*Srinagar* *–* Four boys, seated on empty nylon cement bags, battle for themost valuable point of carrom in a by-lane at Razaikadal area of oldSrinagar, the summer capital of India-administered Kashmir. The lane leadsto the area’s main road where Indian paramilitary troops, deployed in largenumbers, patrol the side streets.
Atthar Pandit, 20, kicks off the game with a strike that scatters white andblack pieces assembled in the centre of the carrom-board. Seconds later, hebreaks the silence.
“The carrom queen is like Kashmir. Isn’t that true? Aren’t we aiming at thequeen the way India and Pakistan are after Kashmir?” he asked.
Some of the boys nod their heads in agreement.
Pandit, a school dropout, said that he developed an interest in the Kashmirconflict because of the fifty-minute speech delivered by the Prime Ministerof Pakistan, Imran Khan, in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) inSeptember earlier this year.
“I’m his fan now,” Pandit acclaims.
Pandit was offering Namaz*-e-Isha*, the last prayer of the day, when hisfamily switched on their TV to watch how Khan would make the internationalcommunity aware about Kashmir’s plight following the Government of India’sdecision to abrogate Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which hadgranted a degree of autonomy to the disputed Himalayan territory, on August5.
“I left prayers midway to see whether or not Imran Khan would be able todeliver up to our expectations,” Pandit continued. “I, as a semi-literateperson, understood the crux of his speech. It was brilliant. It looked likehe had done his homework very well, unlike previous prime ministers,” hesaid.
“He spoke his heart out,” Pandit added.
On September 27, the day Imran Khan delivered his speech at the UNGA – mostof which focused on Kashmir – the Indian side of the disputed territoryrattled with deafening sounds of firecrackers and roared with the slogans:“Long Live Pakistan, Kashmir Shall Become Pakistan, We Want Freedom and OurBrother Imran Khan.”
People, especially in old Srinagar, took out rallies at night and set offfirecrackers. Kashmir’s anguished citizens – who at the time already beenunder strict curfew for over a month then, which persists into its fourthmonth – were happy with the way Khan highlighted the Kashmir issue atUnited Nations.
“Every time Imran completed a part of his speech, I clapped so hard that myhands turned red,” another young man among the audience, who identifiedhimself as Faiq Fayaz said while interrupting the conversation.
“It was a referendum in the form of night rallies and protests, andfirecrackers,” he told *TRT World*.
Sheeraz Mir, a University professor of history, said that Imran Khan’spopularity had increased drastically following his promise to 220 millionPakistanis that he would become the representative of 8 million Kashmirisat global platforms.
“People were waiting for his speech for over a month,” Mir said, “Peoplewho missed the live speech somehow were desperately looking for thedownloaded copies which travelled in laptops and mobile phones of peoplecoming from different parts of India.”
Sheeraz attributes the rise in the fame of Imran Khan among Kashmiris tohis “open stance against India.”
He said that previous leadership in Pakistan lacked courage. He argued thatduring the 2016 uprising, triggered by the killing of a famous militantcommander Burhan Muzafar Wani, Nawaz Sharif addressed the UN but didn’tcall a spade a spade, and thus found no takers in Kashmir.
“Nawaz Sharif’s speech was scripted, and people could feel that whatever hewas reading from a piece of paper was just a formality, unlike Imran Khan,”he said.
Political analyst and former Dean of the School of Legal Studies at CentralUniversity of Kashmir, Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain, agreed that Pakistanipoliticians who “dare India openly” invoke a lot of attention in Kashmir.
To support his argument, Hussain said, Field Marshal Ayub Khan gainedpopularity because of his assertive approach vis-a-vis India takingadvantage of the Indian defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962. “Helaunched operation Gibraltar,” he added.
Operation Gibraltar was aimed at triggering a rebellion in Kashmir againstIndia. However, it triggered a full-fledged Indo-Pak war in the same year.The war ended through the efforts of the UN and the superpowers of thetime, the US and the Soviet Union.
Indian and Pakistani leadership held a summit at Tashkent, in present-dayUzbekistan, agreeing that the forces of both countries would pull back totheir pre-war boundaries which came to be known as the Tashkent Agreement.
