“Catch them young” seems to be Kashmiri leader Sajjad Gani Lone’s new mantra to make his People’s Conference (PC) a popular voice of the present and future. After successfully bringing in some hopeful young faces of the Valley, he has made an attempt to reach out to the students of the region’s main university and other higher educational institutions.
On Saturday, he was flanked by a group of Kashmir University students to address a press conference here to announce setting up of the Peoples’ Students Union (PSU), the student wing of the PC, “with great hope and expectations.” PC (though now split in two, the other faction being headed by his elder brother Bilal Gani) is the legacy of prominent Kashmiri nationalist leader and Sajjad’s father Abdul Gani Lone who was assassinated in May 2000.
“Kashmiri politics has been a story of either dynastic or tragic succession,” Mr Sajjad asserted. Elaborating, he said “Dynastic succession in the case of the traditional political families and tragic succession brought about by tragic assassinations in the case of the survivors of assassinated leaders in Kashmir.” Almost all prominent young faces in the present day Jammu and Kashmir politics, be it chief minister Omar Abdullah or his political bete noire Mehbooba Mufti who heads the main opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), have succeeded their fathers, also successful politicians, and in the case of Mr Sajjad and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq they had to be in their respective fathers’ shoes after they fell to bullets during the initial years of insurgency.
But the Junior Lone believes leadership needs to be a function of evolution and not dynastic succession. The PSU, he said, will be an gateway of producing future leaders. “It’s time the Kashmiri nation embarks on a journey towards evolution, choosing to shun dynastic politics and tyrannical nepotism and PSU would be a fair and reform oriented platform to bring about this paradigm shift in the way we identify and develop our future leaders,” he said.