Asia Times - Kashmir: A Shi'ite voice in the wilderness

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cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="10"> </td> <td width="407" align="left" valign="top"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td><font class="subhead"><strong class="head"> South Asia </strong></font> </td> </tr> </table> <br> <table width="392" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" width="392"><font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#000000" size="3"><strong>Kashmir: A Shi'ite voice in the wilderness</strong></font> <br>By Sudha Ramachandran <br><br>BANGALORE - For the first time in the 10-year history of the Hurriyat Conference, a Shi'ite has been elected as its chairperson. Maulvi Abbas Ansari, a cleric, is the fourth chairperson of the Hurriyat, an umbrella grouping of 23 Kashmir separatist organizations. Ansari heads the Ittehadul Muslimeen, a Shi'ite constituent of the Hurriyat. <br><br>The election of Ansari is seen as a boost for the moderates in the faction-ridden Hurriyat. The outgoing chairperson, Abdul Gani Bhat, said that Ansari's election symbolized not only the political but also the sectarian unity of Kashmiri people. <br><br>There is little political or sectarian unity in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). While the broad regional divide - Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh - and the religious divide between Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists in J&K has been commented on, little attention has been paid to the sectarian divide. Analysts, and especially the media, have tended to view perceptions of each religious community as largely homogenous. As a result, the sharp differences that exist within each religious community have been ignored. <br><br>Muslims constitute 95 percent of the population in the Kashmir Valley, 30 percent of Jammu and 46 percent of Ladakh. However, they do not speak with one voice. The Shi'ite-Sunni divide, while not as deep and bloody as it is in neighboring Pakistan, exists. Tensions simmer beneath the surface. The fissures have erupted in the open on several occasions and have the potential of exploding seriously in the future. <br><br>Around 13 percent of the Muslim population in the Valley is Shi'ite. In J&K's summer capital, Srinagar, Shi'ites - as do other minority communities - prefer to live in clusters, resulting in almost exclusive Shi'ite neighborhoods in the city. <br><br>There is little love lost between Shi'ites and Sunnis. Several Sunnis, even those who otherwise seem liberal, refuse to eat food cooked in a Shi'ite home. The antagonism between the two seems, strangely, far more serious than the Muslim-Pandit enmity. The Shi'ites, otherwise more conservative, especially with regard to the treatment of their women, are opposed to attempts by Sunni militant groups to impose the <i>burqa</i> (a full veil) on women. Shi'ites complain that after Friday prayers in the mosque, Sunni boys throw stones at their houses. Shi'ite-Sunni trouble in Iraq reverberates in Srinagar. <br><br>The onset of the militancy in J&K heightened feelings of vulnerability among the Shi'ites. The militants' targeting and massacre of minorities, first of the Pandits and then the Sikhs, added to their fears. There is widespread fear among Shi'ites that the militants could target them next. <br><br>Shi'ite feelings of vulnerability mounted dramatically in 2000. A few months after militants massacred Sikhs at Chattisingpora, the Shi'ites were targeted too. In June 2000, a landmine blast killed 12 Shi'ites and wounded 20. The blast took place at a congregation of Shi'ites in the town of Pattan. While the main target of that attack might have been the former minister for housing, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, who was present at the congregation, several in the community feared that the community was being targeted. The Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack. <br><br>In November that year, Aga Syed Mehdi, son of Aga Syed Mustafa, the most prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric in Kashmir, was killed along with five others in a landmine blast. Mehdi was the first Shi'ite political leader to be killed in the decade-long militancy. His death was attributed to his pro-India leanings - he was a member of the Congress party. His death led to the Shi'ite community staging angry protest marches. "Kafiran patt rafizan laar" (After the exodus of infidels, it is the turn of Shi'ites) is a fear that many Shi'ites talk about to date. <br><br>Many of these fears have to do with the fact that most of the militants have been indoctrinated and trained in Pakistan - where Shi'ites are discriminated against by the state and its machinery, as well as by Sunni extremist groups. Reports of sectarian killings in Pakistan have deepened Shi'ite suspicions of Pakistan and of the militants it has armed and trained. Furthermore, there are the <i>mehmaan</i> mujahideen (foreign militants), who have been trained in Afghanistan and carry with them the ideological indoctrination of the Taliban. <br><br>Most of the militant groups operating in J&K are Sunni Muslim. The Shi'ites say that they are opposed to the militancy and had stayed away from the uprising in 1989. Under pressure from Sunni militants, the Shi'ite youth decided to take up arms. A few Shi'ite militant groups were formed, but these, says an eminent Shi'ite based in Srinagar, were "to protect the community from being labeled as 'pro-India' and to show the Sunnis that the Shi'ites too were with them on the separatist cause". <br><br>According to <i>Jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir: A Portrait Gallery</i> by K Santhanam and others (New Delhi: Sage and IDSA, 2003), the attacks in the early 1990s by Sunni militant groups on the Shi'ites led to the formation of the militant group Pasban-e-Islam for "self protection" of the Shi'ites. In 1992, it was renamed the Hizbul Momineen. <br><br>Surrendered militants of the Hizbul Momineen told this correspondent in 2000 that the group seemed more concerned with negotiating protection arrangements and alliances with Sunni militant groups than with fighting the Indian forces. However, none of these arrangements ever lasted as the suspicions of each other's motives ran deep. "The Sunnis were wary of our loyalties; they feared we were working with the Indian Intelligence. And we felt it was a matter of time before they turned on us," recalled a former area commander of the Hizbul Momineen. <br><br>Indeed, the dominant sentiment among the Shi'ites is pro-India. The possibility of J&K joining Pakistan fills them with dread. The option of <i>azadi</i> (freedom) from both India and Pakistan, while favored by many in the Valley, is not something to which the Shi'ites aspire. An independent Kashmir, they fear, will leave them at the mercy of the dominant Sunnis. <br><br>Incidentally, the militancy did not take root in Muslim-dominated Kargil. Kargil is predominantly Shi'ite. Pakistan's attempts at inciting the people of Kargil against India and calls for Islamic brotherhood have failed to strike a chord here. As among the Shi'ites in the Valley, those in Kargil see Pakistan as their bigger enemy, notwithstanding the bond of Islam. <br><br>The misfortune of the Kashmiri Shi'ites is that they are not trusted either by the Sunnis or by the Indian security forces. While the security forces do turn to them to some extent for local intelligence input, they are wary that the lure of Pakistani funds has influenced the youth of the community. The Shi'ites resent the fact that despite their loyalty to India, they are not provided special protection from the militants, as are the Pandits, for instance. <br><br>Ansari's election as the leader of the Hurriyat has not had much impact on the community. The pro-Pakistan orientation of the Hurriyat has brought it little support from the Shi'ites. Ansari has little support in his community. His participation in the Hurriyat is seen by most Shi'ites as a sell-out of their interests. His election per se is unlikely to contribute to sectarian unity in Kashmir. <br><br>However, should Ansari get the Hurriyat to engage in talks with India and make the organization shake off its image as a mouthpiece of Pakistan, he might succeed in drawing Shi'ite interest in the Hurriyat. That, however, seems a tall order. <br><br>(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. 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