Soon after the Tashkent agreement, former Indian Prime Minister, LalBahadur Shastri died while Ayub Khan faced stiff opposition from hischarismatic Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His opposition led to hisdismissal from Khan’s government, but Bhutto was a rising star in Pakistanipolitics and started a political party, the Pakistan People’s Party. TheTashkent Agreement compromised Khan’s reputation and played a part in hisfall from power.
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Fast forward to the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Pakistan was dismembered, andBangladesh gained independence, leading to the Shimla Agreement between thetwo rivals.
“Bhutto assumed power in Pakistan, opposed Indra-Abdullah accord of 1975and invoked a lot of popularity within Kashmir,” Hussain told *TRT World*,“it was because of this popularity that Kashmir witnessed a lot of violentprotests on his execution.”
Bhutto’s statement that Pakistan will fight for Kashmiris, even if it takesone thousand years, boosted his popularity at that time and it is stillfondly remembered.
Once the Soviets intervened in Afghanistan, General Zia ul Haq decided toconfront Soviet expansion by supporting the Afghan insurgency takingPakistan out of the defeat syndrome it had plunged into after the 1971 war.
“General Zia Ul Haq conceived operation Topak to revive Kashmir’sinsurgency and succeeded in reviving Kashmiri aspirations for freedomtowards the end of his rule,” Hussain said.
“It was because of his revived Kashmir-centric foreign policy that he toogained a lot of popularity among the Kashmiri masses.”
Ghulam Ahmad Kashani, a former bureaucrat, believes that Pakistan hasn’thad a ‘tough’ leader since the former Chief of Army Staff General PervezMusharraf, who made a name for himself during the 1999 Kargil war.
“After Musharraf’s exit, India gained an upper-hand by linking thelegitimate freedom struggle to terrorism,” he continued.
“Leaders like Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari were cluelessabout how to tackle the Indian narrative, but Imran Khan successfullyturned the table in favour of Pakistan by showing the world community thatthey actually are the victims of terrorism, and Kashmir is the victim ofstate terrorism and Indian aggression,” he said.
Kashmir-born New Delhi based journalist, Umer Beigh, says that Imran Khanis seen as the main protagonist who went on kicking the bipolar dynasticalsystem that had taken over Pakistan for decades.
“There might be some in Kashmir who would disagree with his politicaldecisions, but even they can’t say he is corrupt. That is the main reasonwhy Kashmiris are pinning hopes on him for the overwhelming power vacuumwithin the state [of Kashmir] as major Kashmiri leadership either remain inhouse arrest or in jails,” Beigh told TRT World.
Beigh said that Imran is playing his cards carefully and it helps him tosend a positive message about Pakistan. “Whether you take his move ofreleasing the Indian pilot and de-escalating tensions between India andPakistan, the opening of Kartarpur corridor, his stand on US-Afghanconflict, and his mediation in Middle-East crisis, Imran is sending apositive message about Pakistan which has dented the diplomacy of India,through its security clampdown millions of people has suffered and continueto suffer in the region,” he said.
Sheikh Showkat Hussain said that Imran Khan hadn’t gained popularity justbecause of his celebrity status.
In the Kashmir valley, people loved Khan as a cricketer. His popularityreached new heights overnight when he led Pakistan to victory in the 1992Cricket World Cup.
People established businesses using Khan’s name – ‘Imran Coils’, a brandfor electric heating coils sports a photograph of a youthful Imran Khan onits cover in his signature white *shalwar kameez*, are widely used in thevalley and have become a household name in Kashmir.
Many parents also named their babies after him. Wedding songs comparing thegrooms with Imran Khan were sung on the arrival of grooms.
“Every Pakistani cricketer is admired in Kashmir, but not every Pakistanipolitician becomes a celebrity in Kashmir,” Hussain said. “Imran’s*current* popularityhas nothing to do with his cricket career,” he added.
Hussain says a lot depends on Prime Minister Khan’s capacity to convertsupport into tangible gains.
“The undemocratic decision to abrogate Article 370 and the restrictions andcommunication blockade thereof has put India in an uncomfortable situationinternationally. This is an opportune moment to test him since all eyes areon Kashmir right now with the international community in favour of dialogueto resolve the dispute,” Hussain said.
“Above all, he has to do it for the people of Kashmir who have pinned alltheir hopes on him to resolve the long-pending dispute once for all.”