Crime and Punishment

Riyaz Masroor

Soon after becoming the “prime minister” of “free Kashmir” in 1947, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah had realized what New Delhi expected of him. He was sent to United Nations to support India’s case. But, as records suggest, Sheikh sounded politically correct and chose to criticize Pakistan rather than appeasing India. "We shall prefer death rather than join Pakistan. We shall have nothing to do with such a country."

Though Sheikh would exaggerate Indo-Kashmir affinity at many occasions – in Kashmir and New Delhi – in UNO his tone sounded nationalist. The statement was open-ended and would not necessarily suggest that Kashmiris wanted to remain with India. Within a space of few years Sheikh was seen hobnobbing with American establishment through US embassy in New Delhi. Sheikh’s “diplomatic feat" in United Nations and his covert engagement with US discomforted New Delhi, especially the religion-obsessed bureaucracy.

Sheikh’s overtures were seen as an “unacceptable” nationalist assertion that was coming from a supposedly pro-India Kashmiri leader. An anti-Muslim agitation ensued creating a scare for the majority Muslims; the agitation was sponsored by the pro-Hindutva Praja Parishad. Sheikh suspected Congress that was ruling India. Many believe that the roots of a religion-inspired armed uprising were sown during the Praja Parishad movement, which seemed a counter assertion against Sheikh Abdullah’s UN speech. This agitation led to the dismissal of the government of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 and Abdullah’s arrest on 9 August same year plunging the state into a 22-year chaos.

In 1974, when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was about to reinstall a defanged “Lion of Kashmir”, Sheikh’s flamboyant Son, a not-by-choice doctor, was consorting with JKLF leaders on the foothills of Pakistan administered Kashmir. During his stay there Farooq is said to have taken an oath for the “liberation of Jammu and Kashmir from the yoke of Indian occupation.” This was also a nationalist assertion by the ambitious son of a pro-India Kashmiri politician.

Farooq’s nationalist assertion had already started weighing heavy on the minds of Kashmir handlers in New Delhi; Farooq saw an unstable succession to power after Sheikh’s death in 1982. Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to assimilate National Conference into Congress fold so that the “Lion” could be completely “de-lionized”. Farooq resented the move and instead attempted to ally with parallel forces in Indian mainstream; yet another nationalist assertion by a Kashmiri pro-India politician. That too was followed by a consequence. Two years later Indira engineered a series of defections in National Conference leading to the dismissal of his government in brazen violation of democratic codes. It had dawned upon Farooq that he could not set right what had been wronged by his father’s surrender before New Delhi, so he capitulated in 1986 – Congress-National coalition came to power.

These nationalist assertions had been followed by humiliating surrenders but Abdullahs continued to enjoy the sympathy of Kashmiris as late as 1987, though not as manifestly as during Sheikh Era. Farooq staged a comeback in 1996 and bailed out New Delhi during worst times. His party fought elections at the height of turmoil and won effective majority in the JK assembly, though less than five percent turnout was recorded during polls.

In the summers of 2000 Farooq grew conscious about the fast eroding image of his party and his family and chose to mend it for good. He wanted to do it again through a nationalist assertion: NC drafted autonomy report and passed a resolution in the assembly. The fate of this assertion would not have been different than the assertions made by Sheikh in 1947 and by Farooq in 1982. The resolution was summarily rejected by then BJP-led coalition in New Delhi despite the fact that National Conference had sidestepped the Muslim sensitivities and allied with the BJP sponsored NDA. Whatever the sub context, NC later lost more than half of the mandate it had won in 1996 and a little known PDP rose to power with Mufti Muhammad Sayeed seeing his wish being fulfilled after nearly four decades.

Mufti subtly calibrated his relations with BJP as well as Congress and shot himself into prominence through his green mantra, which is soft separatism. While Mufti tried to build his empire on NC’s political ruins he too lapsed into the nationalist mode and began to assert before New Delhi. In 2005, during the snowstorm in Valley, Mufti is said to have virtually shouted down some senior Army generals telling them the army should not encroach upon the domain of state administration. He also engaged PMO over the issue of demilitarization; the catchword was first aired by then Pakistani President and Army Chief General Pervaiz Musharraf. What else should have been the result of this nationalist assertion? Mufti could not continue as CM and had to be content with the power sharing agreement even as the Prime Minister had promised an extension.

This takes us to the historical floor test of Congress-led UPA government in the Indian parliament on 22 July 2008. It was the time when a massive revolt in Kashmir was brewing over the land transfer to Amaranth shrine. Omar Abdullah, MP and Farooq’s tech-savvy son, gave the famous one-inch-land statement. “Jaan Dengay par ek inch zameen ka tukda nahin dengay (We shall prefer death rather than giving you an inch of our land),” Omar spoke to an unusually quiet Lok Sabha comprising 543 members.

Those angered with Omar’s nationalist assertion picked up threads from Praja Parishad agitation of 1950s and set off an orgy of communal violence across Muslim lands of Jammu and on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. But unlike in 50s and 80s New Delhi suffered a dilemma: How to ‘punish’ the pro-India politician who had committed the ‘crime’ of asserting before the ‘Raj’? Mufti was a choice but he had already gone overboard by pulling out of Congress-led coalition in J&K over the land row. Omar’s coronation on 5 January 2008 must have incurred a huge political cost. Ladakh? Bghlihar? NHPC? Or……? Think over it!

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