Holding the NC leader and former CM under a draconian Act will undo any points the govt might claim on Kashmir

If the Government indeed wants to make an example of Kashmiri politicians, who have traded loyalties on either side of the LoC for their political relevance and continuity, then it would be advised to expose such deliberate acts on facts. Holding former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) leader Farooq Abdullah under the Public Safety Act (PSA) certainly won’t achieve that purpose, considering he no longer has “high visibility” value. For normal Kashmiris, he is a recipient of much hatred and abuse. They believe he shortchanged them by choosing to accede with a secular and democratic India and lost the only marker of autonomy they had courtesy Article 370. Now, not only that is gone, the former State has been reduced to a Union Territory. So Kashmiris are questioning his family legacy of standing by India. For New Delhi, he may have been the moderate face and an asset but one that’s not needed, given the endorsement of Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) special status both at home and the world. Therefore, Abdullah’s inescapable need to question the abrogation of Article 370 and appear an activist Kashmiri is more than an irritant, it is an obstacle in the new narrative. His suggestions of a negotiated autonomy for the two sides of Kashmir and converting LoC into a soft border for trade and commerce to flourish seem misplaced when all talk is about righting historical wrongs and reclaiming territories in that context rather than addressing current realities. Yet one must remember his worth through the decades of conflict. He acted as a filter and as Chief Minister did manage to keep militancy in check, give some semblance of credibility to the election process and had a pan-India acceptability. At 81, and suffering from kidney ailments, he certainly doesn’t pose such a threat as to be booked under a tough law meant to be used against terrorists. Apparently, the idea is to prevent him from participating in a rally planned by Opposition leaders ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session next week. Does a former Chief Minister, democratically elected and for years nurtured as an asset by the Centre, be suddenly disowned as a troublemaker under a draconian law? One which doesn’t allow him to be tried before two years? All this has happened despite him and son Omar Abdullah meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier and hours before the Supreme Court was to take up a habeas corpus petition by MDMK chief Vaiko seeking to know the whereabouts of his “friend.” Considering that Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad has been allowed to visit four J&K districts — Srinagar, Jammu, Baramullah and Anantnag — to meet people but not hold any political rally and that CPI(M) leader Mohd Yousuf Tarigami has been allowed back in, Abdullah’s detention reeks of chicanery and intrigue, not of vision. For he may be a spent force but people, who have invested in the idea of India at his call, will only see this as betrayal and recede into separatist ways.

True Abdullah, and his son Omar, have failed to deliver to both New Delhi and their people but both have sworn by the Constitution and neutralised the shrill cries of azaadi. And if the peace-makers are suddenly seen as deal-breakers and made the fall guys, then we are unwittingly drawing the world’s attention back to the human rights situation in Kashmir, the lockdown and the political and economic morass. Dangerously enough, our justification for reorganising Kashmir may not seem all that worthy. If the Government is not even able to restore normal lives despite its heavy-duty security presence, crackdowns and an information blockade, then there will only be a flood of questions on its intent to engage with people, convince them of their stakeholdership and erect an alternative political matrix that’s more responsive to its concerns. For that to happen, people must be heard and allowed to speak. Also, leaders like Sajjad Lone, whom the Centre was at one time keen on grooming as its “enabler”, continue to be detained too. The common Kashmiri, hedged in by the politics of the terror economy, knows that abrogation of Article 370 doesn’t mean much on the ground as the State was anyway being run like a Union Territory for some time. But locals still want that reconciliation with honour, dignity and justice, not arbitrary impositions and demotions. Abdullah’s detention is so not clever as it emaciates the political will to treat J&K as a serious matter. It’s not an extension counter of Central whim.