Kashmiri Leadership

Kashmiri Leadership I have been thinking of the issue of Kashmir since its beginning. By the grace of God, the view I initially formed on this issue appears correct to me even today. I have never felt the need to change it. I have been writing about Kashmir since 1968. My first article was published in the Urdu Weekly, Al-Jamiat, the official organ of the Jamiat ul Ulema-i-Hind. I quote here from Al-Jamiat. “The time for receiving one’s rights is when the decision is in one’s own hands. But our leaders have realized this fact only when their case has become a moral one. I have read the speeches of the Kashmiri leader, Shaikh Abdullah, who is very bold and has made sacrifices which have earned him the title Sher-e-Kashmir. But his present Kashmiri campaign has nothing to do with reality. “In 1947 he was in a position—had he opted for a realistic policy—to make a decision on the issue of Kashmir according to his own will. But, owing to his unrealistic dreams, he let the moment of decision pass him by. Now, when the time for decision making has slipped from his hands, he is making a hue and cry. But now his clamour, a crying out for justice, on moral grounds, has no value in the world of today.” “Once a young man opened a shop. He had set foot in life’s struggle for the first time. He had no idea of the safeguards needed in life when you initiate such a task. So he used an ordinary lock for his shop. One day he returned from the shop looking very downcast. An