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He Goes in the Name of Peace
Young, modern and pragmatic, Islamic leader OMAR FAROOQ is Kashmir's last and greatest hope
By ALEX PERRY
To his enemies, he's a traitorous separatist. To his Kashmiri allies, he's an upstart. To his people, he is simply the bearer of hope. But almost everyone makes the same grim prediction about 29-year-old Omar Farooq: one day, his straight talking is going to get him killed. Consider the constituencies that Farooq, Kashmir's top Muslim leader, has a habit of offending. Indian security forces: "Killers and looters with a license." Pakistani militant groups: "Virtual thieves, using the Kashmir conflict to solicit funds, of which almost nothing is passed to the people." Fundamentalist Muslims: "I don't see a balance between Islam and modernization anywhere." Farooq can utter such truths because he is beholden to no one except his God and his people. "You've got to worry about him," says a Western diplomat in New Delhi. "Every time we meet, I'm just a little relieved he's still there."
Farooq never wanted to be there in the first place. As a 17-year-old with a passion for computers, his father Mohammed's work as the mirwaiz—high priest of Kashmir and a figurehead for the nascent Muslim rebellion against India—held no interest. He remembers how on a clear morning in May 1990, he went to see his father in his office in the mirwaiz's palace in Srinagar, only to turn away when he heard the familiar sound of heated religious discussion behind the door. Then, shots rang out. Five ... six ... seven, loud as cannons, spaced and deliberate. Farooq, his mother, sisters and the servants ran to the outhouse. "He was lying down," says Farooq. "There was blood, there were wounds ... The doctors did their best, but ... " The funeral drew 400,000 people. "They were coming to me and saying, 'Are you ready to take over?'" Grief-stricken and suddenly facing an inheritance he barely understood and which appealed even less, Farooq followed his father's body to the mosque. The enraged crowd clashed repeatedly with Indian security forces. Farooq says the Indians shot dead 65 mourners. "But even as they were hit and fell, new ones appeared. Nobody let my father's body drop." Farooq had never seen such devotion. A few days later, ignoring his distraught mother's pleas, he hesitantly accepted his birthright as the 15th mirwaiz.
That was 12 years ago, when Kashmir's Muslim insurgency was just five months old. Today, Farooq is a plain-speaking preacher trying to win a war without firing a gun. From the start, he has used the moral authority of his ancient office to display a thoroughly modern pragmatism in the search for a solution. In 1993, Farooq united 23 separatist and militant groups in the Hurriyat Conference, which he has led into negotiations with India, Pakistan and diplomats all over the world. "Some people say we must join with Pakistan, others that we must have independence," he says. "I'm not going to set any target that another side can dismiss outright. I will go for any solution that restores the dignity of the people of Kashmir." Youth, instead of inexperience and immaturity, has given him energy. Crucially it also gave him a flexibility that contrasts well with the tired intransigence and blood-feud intrigues endemic to Kashmir. Diplomats and militants alike have found themselves able to accept his no-nonsense attitude, backed by his unquestioned credentials as the true voice of Kashmir.
Frank as ever, Farooq admits he wasn't always happy with his ordained position as a man of peace. As he grew into adulthood, Farooq watched the rebellion turn into one of the world's bloodiest. "I'd visit houses where a child had been killed by the Indians or where the father had died in custody and I'd think, 'Why not pick up the gun? Why not fight? I could form the biggest army in Kashmir.'" That Omar Farooq did not—when he could have—is why there is still hope for Kashmir.
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