Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: A master politician who tried to nurture true Indian constituency in Kashmir

The mainstream political camp is Kashmir is plagued with a peculiar predicament, managing public sentiments to seek votes and then keeping rulers and agencies in Delhi happy to continue in power. The National Conference (NC) patron Dr Farooq Abdullah owes his successful political career to having mastered skills of combining deception and contradictions, to keep both sides in good humour. His arch rival Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was perhaps the only known politician, who had attempted to nurture a true Indian constituency in Kashmir, to the chagrin of towering leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who had gone to extent of supervising social boycott of political activists, aligning with national parties. But in 1999, Mufti also realized that road to claim power in Srinagar goes through a regional Kashmiri nationalist party.

Two days after the end of Kargil War in July 1999, he and his daughter Mehbooba Mufti resigned from Congress and formed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to “persuade the government of India to initiate an unconditional dialogue for resolution of  Kashmir problem, putting the first formidable challenge to the  NC government, which used to thrive in absence of any local Kashmiri alternative. 

To his credit, he removed illegitimacy attached to elections in Kashmir, following the mass rigging of 1987 assembly polls. Mainstream politics in Kashmir was seen abode of renegade militants, criminals, corrupt and overused politicians. The PDP brought legitimacy to elections and lured people from the fence to participate in the democratic exercise. Even when in Congress from 1996 onwards, under his directions, Mehbooba had begun to reach out to the families of people, killed by security forces.

In an unusual move for any mainstream party, where the NC leaders, never treaded, She  occasionally attended the funeral ceremonies of militants, showed great empathy for bereaved women, often weeping along with them-- obviously a clever strategy to claim an opposition space, from the separatists. Many observers believe 2002 was her elections. She managed to win 16 seats to the PDP, still in political infancy reducing the ages old NC to mere 28 from over 60 seats. But, it is believed that Congress put a rider to lending  support, at the instance of hard state. They rider was to allow Mufti, who till then had almost retired from active politics to lead the government, rather to give reins to the greenhorn daughter. Thereafter, he never looked back.

His three-year tenure between 2002 and 2005 is  adjudged the best in terms of governance, even by his worst detractors.  As luck followed him, his tenure also coincided with the  peace process with Pakistan,  then led by President Pervez Musharraf. The tenures of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh’s UPA-I also helped him to carve a constituency for peace. To add to his luck, his tenure also coincided with the appointment of Lt General V G. Patankar, as 15th Corps Commander who conceded him a political space. It was during his tenure, the LoC was opened for bus service and later for trade. 

Born on January 12, 1936 in south Kashmir township of Bijbhera, he took a great risk by aligning with the BJP to form the government in 2015. In the past also, he has received flak when he choose Jagmohan as governor of state in 1990 and suspended the J&K assembly. The massacres and human rights abuses that followed made him a kind of a hate figure in the valley. He was also instrumental in appointment of General S. K. Sinha as governor in 2003, who was later instrumental in created Amarnath crises in 2008, consuming the PDP-Congress government. But in 2015, aligning with the BJP, he had a point. With the BJP ruling at the Centre, he told dna, a week before taking oath, he would persuade Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revive peace process with Pakistan. Modi’s latest overtures to Pakistan are credited to Mufti’s hour- long meeting with him on October 15, where he took considerable time to impress upon the PM to open channels with Pakistan, for the sake of a success of alliance  government in Kashmir. “A successful government in Kashmir was not possible with a hostile Pakistan on borders,” he had told dna. 

Many may see him as collaborator and Delhi’s man in Srinagar, who often rocked democratic process in Kashmir, be by withdrawing support to Sheikh Abdullah government in 1978 or dismissal of Farooq government in 1984 at the behest of hard state. His aides, say after 1998, he had switched loyalties. He, however, continued to be a single most threat to Abdullah family. It is not a coincidence that doctors attending to him at the AIIMS had diagnosed him, suffering from septicaemia and “opportunist infection”, a medical term, meaning infection that occurs because of the weakened immune system. Only history will judge him: whether he was an opportunist or a politician with his heart at the right place, for Kashmiri people, who are still awaiting a genuine democracy to take roots in Kashmir to empower them.