Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) is called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) by India while we refer to its elder brother, the state of Jammu and Kashmir across the border, as Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). While the brutal assassination of thousands of Indian paramilitary forces has left little doubt about the “occupied” status of that state, what are we to make of the farcical occupation of AJK’s parliament by Islamabad-backed Sardar Abdul Quyyum and his cohorts?
If there is any doubt about the “esteem” (more properly, a lack of it) in which “Pakistan” is held in Muzaffarabad these days, a quick reading of our first-hand report on page 3 will reveal the extent of disillusionment and despair with “Pakistan”. Not so long ago, a visitor to Azad Kashmir from Lahore had simply to say he was from “Lahore”. Rarely “Punjab”. Now, when you say it, they are more likely to respond with a stinging correction: “Pakistan”.
It is a long and sad story. How Islamabad progressively mocked the “Azad” status of the Kashmir on this side of the cease-fire line. How its elections were rigged by successive generations of Pakistani politicians, bureaucrats, policemen and generals. How it has remained a backwater in the development strategies of Pakistani planners and economists. And how, recently, conspiracies hatched in Islamabad have all but destroyed the Kashmiris’ aspirations to take charge of their lives and make them more free and meaningful.
But it takes two hands to clap. If General Zia and his successors could manipulate the politics of Muzaffarabad to further their dubious ambitions, then Sardar Abdul Quyyum, a Kashmiri to boot, who happily partook of their delusions, must also share the blame. The Sardar’s politics has been flawed from the outset. He has always been on the “right side” of every regime in Islamabad and he couldn’t care two hoots about his peoples’ enduring aspirations for democracy, participation and representative government.
Along comes Mr Mumtaz Husain Rathore, a man who likes to boast that he stands tall among his many followers. Nudged into power in Muzaffarabad by the same wave of emotions and longings which swept Benazir Bhutto into Islamabad, Mr Rathore couldn’t weather the conspiratorial storm which knocked Ms Bhutto out last August. He appears to have fallen victim to the same self-destructive drive for personal aggrandisement and opportunism which has been the undoing of so many politicians in the past.
When Mr Rathore dissolved the AJK assembly, to all intents and purposes he did not consult with the leaders of the Peoples Party. Instead, it now looks that he did a sly deal with the establishment in Rawalpindi whereby he agreed to become “their man” in Muzaffarabad and share power with Sardar Abdul Quyyum. In return, he was offered the prospects of a free and fair election to consolidate his position.
Of course, it didn’t work out as he had planned. Compared to an untrustworthy maverick like Mr Rathore, Sardar Abdul Quyyum’s stolid credentials carry immeasurable weight in Rawalpindi. The elections were suitably rigged and Mr Rathore is now out in the cold. He is distanced from Ms Bhutto and at loggerheads with his erstwhile friends in the Pakistani establishment.
It was a bad game-plan, doomed to fail. Anyone could have told Mr Rathore, if he had cared to listen, that his PPP tag would never really be acceptable to those who are hostile to the legacies of ZA Bhutto. His best bet would have been to trudge on heroically, nurse his integrity, and sit it out of his government had fallen through a vote of no-confidence engineered via horse-trading and threats. At least, that way, he would have retained the undiluted sympathies of the Kashmiri people who would have known where to point an accusing finger for the loss of their enfranchisement. Truth will out, as they say, and in time Mr Rathore could have returned as a conquering hero.
Instead, he hastened his departure by thinking he could manipulate those who have no patience with democracy and fair elections, let alone PPP smartalecks like Mr Rathore. The deed is done. All hi histrionics will not bail him out now.
As for Pakistan’s Mian Nawaz Sharif who has determined to hog the show, it seems he has learnt no lessons at all from the fate of his predecessors. The recent electoral fiasco in AJK is only marginally less provocative and damaging to institutional politics than the one last August or the new laws and amendment which were rammed through parliament some days ago.
Mian Sahib has ousted Mr Rathore through the devices of hidden masters. A gang of politicians is urging these very masters to give the Mian a quick dose of his own medicine. Everyone should pause to reconsider. They have all relied for too long on masters, not friends. In the end, all the chickens come home to roost. And it is friends, not masters, who matter.