Suhail Khan
In a political arena like Kashmir, a single sentence can carry the weight of an entire epoch in politics. Bilal Lone’s recent remark, “Hurriyat Conference has lost relevance because we could not act,” is one such statement. The statement reflects the larger crisis of purpose and direction that has engulfed the separatist leadership in the Valley. But is this an admission, a quiet pivot to realism, or a coordinated signal of shifting winds in Kashmir’s fractured political spectrum?
To begin with, Bilal Lone is not a marginal figure. As the son of the late Abdul Gani Lone, one of the founding members of the moderate faction of Hurriyat, and brother of Sajad Lone, who now heads the People’s Conference and is firmly embedded in the mainstream political process, Bilal’s words carry deep historical and symbolic resonance. When he says, “we could not act,” he is not merely referring to tactical missteps; he is alluding to three decades of political stagnation that have left the Hurriyat Conference defanged and dysfunctional.
On the surface, Bilal Lone’s statement appears to be a rare moment of introspection. Coincidentally, under the leadership of his brother, Sajad Lone, once a part of the hard-line Hurriyat faction, Jamaat-e-Islami has recently shifted its focus towards electoral politics.
Home Minister Amit Shah has, on multiple occasions, proudly tweeted about the “mainstreaming” of Hurriyat’s constituent parties. Many of these constituent organizations are now either banned, defunct, or quietly realigned. Among them, the Awami Action Committee, the parent party of Hurriyat’s founding Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq; the Muslim Conference, founded by Maulana Abbas Ansari; and the party of Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, all once key players in the moderate Hurriyat, now stand banned or politically erased. What remains is a skeletal framework comprising either minuscule groups that have gone silent, or individual leaders who have turned into passive spectators.
In that light, Bilal Lone is technically, and perhaps even politically, correct in declaring Hurriyat “irrelevant.” Its base has either eroded, or its leadership is incarcerated. To be fair, some credit must be given to New Delhi’s post-2019 strategy, the combination of legal bans, NIA crackdowns, targeted delegitimization, and the broader restructuring of Kashmir’s political order following the abrogation of Article 370, which has systematically dismantled the separatist infrastructure.
The vacuum has either been filled by mainstream political actors scrambling for relevance, or by a silent public increasingly fatigued by decades of turmoil and uncertainty.
The Lone family itself reflects the larger political transition. Abdul Gani Lone was assassinated for attempting to bring Hurriyat closer to dialogue. His son Sajad chose the mainstream long ago. Bilal remained in the separatist domain.
Bilal Lone’s statement, however, might be the curtain call. It is no longer possible to sit on the ideological fence. Whether it is born of regret, realism, or repositioning is secondary. What matters is that it marks a rare moment of political honesty, an admission that the old slogans have failed, and the old strategies have withered.
