NC’s anti-Delhi rant, Farooq’s azadi talk perplexes many

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 6

In detailed statements, terse tweets and sound bites, the opposition National Conference party in Jammu and Kashmir is touching the borderline of a rare anti-Delhi rhetoric as it struggles back from two withering electoral defeats.

A surprise statement came yesterday from Farooq Abdullah — who has thrice served as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and also as Union Minister once. His talk of “azadi” and asking his party workers to continue the struggle has perplexed many but halted short of being impressive.

Farooq, the 79-year-old veteran politician and president of the National Conference, has been as mercurial as he has been steady in his long political career spanning over four decades.

In his many speeches, Farooq mixes an element of humour to make the audiences laugh. But that was not something he did yesterday when he spoke at the mausoleum of his father Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a towering politician and founder of the National Conference. Farooq spoke of azadi and offered partnership to separatists.

The offer left more people perplexed, made a buzz on social networking sites where many questioned his intent and past loyalties, and the state government’s spokesman blamed Farooq for being the cause of instability.

“It has been one of the reasons for instability in Jammu and Kashmir, because the National Conference has spoken in differing voices when in power and out of it,” said Education Minister Naeem Akhter, a senior leader of the PDP and also the state government spokesman.

Akhter linked Farooq’s latest statement, which bordered on separatist ideology, to the upcoming parliamentary byelection in Srinagar and Anantnag constituencies. “There is nothing new in it. The National Conference is all about U-turns, that is in its DNA. Perhaps, he is trying to present himself in the coming election. But in the process, the party is doing a great disservice to Kashmir,” he said.

The National Conference went into lengthy brainstorming after it faced two back-to-back electoral defeats, one of it routing the party from Parliament and other sending it to opposition benches with a record low legislators. Since then, the party has been trying for a makeover, treading an increasingly belligerent political approach while targeting New Delhi, the BJP and the PDP, its local arch-rival.

In the recent week, National Conference working president Omar Abdullah blamed New Delhi for “historic blunders and broken promises” which he alleged resulted in the political issue of Kashmir. At the same time, Omar, who has formerly served as Minister of State for External Affairs and the state’s Chief Minister, absolved Pakistan of any wrongdoing by claiming that Kashmir’s political issue was “neither an invention nor a creation of Pakistan”.

But it was Farooq who went the extra mile by calling for unity with the region’s separatists. “This speech cannot be taken in isolation from other things … however, it is very good if Farooq Abdullah is saying solve the Kashmir issue,” said separatist leader Abdul Gani Bhat, a former chairman of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference.

Noor Ahmad Baba, a former professor of political science at University of Kashmir, said the National Conference had “reasons to have grudges” against New Delhi. “They think they are not taken seriously whether in power or in the Opposition,” Baba said.

“The National Conference had its autonomy resolution and they want it to be restored. They were promised it one time, but nothing happened,” he said.

Baba said there were similarities between the National Conference’s latest posturing and what the PDP did “when it was out of power”.

Akhter, however, disagreed, saying that his party believed that “accession is the most feasible decision and we stand by that. We have never said that we are not part of India. We go in the Assembly and Parliament, we take the oath and we don’t deny that oath.”