Mustafa to Geelani: Who were those million mourners in Sheikh Abdullah’s funeral?

‘History will decide who was the hero and who was the villain’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 8: War of words between the Hurriyat hawk, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and the National Conference founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s descendants has refused to die down. Sheikh’s son, Dr Mustafa Kamal, today surfaced with a counter-offensive on Geelani and asserted that the man known as Sher-e-Kashmir for 50 years had lived and died as a hero for millions of the Kashmiris. In his statement on Monday, Geelani had berated Sheikh Abdullah, his dynasty and political party as “traitors and backstabbers of the Kashmiris”.

Two-times Minister and currently NC’s MLA from Hazratbal, Dr Mustaf Kamal claimed in his statement that his father and the NC founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had all through his life lived and died as a hero of the people of Jammu & Kashmir. Sheikh, according to him, commanded respect and charismatic influence among the Kashmiris and his popularity could well be measured by the size of his funeral procession in September 1982. 

Dr Kamal pointed out that even after resuming power under Indira-Abdullah Accord of 1975, NC under Sheikh’s leadership swept the polls and secured two-third majority in 1977 Assembly elections. He said that when Sheikh died after ruling the state for seven years, over a million “wailing and chest beating mourners” participated in his 5-kilometer-long funeral procession and the entire world watched it. Had the Kashmiris rejected Indira-Abdullah Accord, treated Sheikh and NC as traitors and had Sheikh been a cruel ruler---as Geelani had claimed---entire Valley would not have mourned his death and given him a hero’s send-off.

Assailing Geelani and Jamaat-e-Islami on their diatribe against Sheikh, Dr Kamal asked them if they were for Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan and Azadi, what had compelled them to participate in the Assembly elections of 1972, 1977, 1983 and 1987. Geelani’s Jamaat had bagged just one to five seats in these elections. Kamal dismissed Geelani’s criticism of Sheikh as an utterance in frustration. He said that Geelani and his Jamaat had ended up as non-entities before Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference.

“History alone will decide as to who was the Kashmiris’ hero and who was the villain”, Kamal said, suggesting implicitly that the separatist leaders had done disservice to the Kashmiris by leading a bloody movement of J&K’s separation from India.

Even as none in the ruling NC showed spine to contest Geelani’s anti-Sheikh and anti-NC assertions for five months of street turbulence in the Valley, Sheikh’s sons, Farooq Abdullah and Mustafa Kamal, have now begun to take on the separatist icon in an aggressive manner. Most of the party’s leaders, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his Cabinet colleagues and legislators, are however still tightlipped on the diatribe from separatists.

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