A year on, Vohra’s legacy continues

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 22

Much has changed since the time the longest-serving Governor of Jammu and Kashmir NN Vohra left the Valley exactly a year ago. But what has not changed is the way the tenure of Vohra is recalled as a period of erudition of dealing with the affairs of the state left its indelible mark on the state.

Vohra was the Governor of the state for two successive terms of five years each, beginning June 2008, a rare thing in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. He handled the most critical period during his over 10 years of tenure in the Raj Bhavan in J&K. His knowledge of the state, administrative skills, interaction with the masses in the field and strategic thinking has become a guide book for those who worked with him. “We learnt a lot from him and his words echo as a lesson in governance all the time,” said a senior retired officer who had worked closely with him in several capacities in Raj Bhavan and other places.

The timeline since he left, and his successor Satya Pal Malik took over on August 23 last year, tells its own story.

So much has happened during this period, particularly the abolition of Article 370 that granted special status to the state with its own flag and, constitution. Article 35A that got inserted into the Indian constitution by virtue of a presidential order in May 1954 and gave exclusive rights to the permanent residents of the state — the term has been obliterated now — to own the land, jobs and scholarships, is also gone. This had to happen the way the political class in Kashmir was making an issue out of it and issuing warnings of explosive nature.

Vohra, till the time, he left the state, was strenuously working for the revival of the grassroots democracy and continued to drive this point home to the political parties how this restoration of the grassroots democracy would instill confidence and present J&K in a positive light to its own people as also to the nation.

Sources said there was regular correspondence between him and the then chief ministers Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti in which Governor Vohra time and again asked them to hold the civic bodies and panchayat elections.

There was a striking contradiction when the two regional parties National Conference and PDP contested Kargil Hill development Council polls in July-August 2018, but did not say yes to the panchayat elections, for they said that the participation in the panchayat polls would dilute their stand on Article 35A.

At one stage, he is reported to have told Mehbooba Mufti that panchayat elections were a necessity for grassroots democracy and the whole set of democracy could not rest in the Assembly elections. So was his stress on the municipal elections, the sources revealed.

That was his commitment to the grassroots democracy. He had laid the ground work for the grassroots democracy polls, including the phases and the calendar thereof.

The municipal and panchayat polls were held with overwhelming participation in Jammu and Ladakh, while the Valley played cool.

On February 14 this year, terrorists executed the worst-ever terror attack in Pulwama in which 44 CRPF people were killed. That brought India and Pakistan to the brink where the war seemed a real possibility.

India conducted aerial strikes on a terrorist-training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Balakot in Pakistan in retaliation and sent a message of no-nonsense to the neighbouring country. The base for such audacious actions was laid in 2016 when the Uri attack of September 18 was avenged with a surgical strike 10 days later. That happened on his watch.

There were many, many difficult times, 2008 Amarnath land row agitation that swept the two major regions of Kashmir valley and Jammu, the July 10, 2017, terror attack on a pilgrims’ bus, but Amarnath yatra was never cut off. Tourists were not asked to leave the Valley ever.

On August 2, this year, the yatra was called off and tourists asked to leave the Valley at the earliest. Perhaps that was the necessity of the extraordinary measures that came into effect on August 5.

It was his capacity to work with a clear-eyed vision and sagacity that Vohra completed his two terms successfully with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reposing faith in him till the moment he was succeeded by Satya Pal Malik — a legacy that is unforgettable, say the people here.