 Welcome to NewsClick, Jammu and Kashmir is reeling under political crisis. The state has been under President's rule for the last four months, but recently, almost a week ago, a political party launched by an IS topper, Shah Fezal, has pitched itself as a change maker in the current political scenario. To talk more on this and to talk about the present crisis in Kashmir, we are joined by Shah Fezal. Let me begin with asking you. You said you will become voice to bridge gap between Kashmir and Delhi. How are you planning to do that? Keeping in mind that Kashmiri youth is angry with the Indian state? I think one of the most important steps towards peace building in Jammu and Kashmir is that we should be able to communicate properly between Delhi and Srinagar. Delhi should understand the sentiment in Kashmir and Kashmir should understand the compulsions or the policy positions in Delhi. In last few years, we saw that there was an absolute communication breakdown. I have even written about it in past as well. There was a total policy shift, the way Kashmir is to be handled. I think due to which we saw a massive intensification of violence in Kashmir. When I say we want to bridge the gap, I mean that it's important that we represent the realities of Kashmir correctly in Delhi, number one. Number second, when it comes to the policy framing in Delhi regarding Kashmir, that policy is framed on correct inputs from Kashmir. What happens, whenever something happens in Kashmir, the first response which comes is that okay let's block social media, okay let's arrest these people, okay let's do something about these organizations. I believe that all this policy or all these steps are usually taken without analyzing data, without having a correct perspective about how Kashmir operates. Do you think that your party is going to make a mark in Jammu, which has a close affinity to BJP and the right wing voices, which was recently evided in the after Mahathapulwama attack? There have been times when Kashmiris have won elections from constituencies in Jammu. There have been times when we had absolutely no doubts that Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, these are three integral regions of a state. This is a very recent thing. I'm absolutely hopeful that one day there will be a time when those old bonds can still be revived. I do not believe that this animosity is going to be permanent. How are you planning to do that? Look, if you look at Jammu, the internal, entire commercial, the business activity, I think Kashmir does, Kashmir continues to be a very important stakeholder in the commercial activity of Jammu. When it comes to Jammu, we are dependent on Jammu when it comes to our, so many things. Jammu is our summer capital, winter capital, Jammu is also our connectivity, our gateway to the rest of the world, as of now. So these interdependencies have to be understood. I keep on talking to youngsters, I keep on talking to Dogra, Dogra youth, and I do not see that hatred in their minds. I think in this phase where a divisive politics has been played in recent years to divide Jammu and Kashmir and to create artificial divides and artificial sense of alienation between these two regions, I definitely believe that this can be changed. Talking about Jammu, they are Kashmiri pundits who feel dejected by the political parties who use them as a propaganda. What about Kashmiri pundits? Kashmiri will get Kashmiri pundits back to the valley. In every party, I've been, I've been, I've been constantly, I think, saying this that Kashmiri pundits and what happened to Kashmiri pundits, that remains one of the darkest chapters of our history. It's a group of displaced people who got deresinated, who lost their culture. And nobody can undermine that tragedy. Nobody should play politics over their tragedy. My stance and the stance of my party is that we should enable and create an enabling environment in Kashmir where Kashmiri pundits can come and they should come on their own terms and conditions. I do not believe that any political party in Jammu and Kashmir should impose the terms and conditions of return on Kashmiri pundits. Whatever way they want to return to their home, I think it's more important that they return to their home than the modalities of the return. You seem to be fascinated by Arvind Kejriwal and Imran Khan. Do you think it is possible to revive Arvind Kejriwal's effect in Kashmir or to recreate it in Kashmir? I won't, I think I'll be lying if I say that I have my doubts and it's not a very easy job. This is not Delhi. This is not a metro city. This is a conflict zone where people, it's very hard for people to even believe that whatever we are trying to do is being done by us. There are still so many people who think that this entire politics of Shah Fassal is stage managed, it's sponsored. So it takes time here for, it's not about sending WhatsApp messages and Facebook messages to people. The way it happens in an urban or a metropolitan area. For me, the problem this time is that how do I build trust between people? How do I win their hearts? Then I'll come to maybe the voting is going to be the next level. It's definitely I would want to repeat a Kejriwal phenomenon here, but I know it's very, very challenging and I hope it works. The specter of custodial death has revisited Kashmir recently. The death of Rizwan Pandit. How do you see his killing and what do you think are going to be the implications of it? It's a completely shocking and a full of horror incident. Believe me for last couple of days, I have not been at peace with myself. I felt very, very bad the way this young man was killed and as a medical doctor I can tell you that when the diagnosis is that there was rabdomyolysis plus renal failure, it means that there was torture. It's unheard of in recent times that a young man like that could be killed by torture. I hope that the security agencies and the state realizes that, what kind of dangers are we going to impose here if this continues. And if the people who did this, they are not brought to book. So far, we have not seen any arrests happening. We have just heard about a magistral inquiry. I wish a judicial inquiry was ordered into this incident. Because in a place like ours, it intensifies and amplifies a sense of injustice in youngsters