Mufti, The Schematic Collaborator
By Abdul Majid Zargar
12 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Mufti Mohammad Syed is no more. He is the 6th head of State & 3rd one to die in office. His daughter is likely to succeed him as the first woman chief Minster of State.
Many articles & write-ups lavishing praise & encomium on him have appeared in press & news portals since his death. While it is an unwritten rule of our rich cultural ethos not to speak bad of deceased persons but a culturally required sweet tongue shouldn’t be used as a brush to distort facts & obfuscate truth.
Inspite of many who find fault with the role of Sheikh Abdullah in supporting accession of Kashmir to Indian domain in 1947,there can be no denying the fact that he conceptualized and eked out a semi sovereign status for J&K State. It were only his colleagues & successors- in-office who surrendered that status to their personal ambitions & lust for power. The hard earned autonomous status of the state was squandered by one & all but the person whose name appears on top of the list of abnegators ,undisputedly is late Gulam Mohd. Sadiq. As his deputy Minster & close aide , Mufti was privy & party to all his nefarious decisions & designs. Mufti in his early ambitious political career became eyes & ears of New-Delhi in Srinagar & he was soon assigned the task of establishing Congress party, hitherto looked down upon as a gang of few fifth columnists, as a credible party in Kashmir which he dutifully did.
Mufti’s life long aspiration was to ascend to the highest chair in state and to achieve this he used every trick in the book. In 1977 ,following electoral debacle of Congress at national level, Mufti was instrumental in pulling down Govt. led by Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah who had ascended to throne barely two years earlier with congress’s support. His plan was to seize power but fate had destined something else for him. Governor L.K.Jha accepted the advice of Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah to go for fresh elections in which Mufti had to eat a humble pie. Again In 1984 Mufti was pivotal in engineering a defection in National conference to bring down a duly elected Government led by Farooq Abdullah & his bring bête-noire brother-in-law G.M.Shah to power. This wicked move of Mufti inflicted a permanent scar on the body politic of Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah , weakened socially & politically, thereafter started believing that it was New-Delhi alone and not the people of Kashmir who mattered everything in Kashmir. It led him to mend ways with Rajiv Gandhi & go for power sharing arrangement with Congress. Mufti didn’t like the new found equation of the duo & engineered communal riots in Anantnag to frustrate the move & dislodge G.M.Shah to seize power before Farooq would do it. An internal inquiry by Congress held Mufti solely responsible for riots following which he was moved to New-Delhi & made a Union Minster. In Kashmir, Rajiv-Farooq accord was considered yet another surrender by Abdullahs, the earlier one being senior Abdullah’s accord with Indira in 1975. His political stock took a beating with the result he had to indulge in massive rigging in 1987 elections to remain in power. It was the beginning of the end of Farooq Abdullah. The rigging fully erased the remains of sheen around electoral politics in Kashmir. Having lost faith in Vote, the youth started an armed struggle with attendant blood bath & mayhem .
Miffed at his sidelining from State Scene, Mufti soon deserted congress to Join VP Singh’s Jan Morcha which came to power at New-Delhi following drubbing of congress at hustings & Mufti made the Union Home Minster . His first major decision was to send communal & allergic-to-Abdullahs, Jagmohan to Srinagar as Governor to dislodge Farooq . Under Jagmohan’s direct rule, supervision & direction many massacres were committed in Kashmir while the Union Home Minstry Under Mufti watched with a sadistic pleasure.
In 1996 an idea was conceived by India’s Strategic thinkers & spin doctors to create a party in Srinagar with a two fold purpose of dividing the political strength of Kashmiri Muslims as also to beat the hard separatists with soft separatism. People’s democratic party (PDP) took birth out of this conception and results are for all of us to see. Kashmiris today stand disempowered on all fronts. During his two tenures as Chief Minster of State, there have been grave violations of human rights. Details are available at www.jkccs.net under the caption ‘Let truth prevail’.
Every well wishing politician of State knows the dangerous ramifications of Governor’s rule in State because of Governor assuming both legislative & executive powers during this period. J&K has been brought six times under Governor’s rule. It is ironic but true that Mufti had a hand or role in application of all these phases of Governor’s rule to state. Let us have a look.
Governor’s rule was applied for the first time in 1975 due to Mufti withdrawing support to Sheikh Abdullah led Govt necessitating fresh elections & Governor’s rule during interregnum. It was applied second time in March 1986 when Congress headed by Mufti withdrew support to Govt. led by Ghulam Mohd. Shah. He was earlier put on throne courtesy a defection in NC planned & engineered by Mufti. It was during this phase that Article 249 of Indian Constitution was applied to State by Jagmohan manipulating the whole process of concurrence in a single day against the advice of then Law Secretary. In Jannuary 1990, Governor’s rule was again imposed when Mufti as Union Home Minster appointed Jagmohan as Governor of State despite Chief Minster Farooq Abdullah’s known opposition to his appointment. Farooq resigned in protest leading to prolonged spell of Governor’s rule which eventually ended in 1996.Governor's rule was again imposed in the state for the fourth time in October 2002 when Mufti & Congress were in the process of stitching up a coalition. It was imposed in the state for the fifth time when PDP led by Mufti withdrew support to its coalition partner congress despite earlier having vowed to swim together for full six years. And finally Governor's rule was imposed again in the state for the sixth time when PDP led by Mufti took an extraordinary long time to cobble a coalition with BJP. It may sound more ironic if we consider that even his death has brought state under Governor’s rule .
If Mufti’s schematic political career started with bringing Congress to State it ended with facilitating entry of RSS to Kashmir. It remains to be seen whether his daughter & likely successor does anything to reverse the process to bring a qualitative change & restore the constitutional sanctity of the State. Incidentally she has given a poor initial signal by giving preference to mourning over the more sacred duty of holding a public office.
(The author is a practicing Chartered accountant.Email:[email protected])