On the invitation of Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the Hurriyat Conference will soon visit Pakistan. The separatist group will leave for Islamabad around mid-June to hold talks with the country’s new democratic dispensation. Though there has been no such invitation for the Hurriyat’s hardline faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, there are signals that Islamabad wants to receive the leaders of the splintered separatists together.

Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has already taken the initiative to persuade Geelani back into the Hurriyat fold. He’s also coaxing JKLF supremo Yaseen Malik and the People’s Conference chairman Sajad Lone to return to the fold. In his speech on the death anniversary of his father Maulvi Farooq, Mirwaiz said he would personally visit these leaders and persuade them to join the Hurriyat again. “It is my fervent wish that we all go together to Pakistan and talk to the new leadership there,” said Mirwaiz.

However, while there has been no positive response to Mirwaiz’s appeal so far, the proposed visit to Pakistan has more to it than the unity issue. In an atmosphere where separatists in Kashmir find themselves pushed to the margins of Kashmir politics and Pakistan has no qualms in looking beyond them towards the mainstream Kashmiri leadership, the Hurriyat is fighting its own personal battle for relevance.

The options before it are limited. In a situation where Islamabad seems less fixated on Kashmir in its engagement with New Delhi, Hurriyat cannot but play along. At the same time, parroting the Zardari-speak on Kashmir with its accent on trade rather than resolution of Kashmir, would risk alienating the separatist constituency in Kashmir. This would be fatal for the Hurriyat, which already feels hemmed in by the growing popularity of the mainstream parties in Kashmir.

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