Jammu and Kashmir’s pro-Pakistan extremist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani routinely deploys coercion as an instrument of his politics. He forces Valley residents to suffer strikes, shutdowns, and of late “protest calendars” — under which people are exhorted to attend to work through the night and engage in anti-state actions in the daytime — that he dictates at his whim. The populace has no option but to cower and obey. After all, alone among Kashmiri politicians, Mr Geelani is not controlled by the gun; he controls it, given his long-standing ideological affinity with important Pakistani groups that have terrorist outfits at their beck and call. This is not to say that the octogenarian leader exhorts terrorists to go for the kill. But Kashmir watchers, both in India and in Pakistan, vouchsafe the strong influence that the Tehrik-e-Hurriyat leader has on the Hizbul Mujahideen, whose key personnel reside in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Indeed, if this former pillar of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Kashmir did not exert the elder statesman-like influence on an outfit like the HM, it is more than likely that he will be as toothless as his colleagues in the camp of the so-called moderate Hurriyat. In short, Mr Geelani is a feared quantity. However, it cannot be stressed enough that as a citizen of democratic India he enjoys the right under our Constitution to speak his mind without ambiguity on political and ideological matters and demand azadi, as he did in New Delhi recently to the consternation of the BJP and elements of the displaced Kashmiri pandit community who sought to disturb the meeting. If we do not give the likes of Mr Geelani every assurance that he may speak as he pleases (observing reasonable restraints that every democracy imposes), we will be a pale imitation of Pakistan under military rule or military-guided rule, which is pretty much the same thing in the eyes of the world.
Nevertheless, even as we stand up for the right of free speech of Kashmir’s most important pro-Pakistan leader, we should not be remiss about reminding the Tehrik-e-Hurriyat supremo that he did not stand up to give any solace to the minority pandits in the early 1990s as they were virtually hounded out of their hearths and homes in the atmosphere of communal terror that prevailed in the Valley at the time, leave alone stand up for their right to say what they might have had on their minds. Does Mr Geelani presume too much? Ideologically, yes. He despises India. He disdains Indian citizenship, which he regards as a burden, and yet thought nothing of drawing the pension that is due to legislators. However, the political answer to the question can only be a clear “no”. The BJP’s demand to try Mr Geelani for “sedition” is clearly misconceived and dangerous. The party should be aware that if a pro-Pakistan leader making a speech can be booked for sedition, so can a person calling for a “Hindu rashtra” or the overthrow of the state to usher in a “people’s revolution”, no matter how defined. Talking is more or less free in a free country. Restrictions and criminal cases are apt to follow if words that have been uttered cause violent projects to be undertaken, openly or clandestinely. In that sense, Mr Geelani’s exertions in New Delhi were relatively harmless, and he was well within his rights. Can the Islamist state of his conception give its opponents equivalent rights is worth pondering about. But that is a separate discussion. A democracy must never seek to compare itself with actions in a misogynist realm. That should be an answer to Mr Geelani and those who would rather have him tried.