Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat’s extraordinary profile in Kashmir’s public life was rooted in cultivated ordinariness in his personal life. A teacher by profession and a qualified lawyer, he wandered into murky field of local politics only to shun it in unconcealed disgust.
Yet, he was able to retain that spark of his remarkable intellect as well as his charming sense of humour right until he called it a day on September 17, 2025, at 90 years of his age.
RIP, Prof Ghani.
As he moved from briefly practicing law to teaching Persian at Sopore College, he was influenced by the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami that eventually carried him to separatist politics, climaxing in his heading the umbrella organisation, All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC).
That he died in disillusionment grown out of his fairly long, unenviable personal experience is beyond doubt. He shared it in so many words with whosoever met him in his last days. Remarkably, he remained in full control of himself until the end.
From his ‘outsider’ category, he was the only non-politician of stature who made it to the top of the political ladder in his sphere, leaving behind envious ambitious politicians belonging to mutually incompatible groups gathered under the APHC umbrella.
‘Outsider’, ‘Insider’ in APHC
What goes to Bhat’s credit is that he retained his characteristic audacity to express himself without fear, more so whenever he got an opportunity to pinpointing the disastrously high cost of ‘self-inflicted’ wounds of gun culture patronised by the APHC.
He didn’t mince words: Addressing an APHC meeting in Srinagar in 2011, he went all out against so-called ‘unidentified gunmen’ who had killed two top Hurriyat leaders, Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq (in 1990) and Abdul Ghani Lone (2002). “Unidentified gunmen” used to be the evasive definition of local militants involved in killing Kashmiri leaders, on their own or at the instance of their handlers across the border in Pakistan.
“There is not an iota of doubt in my mind about who killed the father of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Saheb and also the father of Bilal Lone Saheb (both APHC leaders) sitting right here among us today. The killers did not come from outside. They are very much from among our own people. Is it moral to wink at it and keep take expedient shelter behind their fake identity?”
There was pin drop silence and many red faces in the indoor audience that included hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Bhat’s trademark moral courage defined his persona from beginning to end and made him an outstanding exception.
The Accidental Politician
Ironically, Bhat’s entry into active politics itself was accidental. He was dismissed from state government service as a teacher at Sopore college for his ‘illegal’ affiliation with the outlawed Muslim Conference.
He never looked back as he moved up the political ladder after floating Muslim United Front in 1986 which contested the state assembly polls in 1987, creating panic in the ruling circles that resulted in largescale rigging of elections results across vote-counting centres in the Valley.
Fallout of this particular factor is generally counted among many other reasons for the outbreak of vicious armed militancy across Jammu and Kashmir, in 1990s in which thousands were killed, lakhs displaced, and governance was brought to standstill.
Bhat’s growing disillusionment impelled him to step aside and quit active politics, in 2016, in the aftermath of mass unrest following the killing of pro-Jamaat-e-Islami, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Burhan Wani.
Earlier, as he headed the APHC, he had succeeded in creating a breakthrough between the separatist conglomerate and the central government in New Delhi. In 2004, he led an APHC delegation that met the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and deputy PM L.K. Advani. Later, he again led a delegation to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
One of Bhat’s close old colleagues, Mohammad Abdullah Raina, now living in the United Kingdom, in his homage said, “Prof Ghani had the rare gift of making friends easily, and even those who disagreed with him were often won over by his charm and sincerity. He could be found in the company of students and teachers alike—always surrounded, always engaged”.
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