Mohammad Sayeed Malik*
Bits and pieces of the turbulent (1947 to 2019) history of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state reveal an intriguing pattern of vicious power play. Coincidentally, I was witness to one such episode.
It happened in October 1976. As Sheikh Abdullah was settling down to start his second innings in power, on borrowed support of the Congress party, he got a rude shock and nearly lost his throne.
However, contrary to his earlier track record, he gave in under pressure which was so unlike Sher-e-Kashmir that it made him look like a tamed lion.
But within a few months, he was able to bounce back on his own steam, sweep an election and go on to rule the state unchallenged until his death in 1982.
It was in the month of October 1976 that the Sheikh, who headed a coalition with the Congress, following his 1975 Kashmir Accord with Mrs Indira Gandhi, decided to expand his ministry.
A meeting was held in New Delhi on October 17 at the residence of Congress president Dev Kant Barooah which was attended by union ministers Dr Karan Singh, Om Mehta and Mohammad Shafi Qureshi and Advisor P N Dhar and former J&K chief minister Syed Mir Qasim. On the other side were Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah and his deputy Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg.
The meeting endorsed the expansion of the Sheikh-headed coalition with the induction of eight new cabinet-rank ministers, four each from the two parties. Congress nominees were Ali Mohammad Naik, Mangat Ram Sharma, Sardar Rangil Singh and Abdul Ghani Goni.
I was the Director of Information & Public Relations on a two-year contract arrangement.
On his return to Srinagar, Sheikh asked me to issue an official press note on portfolio allocation. I was surprised to find the names of Mohammad Shafi Uri and Mohammad Ashraf Khan who had defected from the Congress to the National Conference along with Abdul Ghani Lone and had come on the hit list of the Congress party.
But presuming the issue had been amicably clinched in New Delhi I went ahead and got the portfolio allocation officially announced.
Within hours a storm broke out as the Congress felt shortchanged by the Sheikh. Rewarding defectors amounted to rubbing salt into their wounds.
Shamim Ahmed Shamim was an MP at that time. He telephoned me and said he and Mir Qasim had been trying to dissuade Sheikh from going ahead with cabinet expansion but he was adamant.
I was told that Mrs Gandhi had asked her advisors to draft a contingency which did not rule out pulling the rug from under the Sheikh’s feet in case he defied. Withdrawal of Congress support was reckoned as a probability. In other words, the nascent Kashmir Accord was teetering on the brink.
Mrs Gandhi had convened a midnight emergency meeting in New Delhi at which Karan Singh, Om Mehta, P N Dhar, Barooah and Mir Qasim were present. She asked the Congress president to immediately call Congress legislators in Srinagar and direct them to stay away from the swearing-in ceremony.
Chief Secretary Sushital Banerji also called me to say that Governor L K Jha was upset by Sheikh’s attitude and both of them wanted that I should also impress upon him the serious implications of his act.
An hour or so before the time for the Raj Bhavan ceremony, I went to Sheikh’s residence (behind Nedous Hotel) and, in my own way, tried to make him change his mind. He was unrelenting.
I asked him if he had discussed the Congress defectors issue in New Delhi he retorted, “why should I. That is my prerogative. I did not interfere with their choice why should they dictate to me?”
At the Raj Bhavan stage was set, as usual, for the swearing-in ceremony and the invited guests arrived on time. A hush fell over the gathering as time ticked and the time for the swearing-in ceremony passed. The chief minister and the chief secretary were in Governor’s chamber.
After about an hour and a half, a grim-looking Sheikh walked into the hall, took the microphone and expressed regret at the ‘inability of our Congress friends’ to attend.
As he was preparing to leave, Sheikh asked me to accompany him to his residence. It was a totally different Sheikh as he shared his suppressed feeling of hurt and anger with me. He said never before had he been ‘insulted’ like this.
In that moment I felt sympathy with him. He had been an ‘undefeatable hero’ in the eyes of generations of Kashmir as well as a symbol of their aspirations and hopes. There was none like him, much less equal in stature.
In that moment of twilight, I ventured to ask him why he had ignored the friendly advice of so many and brought all this upon himself.
He graciously acknowledged that he had acted sentimentally. Probably, over two-decades-long political wilderness—and maybe age also—had taken its toll.
This one (in 1976) was most certainly not the roaring lion of 1947.
*Mohammed Sayeed Malik is a veteran journalist and former Resident Editor of the Sunday Observer
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