. Why should National Conference (NC) be taken for this ride?”asked one of NC’s Members of Parliament. He observed that Sher-e-Kashmir’s Generation-3 successor had been ‘blindly’ dismantling his own party’s foundation from his day one in the hot seat. “J&K has already nine universities---three of them (Mata Veshnu Devi, Islamic University of Science & Technology and Baba Ghulam Shah Baadshah) with religious orientation. Even in the country, we have Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University and Guru Nanak Dev University. We have a system for that. But creating universities on sectarian basis is not acceptable”, he asserted.

More interestingly, land for J&K’s first university to be created with sectarian orientation had been allotted by none other than Congress party’s senior leader and then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Srinagar outskirts in 2007. Omar Abdullah has pushed the process farther by getting the legislation in Assembly through a private member’s Bill.

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