The government of India can be asked many questions about the way it handles the situation in any state, and Kashmir is certainly a special case. But the hullabaloo being made in the Valley in the matter of a passport for the ageing, strongly pro-Pakistan, secessionist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is clearly political propaganda, plain and simple.
It can be no one’s case that Mr Geelani should not have a passport to travel overseas. But any country is entitled to issue a passport only to its own citizens. If an applicant leaves the nationality column blank, there is just no way that the application can be processed.
This is what appears to have transpired in the case of the stalwart Hurriyat leader. Towards the end of his long political journey in Kashmir, first as the most prominent leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami and later as a solo player whose constituency is the wider Jamaat constituency, perhaps Mr Geelani is looking for a hurrah gesture.
The old warhorse has been a MLA, has drawn a legislator’s pension, and has held an Indian passport, none of which was possible without acknowledging his Indian nationality. But today he seeks to deny precisely this. Could this be a prelude to making a propaganda noise about getting an international travel document on supposedly humanitarian grounds issued by a body such as the UN?
PDP, the principal force in the state ruling coalition which includes the BJP, is playing into secessionist hands by appealing for a passport for Mr Geelani on humanitarian considerations.
