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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 33, Dated 18 Aug 2012 |
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Omar taps into youth power on campus
The ruling NC is making forays into student politics to wean away the youth from separatist outfits, reports Riyaz Wani
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Leap of faith Omar Abdullah with NC’s new student leaders |
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A RULING PARTY launching its own student outfit is a normal political activity anywhere else. Not so in Kashmir, where the youth in the Valley have been at the vanguard of the separatist movement over the past two decades and have remained hostile to mainstream politics.
The process began when the National Conference (NC) working president and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah held a meeting with student leaders from the Kashmir University and the Islamic University at his residence on 26 July. At the end of the meeting the office-bearers, who included two female students, were garlanded and their photograph with Omar was circulated to the media.
“Students activism is the need of the hour and I see an incredible enthusiasm in the students,” Omar said as he announced the formation of a new student’s union. “We hope to create a huge number of young people who can present their own views with conviction and at the same time contribute to the socio-political dynamics in an environment of mutual respect and tolerance”.
The move is an ambitious bid to wean student community away from the pull of separatist politics. In doing so, the party has squared up against the history of the state where the drift and tenor of student activism has been anti-India. Between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies student groups stood for Kashmir’s liberation from India. Student politics was discouraged after Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi signed the 1975-accord, which paved the way for Sheikh’s return to mainstream. Sheikh led the campaign for right to self-determination for 23 years after his summary dismissal as state’s first prime minister in 1953. Student politics was banned in the state in the eighties following student-unions’ involvement in violent seperatist movements.
Will the NC union reverse this history? “We hope so. We are still testing the waters. But the response so far has been overwhelming. The idea has resonated among the student community,” says an NC leader.
However, by announcing a students union, the NC may have already set off a race for a toe-hold in the student community among its political rivals. The People’s Democratic Party is preparing to float its own union. “We are getting a tremendous response. We hope to launch one in near future,” says PDP spokesman Naeem Akhter.
Formerly separatist People’s Conference, which reverted to the state’s political mainstream in 2008 polls, has also floated a students union. It is called the People’s Conference Student Union. Led by Sajad Gani Lone, the party was the first to launch its students wing in April.
The Congress, the only national party with major electoral presence in the Valley, has similarly been engaged in recruitment in the Valley’s universities and colleges. It started with Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the state in September last. Gandhi went to Kashmir University “to forge a bond with the youth”. Ever since, the university has been witness to the intermittent forays by Congress activists distributing membership forms among the students.
But the NC’s students union has precipitated a change that had appeared uncertain and tentative. With a number of students willing to publicly work for the party, Kashmir suddenly appears a different place. In a state where every new generation over the past 60 years has started out with being a separatist, this is a potential point of inflection. If mainstream student activism does succeed in taking off, it is likely to change Kashmir in unpredictable ways.
Riyaz Wani is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka.
riyaz@tehelka.com
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