and that is going to have very, very disastrous consequences. Yesterday, another person joined militancy, another youth. He claimed to be friend of Rizwan Pandit and he said that he was forced to join militancy because he thought that there is no other option left for him. How do you see that? This is how it happens. So I believe that now this person has joined a militancy as a reaction to this sense of injustice and this sense of torture which was done to this young man. What kind of arguments do we have now? We keep on saying that it's ideological issue, it's a developmental issue, it's some other issue and some this issue. But now we see that there's a direct connection between creating militancy and doing injustices. I believe that now this entire onus of creating this militant should be put on those people who were in charge of that young man who got killed in custody. It's the police and the security forces who were supposed to take care of that young man. I mean, this is not how civilized world works. This is not how the world is going to kind of listen to you. So I think the entire onus of creating this militant falls on these people who have done this brutal and barbaric act and they should be brought to book for destroying one more family. Indian politicians and the Kashmiri politicians or to say the New Kashmiri politicians, they say that there will be democracy in Kashmir. There is democracy in Kashmir. Can democracy coexist with operation all out and militarization? I think they cannot. I think these two things are totally mutually exclusive. And my intention of doing this politics has been that we wish to see revival of democracy here. How can that revival of democracy happen? Suppose yesterday we saw this incident happening. Sorry, but do you agree that there is no democracy in Kashmir right now? I believe that if you talk about custodial killings, if you talk about then the custodial killers going unpunished. And then a reverse story being created that this guy was running away from the from the lockup and then he got killed. This old story, the way all custodial killings are justified. As of now, we do not have an elected government in the state. We are being ruled by an agent of the center. These problems collectively create a perception that there is no democracy in this place. And I wish we realized the dangers of not having a democracy in place and what kind of consequences it can have. It has been four months since the state is under president's rule. We have seen aggressive operations in Jammu and Kashmir. We have seen the increase in the military troops in Jammu and Kashmir. The people, the youth is disenchanted on the ground. The youth says that they don't want to vote for any political party. How are you going to cope up with that pressure? There is a very dangerous kind of silence around us. I have been watching this silence for some time and people are numb. People are numb because there's an escalating sense of injustice. This recent killing has been a complete shocker for us. But then we keep on talking to ourselves that what are the ways out? How are we going to reverse it? What are the alternatives? So then we come back to that old argument that had we a popularly elected government here, people who really had the spine to take positions on issues of human rights violations, issues of justice, issues of fairness. Then possibly all this could not have been happening. But then that's how it works. Then when you talk about popularly elected governments, when you talk about leadership, then you talk about democracy. So these are interlinked things, I think. Do you think demilitarization is important for the revival of democracy? And if yes, is your party ready to take that step? If you come to power? I think there's a natural relationship between demilitarization and enlarging of the space for democracy. No place in the world democracy can survive within the shadow of the military. That's a given thing and history teaches us that lesson. So I believe that as and once the situation improves here a little bit, I think we can push for demilitarization. And that should be one of the priorities of the government of India to promote civilian spaces and to move troops away and reduce the interface between the troops and the civilian population and so that we can kind of nurture and allow the peace to flourish here in Kashmir. Jamaat man in a Muslim majority state, how do you see that? Jamaat has been radically shifting its working, its operations in recent years. It has now become more of a socio-cultural organization, socio-educational organization. So one, banning Jamaat at a time when they were making a transition was wrong. Second, banning Jamaat and not banning other radical outfits and other... I'm not making any comparisons between these outfits, but when Bajrang Dal and RSS we saw recently when the kind of violent incidents which were promoted by these organizations against minorities, not just one organization, I think not banning those organizations and banning one organization, it creates a sense of unfairness, a sense of injustice due to which then all these decisions become suspect. In Jammu we saw that right wing voices, they became dominant after the Pulwama attack. How do you see that? There have been efforts to divide the population in Jammu and to create a communal strife there. Recently after Pulwama attack we did see an intensification of the sentiment against Kashmiris but I believe that fundamentally the larger civil society in Jammu, the larger youth population, the civilized, the educated class, they do not relate to it. I do see a sense of frustration in Jammu when it comes to this right wing sentiment getting promoted. There are reasonable voices in Jammu who want that there should be brotherhood between Kashmir and Jammu and I have not lost my hope about Jammu. Do you think the center is using Kashmir for its electoral gains? It's unfortunately, it appears to be so. We saw recently in recent times that many many steps are being taken in Kashmir so that a certain political party in the rest of the country can get leverage and can get kind of, they can get some advantage when it comes to political rhetoric. I wish that the political parties in the rest of the country understand that doing politics with