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| Kashmir prefers Dulat's memoir over Geelani's Masala | | Wular Kinaray' revelations mock at Hurriyat reunion | | Early Times Report
srinagar, July 13: If the choice of readers is any indicator than firebrand separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani on whose call entire Kashmir would come to a halt is no longer peoples' darling. While people have by and large ignored the third volume of his memoir Wular Kinaray (On the Banks of the Wular), former RAW chief Amarjit Singh Dulat's account on Kashmir titled Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years is selling like hot cakes.
Though released two months ago, Geelani's Waular Kinaray received little attention from readers and media alike. This is despite the fact that this book too contains important revelations on Kashmir politics and its Pakistan connection.
"Nobody is ready to listen to or read stuff pertaining to separastists anymore… Infact, all these people stand exposed," said a student of Kashmir University.
A bookseller said he avoids keeping books authored by separatists as "it has no takers." "But yes if you talk of book by Dulat it has been a big hit," said the bookseller.
For now Srinagar-based newspapers have started writing articles on why Geelani's book couldn't impress people or to say why it failed. All this is putting the separatists to embarrassing situation.
This is despite the fact that Geelani's book even talks about Pakistan's complex connection with the author and other separatists. The separatist leader has even highlighted his bitter relations with the then Pakistan President Parvaiz Musharraf.
"An interesting and important aspect which the book covers is the Vajpayee years. It had seemed then that peace talks between General Parvez Musharraf and Atal Bihari Vajpayee would offer the possibility of an 'out-of-the-box' solution for Kashmir. Geelani had doggedly opposed this as he felt that any outcome arising from such interactions would be a climbdown from the demand for the implementation of the United Nations Resolutions in the state," commented a journalist in his write up.
In an apparent bid to win hearts of people, Geelani has highlighted crucial events which took place at the time such as Musharraf's 2005 visit to India in which he had tried to persuade Geelani to support his four-point proposal for the Kashmir settlement. Geelani says he bluntly refused to this, forcing the General thereafter to turn his back on the pro-Pakistan leader.
While no such "Masala" revelations have impressed the readers, the book mocks at the growing bonhomie between the rival factions of the separatists particularly Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
In the book, Geelani criticises Mirwaiz for falling in line with Musharraf's policy and supporting his proposals on Kashmir including the four point agenda.
Taking a dig at other separstist leaders Geelani quotes his slain Hurriyat colleague Abdul Gani Lone -father of Sajjad Gani Lone - telling the Hurriyat constituents that he was not bothered "where they went and whom they met at night as long as they were with the Hurriyat at daytime". "This gave freedom to everybody. Our members could now maintain behind the- scenes contacts and it wasn't supposed to matter to us," Geelani laments.
He also writes that his colleagues in the then undivided Hurriyat did not want to see him to take over as the chairman in 1998.
But separatists seem to be aware of losing popularity among people of Kashmir. Observers say why they avoided to give a strike call for July 13 Martyrs Day commemoration in Kashmir. |
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