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| Kashmir autonomy: NC, Pak on same page | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 8: Working president of National Conference (NC) Omar Abdullah is not a small time politician. Besides being former Minister of State in the External Affairs Ministry during the Vajpayee regime and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), he is also Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. It was expected that he will uphold the dignity of the office he holds in the Assembly, maintain the sanctity of J&K Constitution and Constitution of India and work for the territorial integrity of India as a responsible opposition leader. But he is, it appears, made of a different stuff. He violates the oath of office with impunity, questions the political status of J&K vis-à-vis India in a most brazen manner, shows disrespect to the Indian constitutional framework, eulogises separatists, openly sides with law-breakers, accords legitimacy to the Pakistani line on the state and seditionists and demands for the state maximum possible autonomy. There is no place whatsoever in his perverted ideology for things Indian, except the Indian rupees.
Omar Abdullah behaved in a most irresponsible manner when he headed the NC-Congress ragtag coalition government between January 2009 and January 2015 and the result was that the NC suffered massive defeats both in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The NC failed to win even a single Lok Sabha seat and its strength in the 87-member Assembly also came down from 28 in the 2008 Assembly elections to 18 in the 2014 Assembly elections. The extent to which the NC - which contested the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections on the planks of autonomy - had become unpopular in Kashmir itself, its pocket borough, could be seen from the fact that even somewhat sober Farooq Abdullah, the party president, could not make it to the Lok Sabha and Omar Abdullah, who contested election in two Assembly constituencies, could win only from one by a slender margin of less than 100 votes. Farooq Abdullah lost the election to the PDP candidate with a huge margin of over 50,000 votes - indeed a humiliating defeat.
It was hoped by some that Omar Abdullah would retrospect and reform himself taking into account the causes which culminated in the massive defeats of his party, but he has belied all the hopes. He continues to tread the same old path perhaps hoping that his politics of competitive secessionism and communalism would help him neutralise the influence of the pro-self-rule PDP and recapture the space his party lost to it in Kashmir in 2014. The PDP is the NC's arch-political rival in the Valley. The truth is that Omar Abdullah has turned more radical to strike a chord with not only the restive Kashmiri constituency but also Kashmiri separatists and Pakistan. This is a statement of fact and not a figment of imagination.
That Omar Abdullah has turned more radical in his desperate bid to counter the PDP influence in the Kashmir Valley could be seen from what he said on the floor of the Assembly and outside it on October 8. That day, he made common cause with independent MLA from Kashmir, Engineer Rashid, who had hosted with much fanfare a beef party at the MLA hostel, Srinagar, to hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindu community. Not just this, Omar Abdullah also desecrated the floor of the Assembly to tell the nation that "J&K was a Muslim-majority State" where the Muslims had the natural right to eat whatever they wanted and virtually instigated the common Kashmiri Muslims to violate Sections 298 A, B, C and D of Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) which ban cow slaughter and consumption of beef in the state. Ever since then, he, like all other Kashmiri leaders of all hues, had been taking this stand to offend and frighten the minorities in the state and establish that he stood for a regime similar to the ones under which the countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are governed.
However, Omar Abdullah crossed the fine line on October 21, when he during his Srinagar meeting with the visiting delegation from the Canadian High Commission asked India to resolve the Kashmir issue as per the wishes of the Kashmir-based Pakistani mouthpieces and agents. The delegation was led by Canadian Deputy high Commissioner to India, Jess Dutton.
Besides telling the delegation that J&K had only acceded to India and not merged with it, he vouched for a result-oriented dialogue between New Delhi and Kashmiri separatists who, according to Pakistan, are the "true representatives of the people of J&K". "J&K's accession to India 'is what it is and will not change'. But J&K acceded on an instrument of an understanding that was based on defence, foreign affairs, communication and currency and as such everything else would be the domain of the state. But over the time, this has been whittled down. This accession (of J&K with India) was on the basis of an understanding while all other states acceded and then merged. We need to engage people (read Pakistani agents) who don't see a solution within the Constitution of India and then find a solution," he told the Canadian delegation.
It needs to be emphasised that the Instrument of Accession on the basis of which J&K acceded to India on October 26, 1947 nowhere refers to the subject of currency. Omar Abdullah only misinterpreted the Instrument of Accession to mislead the Canadian delegation. It is also important to note that New Delhi till date has not imposed any central law on J&K against the will of the state government or without its concurrence.
Omar Abdullah not just questioned the political status of J&K vis-à-vis India, batted for separatists and Pakistan and misinterpreted the Instrument of Accession. He also demanded autonomous status for J&K. "The NC's roadmap is the only way forward on Kashmir. Our roadmap is clear that you can't have a one-sided agreement wherein J&K continues to remain a part of India but the terms on which the accession took place you distort (sic). Therefore, they (India) need to restore to the fullest extent possible the autonomous position that existed between J&K and the rest of the country," he said.
In other words, the NC working president told the Canadian delegation that there was but one way in which the "alienated Kashmiri Muslims" could be won over and that is by rolling back all the central laws which have been applicable to J&K since August 9, 1953. To be more precise, he told the delegation that New Delhi has to grant semi-independence or a step short of complete independence to J&K to end Kashmiri "alienation". It's no wonder then that the patriotic sections of society in J&K have taken an exception to what Omar Abdullah told the Canadian delegation and urged New Delhi to invoke those laws which are enacted to bring to justice those who challenge the institution of the Indian state as well as Indian Constitution and vouch for a theocratic dispensation.
Remember, Omar Abdullah had in 2013 even ridiculed the Indian Parliament and declared on the floor of the Assembly that "by repeating the words Atoot Ang" (integral part) again and again, you can't change the political status of J&K". He challenged and questioned the Indian Parliament after it adopted a unanimous resolution against Pakistani evil machinations to reiterate that "J&K was, is and shall always remain an integral part of India". He has not changed a bit since then. He continues to make controversial statements.
He has turned so irrational that he has been criticising both the Government of India and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti since April 6, when CRPF personnel were deployed in the NIT Srinagar to create sense of security among the non-Kashmiri students and the HRD Ministry sent a three-member fact finding team to the institute. He has described these two steps extraordinary and sought to create an impression that Mehbooba Mufti is eroding the state's autonomy and state's special status by allowing New Delhi to interfere in matters which fall in the domain of the state government.
It is time to set things right in Kashmir by reining in leaders like Omar Abdullah, who masquerade as mainstream leaders, but play communal cards to create hatred between Kashmiri Muslims and rest of the countrymen. |
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