Commentary / Janardan Thakur

Farooq's return is only the beginning of real tests,
both for Delhi and for him

People close to him had known better. They said Farooq was in 'mortal fear' of meeting the fate of Mirwaiz Farooq. He doubted if the militants from across the border would let the election be held, and in any case he was not willing to risk his life 'for nothing'. He kept saying he was only asking for 'something to sell to the people,' but so far down had the valley slipped that he doubted if even the best of packages would work.

Everybody was saying that India had lost forever the battle for the minds and hearts of Kashmiris. So Farooq made a 'virtue out of necessity' and laid the blame on the Centre.

For years Farooq has wallowed in his predicament. About a decade and a half ago, when the dying Sheikh Abdullah anointed Farooq as his successor it was unthinkable that a day would come when he would have to run away from the valley out of fear for his life or that the National Conference would be effectively outflanked. In the mid-eighties, Farooq's popularity was almost as high as that of his father, but he lost it fast. For many Kashmiris he came close to being 'public enemy number one'.

At one point, he told this writer in utter despair, "In Delhi they think I am an agent of Pakistan, in Islamabad they think I am an Indian agent." He did not care what Pakistan thought, but he certainly wanted Delhi's trust. He wanted to be a bridge between Delhi and Kashmir, but he knew he could not regain the trust of the Kashmiris if they saw him as a lackey of the Delhi Durbar.

In retrospect, Dr Abdullah knows the biggest political blunder of his career: his hand-clasp with Rajiv Gandhi, which had given him back his gaddi. For the people in the valley that was a 'great betrayal.' Dr Abdullah was again under pressure from sections of the Congress and the new rulers in Delhi to fight the elections together, but that is one thing he would perhaps never accept again.

For long he had been trying to tread that middle-ground somewhere between pro-Pakistan Kashmiri extremism and New Delhi's dogged will to wipe out the movement for 'liberation.'. But often enough, that ground was just not there. That, among other things, explained why he had taken refuge, with wife and children, in England.

It all began with the rather arbitrary dismissal of his government in July 1984 -- a political coup engineered by Arun Nehru (then chief factotum of the Indira-Rajiv durbar) in Delhi and effected by then governor Jagmohan in Srinagar. But his ouster made Farooq only more popular in Kashmir and he appeared set for a sweeping comeback. He would certainly have done so but for his eagerness to regain power that threw him into the arms of the Congress.

Suspicious as the Kashmiri psyche is of New Delhi, Farooq lost esteem almost immediately : he was no longer the Kashmiri hero holding forth against New Delhi. Instead he was seen as a stooge, a meek collaborator with the powers that be. Although he became the chief minister, popular sentiment in the valley turned against him.

The hour of pro-Pakistan elements had arrived. This is just what they were waiting for: A discredited Farooq Abdullah. It was during Farooq's second stint as chief minister that the azaadi movement assumed menacing proportions in the valley and the armed militancy flourished.

Which is not to say that he ever faded from the picture. On the contrary, he remained at the very core of it. Farooq Abdullah remained firm in his opposition to any Pakistani role in the valley and in his emphatic support to the accession of Kashmir to India. While underlining that a solution to the Kashmir problem must be found within the ambit of the Constitution, he insisted that he would negotiate only on his terms.

He was afraid of going back to the valley bearing the cross of being 'New Delhi's agent.' That was a lesson perhaps too hard to forget after what happened following his alliance with Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress.

Farooq Abdullah kept harping on the minimum autonomy package required to rekindle the political process in the valley: an agreement based on the lines of the pre-1952 arrangement between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah. This essentially meant giving Kashmir effective control of all subjects except defence, foreign affairs, currency and communications. The state, under such an agreement, would have a separate constitution, a separate flag and the chief minister would be known as prime minister.

After much dilly-dallying Narasimha Rao announced an autonomy package but it fell far short of what Farooq Abdullah had been expecting. Doubtful if the election could be held, Farooq decided to drop out, which he thought would give him some credibility with the people in the valley.

To many, Farooq's demands were outrageous, for they meant the 'creation of special nation within a nation'. His reply to them was: An autonomous Kashmir within India is better than a hostile Kashmir swaying under the influence of Pakistan. Could he assure that Kashmir would go so far on the autonomy question and no farther? There lay the catch : Farooq Abdullah refused to take any initiatives without the 'minimum autonomy' package and without Farooq Abdullah in the fray, it was uncertain that New Delhi could ever bring the valley around.

Given New Delhi's record on Kashmir all this was not too strange. Recent chapters in the history of Kashmir are the same half-way house story : Farooq Abdullah one day, Jagmohan another; trust one day, hatred and mistrust another; carrot one day, stick another. Farooq Abdullah's rejection of the political package -- and the election -- had shown that New Delhi was still caught in a half-way house of its making, that it did not quite know its mind on Kashmir.

Farooq Abdullah had gone around pleading that Delhi must strengthen his hands, but Delhi kept shaking its confused head, saying one thing today and quite another tomorrow.

If a new beginning is really to be made, Delhi would have to honor and respect the special identity of the people in the valley, their kashruiriat. Will Delhi repose greater trust in Dr Abdullah than it has done in the past? Will Delhi show a better understanding of his dilemma this time round? Will Farooq himself show greater maturity than he did in the past?

Farooq's return is only the beginning of real tests, both for Delhi and for him.