Fighting elections a change of strategy, not ideology
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In December, I had laid out some basic realities that the resistance leadership must contemplate. For 20 years, the people of Kashmir have rendered exemplary sacrifices and supported every call and programme of the resistance leadership. The people have gone above and beyond what was ever imaginable in their stamina and faith reposed in the leadership. In 2009, the people of Kashmir have signalled that they desire progress and expect the leadership to give up any delusions of grandeur, the peddling of failed methods or escapism, and most of all, to avoid tendencies towards defeatism or blaming of the Kashmiri public. I had shared my view that leadership is out of sync with needs of the present moment. That after 20 years it is time for us all to unglue ourselves from the political prescriptions and methods that were doled out in 1989, that these failed to address the unique....
More about Sajjad Lone
Sajjad Lone is the poster-boy of Kashmiri nationalism who would plead the case of “Kashmir cause” during the Amarnath agitation in television debates. A good orator, Sajjad divorced separatism and took a plunge into the electoral politics recently. If he wins a triangular contest from Baramulla, he will get a ticket to Parliament. In his words, he will then represent Kashmir in New Delhi rather than New Delhi in Kashmir. London School of Economics alumnus, Sajjad is the younger son of assassinated Abdul Gani Lone, founder of the People's Conference and a faction that went on to merge with the Hurriyat Conference. A minister in J-K government, A G Lone switched side in 1990, to join the separatist movement but his son, Sajjad chose to go in the opposite direction - moved from being a prominent separatist to join mainstream. Sajjad's brother, Bilal Lone, is an important leader of the moderate Hurriyat grouping while his estranged sister contested unsuccessfully the Assembly polls last year from Kupwara, a place considered a stronghold of the Lone family.Recent Posts
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