Author:
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: December 26, 2000
PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's
attempt to placate his Sangh Parivar leaders with his pro-Ram Mandir statements
has adversely affected his own Kashmir peace exercise as his admirer Syed
Ahmed Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid of Delhi, has turned hostile
and refused to be any longer an interlocutor between the government and
the Kashmiri militant leaders.
The Shahi Imam has even threatened
to approach the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) to slap economic
sanctions on India and stop all economic dealings. He issued the threat
during the Friday prayers at the Jama Masjid here last week.
The government was carrying on an
informal type of dialogue with the militant leaders through Bukhari and
two other government officials as the interlocutors or mediators but Bukhari
has now notified the Prime Minister's Office that he is no longer available
for the task. He says Vajpayee's 'friendly attitude' towards the Hindu
fundamentalists trying to build the temple at the demolished Babri Mosque-site
in- Ayodhya has forced him to withdraw from the task he had recently undertaken
to bring the Kashmir ultras to the negotiating table.
"What am I to gain by operating
as an interlocutor between the Hurriyat leaders and the Centre when deliberate
attempts are being made to grievously hurt the Muslim sentiment by way
of open encouragement from government circles to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
and its allies on the issue of raisin a temple on the site where the Babri
Masjid originally stood", the Shahi Imam angrily asked.
He certainly reckons -with the fact
that 'all-out efforts' are required to end the Kashmir crisis, but all
the same he has expressed to the PMO his inability to continue his job
as one of the interlocutors in case of Kashmir. "I have been compelled
to concentrate my attention and energy on the situation triggered by the
Prime Minister himself - the situation arising from his pro-mandir stance.
I cannot be expected to ignore this and continue to go about as a trouble-shooter
in cage of Kashmir crisis.'
The Shahi Imam reiterated his warning
in an interview: 'If an attempt is made to raise a temple at the site where
the Babri Masjid originally stood, I will make an appeal from the platform
of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) to impose hard sanctions
against the Vajpayee government. I will be forced to tell the OIC that
the foreign exchange which they are handing over to the Government of India
is being used against the Muslims residing in India." He happens to be
the same Shahi Imam who used to go ga-ga with everything Vajpayee was doing
until recently.
The Shahi Imam's yet another warning:
"Construction of the temple at the site of Babri Masjid will prove to be
the last nail in the coffin of communal harmony and the unity of the country.
Indian Muslims should not be expected to watch the situation as silent
spectators; they will oppose this tooth and nail."
There are reports that he has been,
in the past some days, contacted by the Delhi-based diplomats of some Muslim
countries. What has actually transpired between him and the diplomats is
not known. All that the Shahi Imam hag decided to dish out at this stage
is: "If the Vajpayee government allows construction of the mandir at Ayodhya,
we will recommend to the entire Arab world, through the Organisation of
Islamic countries, to impose economic sanctions against it and cancel all
their economic ties with India".
If Shahi Imam had, before the eruption
of the controversy over the Ayodhya issue, made use of such expressions
as to facilitate his task of cultivating a set of the Kashmir Hurriyat
leaders in support of talks with New Delhi, he had now chosen to hold his
stick from a different end. Doubts, if any in this regard, were set at
rest by the Shahi Imam himself when he said: 'If the Centre was honest
about its efforts to restore peace in the region, it should agree to an
independent probe into the atrocities in Kashmir during the past 11 years
and release Kashmiri youth in jails."
Equally loaded was the point he
made that the peace in Kashmir is not possible without the support of the
Muslims of the rest of the country. This point was not on the agenda of
the Shahi Imam when he undertook the role of an interlocutor between the
Hurriyat Conference and the government.
