Should Geelani attend the India Today Conclave?

Ahmad Kashmiri

India Today Group is organizing first of its kind a seminar on Kashmir entitled “Kashmir- what next?”, which is a part of two-day high profile India Today Conclave themed ‘The Changing Balance of Power’ scheduled to begin from March 18 in New Delhi. The organizers have invited the   veteran profreedom leader and Hurriat (G) Chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani as the prime speaker on the subject. Geelani however has rejected the invitation for the reason that the stake holders of the seminar included Indian state officials with whom he can’t share any stage as per his constitutional stand. However  on knowing that the veteran leader has declined the invitation  the organizers resent the invitation insisting Geelani to reconsider his decision for that the organization was holding the seminar on its own independently. Some local newspapers on March 10 here in Kashmir reported that Hurriat G was thinking to reconsider its decision of refusal and there were pressures from civil society quarters insisting Geelani that he should attend the seminar.

Indeed, one should not jump over conclusions while dealing with such developments. The out  of the seminar can not be predicted as one could try to reach the conclusions whether it was an embedded patriotic move on behalf of the organizers towards their country or it was a sincere effort towards debating the Kashmir dispute. On the other hand the corporate media has taken the control of the world and it works like a machine that manufacturers opinions. Yvonne Ridley in one of her recent articles written on Tunisian Revolution at the very outset of her article lamented, “The Western media has been somewhat caught out by the rapid demise of one of the most brutal dictators in the world”. Thus corporate media can make or malign the image of any person, though temporarily.

 Whether the effort of India Today is sincere or not can be analyzed by various tools and parameters. The organizational policy being the primary one. The past and the present belief and perspective of the organization towards Kashmir must be analyzed. In turbulent times of Kashmir the coverage given to events by the magazine and the editorials thereof can be helpful in this regard.

 On the other hand the proceedings of the scheduled program too are to be taken into consideration that who are the main speakers and who is speaking first and who is concluding and the audience etc are such tools to analyze the intentions.

Infact, this is dilemmatic situation wherein it is difficult to decide what to do. On one hand it is a better chance to make aware the Indian civil society about the Kashmir situation and on the other hand it will fulfill the principle of unity of command wherein atleast a high repute Indian organization is recognizing Syed Ali Shah Geelani as the representative of the true aspirations of kashmiris.

The   contents and the texture of the invitation letter, as carried by newspapers, depict that the effort is most probably sincere but the apprehension of mistrust is that RSS Chief, Mohan Bhagwat too is an at par speaker on the issue. Had it been some expert as the at par speaker then it would have been palatable.

 Debates and seminars on Kashmir issue do happen world over throughout the calendar but the significance of this seminar would be synergistic in result orientation as it is being organized in India that too by India Today.  But at the same time   we all remember the episode of the veteran Islamic scholar, international orator Dr Zakir Naik with NDTV sometime back which should not be ignored, Dr Naik who is himself a media Mogul and owns the world famous Peace TV, was cocooned because the protocol of that program was in such a way designed that Dr Naik could not make his point at all.

 Thus before taking the final decision all pros and cons need to be assessed in advance.

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AHMAD KASHMIRI