Lal Chowk off limits for political activities

The clock tower,where the flag is unfurled,has a tight ring of security thrown around it with police and CRPF personnel standing guard.

The chowk boasts of Valley’s largest flea market on Sundays,laid out with hundreds of charpoys and hand carts,selling everything from second-hand garments to kitchen utensils. Some of these vendors continue to sell from the pavements through the week.

At the moment,the traffic and customer rush have thinned. While vendors shout themselves hoarse,fewer customers haggle over prices. “I got half the number of customers that I get on an ordinary day,” said Farooq Dar,selling clothes from a hand cart near the clock tower.

Unperturbed by the burgeoning tension,three workers standing on a scaffolding go about repairing some portions of the tower damaged during a Hurriyat rally last summer. This scene,however,isn’t new to Lal Chowk.

Every year as the countdown to Republic Day gets underway,it sees a gradual increase in security vigil. The is situation is similar in the days leading up to Independence Day. Ever since former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi unfurled the flag there on January 26,1992,Lal Chowk has assumed a huge symbolic significance for the separatists.

A march to the chowk has become a staple of every Hurriyat programme. Last year on Eid-ul-Fitr moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq led a massive march to the chowk,which culminated in the raising of green flags on the clock tower by his supporters,who also burnt a government building.

What also makes Lal Chowk special for the secessionists is the speech there by first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948 when he promised plebiscite for Kashmir once peace was restored to the state.

“When we assemble in Lal Chowk,our purpose is to remind India of its historic promise,” says Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Joshi in 1992 only added to this historical dimension,turning it into a place where any political action assumes a powerful symbolism. More so,for separatists.

JKLF,as it challenges BJP and threatens to unfurl its own flag at Lal Chowk,is only playing on the enhanced symbolic stature of the place. Now,whatever the fate of the flag ceremony on R-Day,both BJP and JKLF are poised to emerge victorious from the stand-off with,of course,the ruling National Conference in tow.

For Chief Minister Omar Abdullah,the decision to close J-K’s borders to BJP yatris invokes a piece of family history. His grandfather Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah had imprisoned Sangh ideologue Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in 1948 when he entered J-K without proper official permission. Mukherjee subsequently died in jail. Moreover,Omar will be seen as standing up to the BJP which with its Babri and Gujarat baggage is usually viewed with much skepticism in the Valley.