He's spent 15 years in various prisons. He's survived 12 assassination attempts in the past 20 years. He's undergone seven surgeries, including two for carcinoma at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital. At 81, Syed Ali Shah Geelani has finally achieved a dream, leadership of the anti-Indian sentiment in the Kashmir Valley. This time, the chairman of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and long-time member of the Jamaat-e-Islami is in no mood to walk off quietly. A bit to his surprise, "radical" fringe stars like Arundhati Roy are prepared to support his demand for secession.

After four months of lockdown, 111 deaths of young men and women, 1,025 arrested and 3,500 injured, Geelani believes he is on the verge of pulling off a miracle - an Islamic state in Kashmir. This may be a dream too far, but it has been the principal focus of his life since he joined the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1953. He was a government teacher then, after having spent four years in Lahore, between 1940 and 1944, studying the Quran and theology. He has not returned to Pakistan after 1944, though his elder son, 47-year-old Nayeem, has been living, and is being looked after, in Islamabad for the last 10 years.

The curious fact is that the man who wants to destroy India's unity, who hates the idea of a secular India, should get, then accept, financial aid from the governments of Delhi and Srinagar. There are whispers of cash being passed from intelligence secret funds. But what cannot be denied is that his surgeries have been paid for by the government, and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed even sent a special plane to pick him up from Ranchi jail where he was then lodged.

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His pacemaker was replaced at Escorts Hospital, his gall bladder was removed at Gangaram Hospital, two cataract operations were conducted at Apollo Hospital, and even his teeth have been overhauled at Batra Hospital-all in the Capital. His surgeries at the Tata Memorial Hospital have been so successful that the portion of the right kidney which remained has now regrown to do the work of two. His large and comfortable three-storey home in Srinagar's Hyderpora is, however, provided by the Jamaat-e-Islami. He also maintains an independent home in Delhi's Malviya Nagar where he stays for the three months of Kashmir's winter.

But he remains firm on the demand for self-determination, which in his view would lead to Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. He does not want an independent Kashmir, although independence is preferable to "Indian imperialism". He is an ideologue who believes Kashmir should be an Islamic state within a theocratic Pakistan.

Read more- Yahoo