With the death of Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, an era of politics ended in Jammu & Kashmir. Sayeed’s nationalistic credentials were incomparable in the State. He was the first and so far the only Muslim Home Minister of India. Sayeed, who would have turned 80 on January 12, had groomed his daughter Mehbooba Mufti in politics since 1996 when Assembly elections were held in the embattled State after a gap of nine tumultuous years, which saw the peak of insurgency. His 56-year-old daughter would take over the reins of the coalition Government after the last rites.
His death drew curtains on his illustrious political career of 53 years during most of which he remained loyal to the Congress. He founded the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 after realising that his political relevance would increase manifold by dissociating with national party that has no promise for local and regional aspirations. The PDP diminished the political monopoly of the National Conference founded by stalwart Sheikh Muhammed Abdullah and eventually it gained the reins of power in 2002 when Mufti became the first non-NC, non-Congress Chief Minister of J&K. Though the NC dubbed him as soft-separatist, the separatists like Syed Ali Geelani always described him as “Indian by conviction”.
Born in Bijbehara town of south Kashmir on January 12, 1936, Mufti studied law and Arabic from Aligarh Muslim University. Belonging to religious clerics’ family, he began his career as lawyer that brought him in contact with Pyare lal Handoo, a prominent lawyer and politician. later he gained proximity with GM Sadiq, the man, who demolished J&K’s internal autonomy and changed the nomenclature of Sadr-e-Riyasat and Prime Minister to Governor and Chief Minister respectively.
Prior to 1953, J&K enjoyed a special status in Indian Union with own Prime Minister and Sadr-e-Riyasat (President).
Mufti became Cabinet Minister in Congress Government led by Mir Qasim in 1972. He became the State Congress chief after Indira-Abdullah accord of 1974. In 1977, he missed the chance to become the Chief Minister by a whisker when the Congress withdrew support to Sheikh Abdullah. He was 41 then. Had Sheikh Abdullah not recommended dissolution of the Assembly, he had no rival to ascend to the top seat. This pitted him against Abdullah throughout the latter’s life, though off late Mufti was all-praise for Sheikh Abdullah’s leadership and charisma. In his last speech in the J&K Assembly, he paid tribute to Sheikh Abdullah by saying that the late leader paved way for politicians like him to work in the State. He lauded Sheikh Abdullah for rejecting Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s two-nation theory way back in 1939 when the Muslim Conference was changed into the National Conference.
Mufti quit Congress in 1988 and won the lok Sabha polls from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in 1989 as a Janata Dal candidate. This catapulted him to become the Union Home Minister in the VP Singh Government. During this period militancy erupted in Kashmir and his daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped by the JKlF. The group managed to get several of its top members released in exchange. Mufti’s tenure as Home Minister coincided with upsurge in civilian killings. Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq was killed and security forces fired upon his funeral procession killing scores of mourners. Even some bullets hit the coffin. He had sent Jagmohan Khurana as Governor, which proved to be counter-productive. During this period, Pandit exodus took place from Kashmir and India virtually lost control over the region for some time.
By 1996, Mufti was again in the Congress. He couldn’t find candidates and brought in his daughter Mehbooba, wife Gulshan Ara and brother-in-law Sartaj Madni to the fray. Mehbooba won a seat and was made ClP leader. This encouraged Mufti to contest 1998 Parliamentary elections from Anantnag seat and he won. By this time, Mufti realised that regional aspirations have huge currency for a politician to grow. He founded the PDP and went the whole hog against Farooq Abdullah-led Government for its record of human rights violations. This created a rare niche for him and he managed to get 16 seats in subsequent 2002 polls. The Congress removed him in 2005 and installed Ghulam Nabi Azad as Chief Minister. The PDP took back its support to Azad’s Government in July 2008 at the peak of Amarnath land row. This embittered his relations with the Congress that subsequently aligned with the NC to bring Omar Abdullah as Chief Minister in 2009.
But Mufti waited for nine years to regain the lost chair. The 2014 elections were a rare opportunity. However, he received a fractured mandate that put him to the toughest test of his life. His options were to align with the Congress, the NC or the BJP to form a Government. He contemplated for two months and finally chose to align with the BJP, a decision that was unthinkable in Kashmir.
Many critics say that he committed the political blunder of his life by aligning with the BJP that opened doors for the communal party in the Muslim majority region. But Mufti justified “connecting the North Pole and South Pole” for the overall benefit of the embattled State.
However, Mufti was firm votary of dialogue. His one-liner “bandook se na goli se, baat banegi boli se”, was stapled to his every public or official speech. At the end of his political career, he was awaiting dialogue process to resume between India and Pakistan. That did happen when Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to lahore on December 25 but by the time Mufti was in hospital. Mufti wanted dialogue with Kashmiri separatists but his coalition partner BJP hampered his moves when his Government decided to release Masarat Alam in March 2015.
Mufti would go into the grave with remorse that he was not able to contribute to the efforts for the settlement of Kashmir issue. A month before his final public appearance in Srinagar, three local militants were killed in his native town Bijbehara. Thousands of people gathered at their funeral and a Pakistani flag was hoisted on Mufti ancestral house. In Srinagar, On December 22 his cavalcade was pelted stones. This indicated that his politics, especially after aligning with BJP, had resentment in Kashmir. He got less time to offset this resentment and handed over a tough legacy to his daughter Mehbooba.