Prof Hari Om
Time has changed. The nature of Indian State too has undergone a radical change. The attitude of some in Kashmir who used to play all the shots, dictate terms, hold out threats to New Delhi and consider them indispensable and Sultans has also changed to a considerable extent, notwithstanding their oft-repeated assertion that they would snatch from New Delhi what it snatched from Kashmir. The case in point is what President of National Conference (NC) Farooq Abdullah said in an interview to a media group on August 30.
During the interview, he said and explained many things about J&K. However, two of them were really noteworthy. One was about Article 370 and Article 35A, which were abrogated on August 5-6, 2019 by Narendra Modi Government, and the other was about the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), which was formed under his own leadership at his Gupkar residence on August 4, 2020 by the NC, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Congress, CPIM, CPI, People’s Conference (PC) and Awami National Conference (ANC) to get back from the Centre the politico-constitutional status J&K enjoyed till August 4, 2019.
The manner in which he explained his views on Article 370 and Article 35A and the present status of the PAGD only served to demonstrate and prove that the possibility of restoration of the status J&K enjoyed till August 4, 2019 is very remote and that PAGD has almost collapsed or that the PAGD constituents have been treading different paths.
What did he say about the possibility of restoration of Articles 370 and 35A? Farooq Abdullah said, “It is not easy to get Article 370 and 35A restored to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. We have already approached the Supreme Court and are waiting for the day when they will constitute a bench and hear the petition”. “The restoration of Article 370 and 35 A will not come from the sky…We all have to struggle for that together. I hope the day will come and Article 370 will be restored again with dignity and honor,” he further said. And what he said could be considered a candid admission that he and others of ilk in Kashmir are simply striving to achieve the unachievable. Earlier, his son and party vice president Omar Abdullah had bemoaned that CJI NV Ramana, who retired on August 26, didn’t constitute a constitutional bench for hearing pleas against the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and division of J&K into two Union Territories.
Just compare their present attitude with their attitude pre-August 2019 and you will see the difference. The difference is glaring. A streak of defeatism, if not full defeat, can be seen from the recent statements made by Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, who once had the audacity to say in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that people of Kashmir didn’t need financial and employment packages; they needed a comprehensive political package (in this case greater autonomy, bordering on virtual sovereignty) and misuse floor of the assembly to tell New Delhi that, “J&K only acceded to India, and not merged with India”. And what did Farooq Abdulla say when asked, “Why the PAGD does not exist in the minds of the people”. Candidly admitting that PAGD has almost crumbled, he said, “Everybody has his own opinion and I cannot say anything to them”. “The parties who are constituents of PAGD have their own manifesto and ideas. It is an amalgam of the parties made for a particular cause. Whatever people are saying about the PAGD is their own point of view and opinion …I cannot tell them anything. Time will tell PAGD was formed for the benefit of the people of Jammu and Kashmir…It would be premature to say what PAGD can do…that time will tell. Our enemies are hell bent to see that PAGD should disband,” he, in effect, said about the status of the PAGD. And what Farooq Abdullah said was self-explanatory. He did admit that people have little or no faith in the PAGD and acknowledged that the ragtag PAGD has even failed to take off. Not just this, the resolution adopted by the NC, Kashmir Province, on August 24 tore into other constituents of the PAGD, particularly the PDP, and declared that the “NC will field candidates in all the 90 assembly constituencies”. The resolution, inter-alia, also said, “The participants present in the meeting expressed dismay over the recent statements, audio jingles and speeches made by some of the constituents of the PAGD targeting JKNC. They felt that it does not contribute to the overall unity of the amalgam. They denounced the unfair treatment meted out to JKNC in PAGD”. What was significant was the fact that the meeting was chaired by none other than Omar Abdullah, who himself reportedly said, “he will discuss the feedback from the meeting with the party president Farooq Abdullah”. All this show that things are not moving in the direction Farooq Abdullah and others in Kashmir want them to move. It also shows that the Kashmiri leaders are a divided lot, that Kashmiri parties and politics in Kashmir are in complete disarray and that the Kashmiri leaders have lost their sheen and appeal. It will be advantage the nation if the Narendra Modi Government takes forward the process of reforms, it initiated in August 2019 to further weaken undependable and questionable leadership in Kashmir. The best thing for it to do would be to further reorganize the Union Territory of J&K.