the dead bodies of civilians or dead bodies of soldiers, this is not something how this country should work. You have picked up people from Rajori, Chanaa Valley, Jammu, from the Gujarat community. What is the vision of your party and how do you see that you're going to resolve the Kashmir issue? I think fundamentally I put immense value on diversity and I believe that this party belongs to people of all faiths. That's why we have somebody who's a Dogra, somebody who's a Buddhist, somebody is a Kashmiri Pandit and a Sikh is there, a Kashmiri Muslim is there. They're all in the state executive so that we get a sense of fairness first that we stand for everybody and we stand for regional integration that all these regions they have equal stakes. So that's I think when you talk about resolving the issues, I think one of the first issues which will get resolved is that when we say that Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh and other three regions and other regions they're equal stakeholders in the future of the state. When we sort of first go for an intra-regional dialogue between the people, I wish this time we need a political party which is more inclusive, which can take people from all regions of the state. That's the first question which will get resolved. And then the external dimension which comes between the two countries between Delhi and Srinagar, I think that's going to take time. That can also be worked out later on. But first let's revive those old bonds within the state first. Let first people of Jammu-Kashmi talk to themselves, then we'll talk to others. Do you think that by adopting aggressive policies in Jammu and Kashmir we are going to weaken the militancy? Has the militancy weakened in the last four or five years? Look, we saw yesterday that you are killing a couple of people and then some more people joined militancy. Last year we saw a statement from the police chief that there were 200 militants and six months later he's saying there are 300 militants and we have seen that this militancy is not going to end the way this is happening. I believe there are demand-side issues. There's an environment in which militancy kind of flourishes. There's an environment which promotes alienation of youth. I think let's first address that environment politically and only then expect that these things can come down. There is no space left for dissent in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in Kashmir. People see funerals as the site for dissent. I agree. I agree. Funerals are political statements. Whenever there's a funeral we see thousands of people coming together and raising slogans. This cutting down of political activities, cutting down of political spaces, how do you see that? I do my political public meetings. It becomes very hard for us to assemble maybe 2,000 people to 3,000 people and then you have a militant funeral in which hundreds and thousands of people will spontaneously gather and make a statement. I think this is a very, very, very scary thing for the state. We should realize that how many funerals are we going to bear and how many young men are going to die before we finally realize that we need to build the environment of peace in Kashmir. I believe in reviving nonviolent democratic methods so that people are not forced to go towards that site where families get destroyed, youth lose their youth, their careers, their life gets destroyed. Do you think that militancy is the solution? I believe that violence could temporarily appear to be a solution but when you look at history, when you look at history we have seen that finally matters have been resolved when people talk to each other, when state makes an initiative and owns up its people and promotes dialogue. I wish that state also realizes that there is no space for violence both from the state side violence and the non-state side violence. I think when that kind of environment is built in Jammu and Kashmir we will see normalcy returning on its own. There is a larger acceptance of courier of separatist leaders and not of the political parties. They don't see that political parties have any credibility. They see them as agents of the center. How do you see that? These are very tough questions because what happens when you have elections you will see hundreds and thousands of people voting for these existing political parties and when you talk about legitimacy then electoral legitimacy they do have but do they have social legitimacy? That question remains. Our idea this time is to revive mainstream politics and tell people that this is a very important space. Democratic space is recognized across the world and if we do honest politics and if we tell truths to the people if we do not play with their sentiments then this politics is going to become relevant. I will just ask you the last question and we'll wrap it up. Youth is seeing dignity in death. They are not seeing dignity in living. Dignity in death is a very dangerous situation. How do you see that? I see it as a very very dangerous trend. I believe that youth have a right to live. We need to create conditions here where youth can enjoy life where youth can believe that they have some purpose to look up to where they do not have a sense of insecurity. Yesterday Shahid Manzoor said in his video which became viral that A person who sees his friend being killed in the custodial torture I'm sure this sentiment we should acknowledge that this sentiment will obviously come through. That's why it makes us really sad when people say that we do not see any reason to live here and that's the responsibility of all of us this time to create conditions where lives of people, lives of our young men do not get wasted. If we give a sense of justice to people, believe me people will feel there is a purpose to live. Do you think the Azadi movement that is happening on the ground has turned Islamic over a period of time? You need to have a lot of data. I can all I can say is that this is a Muslim population. It's a Muslim majority state. It becomes very easy for anybody to then make a judgment on the religious orientation of a certain political event. So I believe that we need to have data. We need to be very careful when it comes to making these statements about what happens in Kashmir. Thanks for joining us.