New Delhi not following democratic norms: Syed Ali Geelani

Hurriyat leader says ‘Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat, jamhooriyat needed to resolve Kashmir issue’

Senior Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has said that India needed to keep its promise of giving Kashmiris their right to self-determination to choose their future.

Geelani sought ‘insaniyat’, ‘Kashmiriyat’ and ‘jamhooriyat’ to resolve the dispute – ideas he derided when then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee propagated them in 2003, according to Hindustan Times.



“We want India to exhibit insaniyat (humanity), Kashmiriat (composite secular, eclectic Kashmiri culture) and jamhooriyat (democracy). Nothing else,” the ailing Hurriyat leader said while talking to his supporters in a nearly 2.30-minute video address from a hospital in Srinagar.

In the video message available on social media, he said, “India is the largest democracy in the world but as far as rights of Kashmiris are concerned it is not following its democratic norms,” he said.

The ailing Kashmiri leader was recently taken to the Shere Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences where he underwent a colonoscopy last week to remove a cyst found in his stomach. He had been admitted to the hospital after his haemoglobin count kept decreasing in the last six months. Doctors at the institute said Geelani was stable now.



Kashmir has been divided between Pakistan and Indian. Both the neighbouring countries have fought three wars since 1947, and their relations remain tense, particularly when it comes to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full.


This story originally appeared on Hindustan Times.