Satya Pal Malik died exactly six years after Jammu and Kashmir lost its special status, was cleaved and demoted to two union territories on August 5, 2019. He was then the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
An intriguing and enigmatic character who neatly fitted into the Indian political system where wavering party loyalties and ideologies is a given, Malik had a long political trajectory that catapulted him from socialist groups into the lap of the Hindu rightwing till he decided to turn a whistle blower calling out the Modi government on the anti-farmer laws, charges of corruption and Pulwama suicide attack.
From a proclaimed Lohia loyalist, who first entered the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly under Charan Singh’s leadership, he traversed a long way from Bhartiya Kranti Dal to Janta Dal to Samajwadi Party and finally took a long jump into the camp of Hindu right wing by joining the Bhartiya Janta Party in 2005.
While Malik held gubernatorial posts in four states and was a BJP insider for almost two decades, his last two years were defined by damning allegations that unraveled a scandalous picture of abuse of power, silence, and constitutional abuse at the highest levels of government.
Pulwama and Corruption bombshells
Malik made shocking claims about the February 14, 2019, Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel. He alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him to remain silent about security lapses and intelligence failures, choosing instead to use the tragedy for electoral gains through "Pakistan-bashing."
According to Malik, the government deliberately hid evidence for political expediency ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. That he remained silent about this for four years till he spilled the beans in April 2023, however, was equally an admission of his guilt as a rubber-stamp if not a tacit approver even as he described the Modi government’s omissions in Pulwama as a calculated political manipulation of national tragedy.
Long before he dropped the Pulwama bombshell, he had made allegations of corruption against the BJP. He claimed he was offered a Rs 300-crore bribe during his tenure as the governor of Jammu and Kashmir for clearing files related to Ambani’s Reliance group and a hydro-electric project. He said he refused the bribe. His allegations not only implicated Ambani but also BJP’s Ram Madhav.
More damaging were his assertions that corruption emanated from the Prime Minister's office itself, though he stopped short of directly accusing Modi, instead claiming the PM "doesn't care" and "is not much averse to corruption."
The Article 370 Constitutional Betrayal
Perhaps Malik's most constitutionally damning revelation concerned the August 5, 2019 abrogation of Article 370. He admitted that despite being the constitutional head of J&K, he was kept entirely out of the loop. The night before the historic decision, he received a call from the Home Minister saying, "I'm sending a letter tomorrow morning, please get it passed by a committee before 11 tomorrow and send it to me."
This revelation exposed how the central government reduced a constitutional governor to a mere rubber stamp, bypassing all mandatory consultation processes. By doing so, he had not only shown the mirror to the BJP but also himself. Malik's own admission, "How could I object... It was their decision... mujhe kya (how am I concerned)" revealed his abdication of constitutional responsibility.
It also revealed the casualness with which political affairs of the most complex and fragile regions of the country were being treated.
Malik's allegations were as much accusations as they were confessions of his own complicity. Months before the abrogation, he had presided over the wrongful and unceremonious dissolution of the J&K legislative assembly in November 2018 which he bizarrely justified as an attempt to prevent ‘horse-trading’. When questioned about the Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP staking claim to form the government with the support of National Conference and Congress, he became the butt of many jokes as he ridiculously blamed the fiasco on a non-functional fax machine at the Raj Bhawan and a missing 'rasoyia’.
Earlier during his tenure, he did not leave any occasion to paint the entire Kashmiri political leadership in the negative by making brash claims of their carpet collections and three-storied houses, tarring everyone in the same brush without a shred of evidence.
During his stint as the Jammu and Kashmir governor, he profusely sang paeans in praise of the BJP and prime minister Narendra Modi but it appears that sometime in 2022, while he was the governor of Manipur, he had fallen out of favour with the BJP and decided to change his tune unless it was the case of a belated awakening of his conscience.
Satya Pal Malik Legacy
Many profusely quote his allegations on Pulwama and corruption, for which Malik had to face the government’s evidence vendetta in the form of CBI raids on his properties, and often turn him to a hero.
For having put his seal and stamp of authority on the abrogation of Article 370 and its demotion, in Jammu and Kashmir, however, he remains a symbol of his willingness to serve political masters over constitutional propriety. Ironically, he died on the same day – six years later – his death becoming a metaphor of his ‘troubled conscience’.
During the post-Article 370 crackdown, he presided over stringent internet and mobile blockades that severely impacted journalists, doctors and civil society. He had then justified these measures despite their chilling effect on democratic freedoms but later sought to deny they happened.
Both during his love affair with the BJP and after he broke away from the party, he was a loose cannon – a man caught between party loyalty and self-claimed ‘conscience keeper’ of the nation. While he claimed moral victories in refusing bribes, his admissions of silence on Pulwama and compliance on Article 370 while in power revealed that he could only be selectively courageous.
Satya Pal Malik leaves behind a complex legacy. He was proverbial ‘thaali ka baingan’ who could jump the fence for political convenience, a constitutional office-holder who participated in questionable decisions while in power. And, yet in his shifting loyalties he became by default the chronicler of democratic erosion and abuse of authority under Modi regime. His explosive allegations, even as they haven’t been probed, will remain as much his political testament as his complicity to BJP’s abuse of power.
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