New Delhi: The Ministry of House Affairs (MHA) has declared two reasonable Hurriyat factions, Jammu and Kashmir Ittihadul Muslimeen (JKIM) and Awami Motion Committee (AAC), as “illegal associations” for 5 years beneath the Illegal Actions (Prevention) Act, 1967, in a serious crackdown on political and non secular outfits in J&Okay.
The ban got here when many had been wanting ahead to elevated engagements between the reasonable separatist voices in J&Okay and the Centre after Hurriyat Convention chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s newest political conferences in New Delhi.
Probably a key determine in reconciliatory dialogues, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq can also be the pinnacle of the Awami Motion Committee. One other Hurriyat Convention chairman and Shia cleric Mohammad Abbas Ansari leads Ittihadul Muslimeen.
Asserting the ban in an X submit Tuesday, Home Minister Amit Shah wrote that JKIM and AAC had been inciting individuals to disrupt legislation and order, placing “the unity and integrity of Bharat” in danger. “Anybody discovered concerned in actions towards the nation’s peace, order, and sovereignty is certain to face the crushing blow of the Modi govt,” he stated.
The MHA resolution, now dealing with sharp criticism from totally different political events and the civil society, has come amid the Centre’s normalisation claims since 2019, when it revoked J&Okay’s particular standing by way of the abrogation of Article 370 of the Structure.
The transfer follows the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP)-led Union authorities’s bans on Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Entrance, Muslim League, Democratic Freedom Social gathering and Dukhtaran-e-Millat in what now seems like a bigger crackdown on J&Okay’s separatist motion.
In its official notification, the MHA accused the AAC and JKIM members of “selling and aiding the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India by indulging in anti-national and subversive actions, corresponding to sowing seeds of discontent among the many individuals; inciting individuals to destabilise legislation and order; supporting terrorism and selling hatred towards the established authorities”.
Chatting with ThePrint, Kashmiri political scientist Noor Baba, nevertheless, described the ban as “a reversal of the sooner claims of improved freedoms in Kashmir”. “Banning even reasonable voices is just not attribute of a free and liberal society; it contradicts the very spirit of democracy,” he stated. Such bans, he added, is not going to assist convey reasonable forces into mainstream politics.
Chatting with reporters in Gulmarg, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stated the Centre had not knowledgeable the state authorities concerning the ban on AAC.
“I have no idea the premise of the ban. This isn’t beneath the purview of the elected authorities (in J&Okay), and the intelligence based mostly on which it has taken place has not been shared with us … On precept, we’ve by no means favoured such choices,” stated Abdullah.
The CM added that since Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s launch from home arrest, he had made no “objectionable” statements.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq condemned the ban on X, saying AAC “has unwaveringly stood by the individuals of J&Okay, advocating their aspirations and rights by means of fully non-violent and democratic strategies and calling for peaceable decision of the Kashmir battle by means of dialogue and deliberation, for which its members suffered jails and incarceration and even martyrdom.”
Calling the transfer part of the continuation of the coverage of “intimidation and disempowerment that’s being adopted vis-à-vis J&Okay since August 2019”, Mirwaiz Farooq additional wrote, “The voice of reality could also be suppressed by means of power however is not going to be silenced.”
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Reactions to the ban
Noor Baba stated Mirwaiz Farooq has, of late, been primarily specializing in social points, upholding the AAC’s conventional function.
“The Awami Motion Committee has traditionally been a reasonable outfit in Kashmir. It additionally has suffered for that moderation. Mirwaiz’s father, Moulvi Farooq, was assassinated exactly due to his balanced stance as a non secular and political determine in Kashmiri society.”
He stated the logic behind the ban “appears weak”, indicating the Centre’s “insecurity” in its capacity to normalise the local weather in J&Okay post-2019.
“If Kashmir is really turning into a part of the bigger Indian mainstream, why undermine, moderately than encourage, such organisations to have interaction within the political course of? This ban displays a deep-seated uncertainty concerning the precise scenario in Kashmir,” he stated.
Individuals’s Democratic Social gathering chief and Pulwama MLA Waheed Para instructed ThePrint that utilizing UAPA towards political organisations that search dialogue and reconciliation is “unjust”.
“Our battle is for house and ending silence. Publish-abrogation, Kashmiris misplaced their company, and makes an attempt are underway to silence us. We reject such bans, demand the proper to free speech, and name for the revocation of those restrictions,” he added.
Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti strongly condemned the ban, stating that suppressing dissent would solely deepen tensions moderately than resolve them.
“The J&Okay authorities should intervene to cease such actions. Democracy is about greater than elections—it’s about defending residents’ elementary rights,” she emphasised.
Whereas “silencing Kashmir’s voices could serve BJP’s political agenda, it undermines the very Structure that safeguards these rights,” she stated. “The central authorities should reassess its strategy and transfer away from heavy-handed techniques.”
In his on X submit, Nationwide Convention chief and Khanyar MLA Ali Mohammad Sagar opposed the ban, asserting that the Mirwaiz household has been a torch-bearer of peace and communal concord, serving to J&Okay retain its secular credentials.
“Such measures don’t convey any good to the scenario in J&Okay; GOI should comply with the trail of reconciliation moderately than alienation. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has all the time been a eager facilitator for peace; he and others like him have to be made stakeholders of peace moderately than victims of an Iron fist coverage,” he wrote additional.
Noor Baba, calling out one other ban the Centre has put in place, additional stated, “Even banning literature appears futile in fashionable occasions.”
The Union authorities has banned 668 books for allegedly selling the ideology of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) within the Kashmir Valley. Many of the books banned had been by Abul A’la Maududi, a outstanding Twentieth-century Islamic scholar and founding father of the banned JeI.
“Many of the restricted materials is obtainable on-line, and only some individuals in Kashmir had been even studying them. Those that have an interest can nonetheless entry them digitally. In actuality, such bans obtain little,” he stated.
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Background of JKIM & AAC
The ban curtails the political engagements of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, whose father, Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq, based the AAC. The organisation has been amongst Srinagar’s most influential political and non secular teams, historically opposing the Nationwide Convention.
AAC was based in 1964 on the peak of the ‘moi muqadas’ agitation over the disappearance of the Prophet’s relic from the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar. It rapidly become a powerful voice in Kashmir. Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq was assassinated in 1990 by terrorists, and his son, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, took over each the spiritual and political management of AAC on the age of 17.
In 1992, AAC turned a founding member of the Hurriyat Convention, a separatist alliance that sought a peaceable decision to the Kashmir dispute by means of dialogue.
Equally, JKIM, based by Ansari in 1962, has performed a big function in Shia politics in Kashmir. Ansari accomplished his research in Lucknow and Iraq’s Najaf and established JKIM to foster “unity amongst totally different sects of Muslims” in Jammu and Kashmir.
In 1987, JKIM turned half of a bigger political motion, resulting in the founding of the Muslim United Entrance, a coalition of socio-political and non secular teams that contested the 1987 Jammu and Kashmir meeting elections towards the Nationwide Convention-Congress alliance. Later, JKIM turned a founding member of the Hurriyat Convention in 1993.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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