Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years Part 12

'Don't worry,' Moosa said, looking worried. 'I know he says these things and we often have to later contradict him. What I'll do is that from now on I'll give him some points from which to speak or to refer.'

The next time Farooq had a public meeting, Moosa went along and gave his chief minister a piece of paper with five or six points written down. Farooq put the slip in his pocket and began speaking. After a while, Farooq was back to saying whatever he felt like saying; so Moosa, who was sitting in the front row, frantically began to point with one finger to his pocket, gesturing that the chief minister should reach into his own pocket and pull the slip out. Farooq looked at Moosa and Moosa's finger. He then continued without ever referring to that slip of paper. As I mentioned, Farooq never liked being told what to do.

During those years in Srinagar when I got to know Farooq, I saw that he was not non-serious, as many people claimed. The fact of the matter was that he did not suffer fools and he did not waste time on fools. Also, he did not like negativity. When militancy was hotting up, the police chief, Jeelani Pandit, got on Farooq's nerves because he would every day go to his chief minister with a list of bad news, of terrorist incidents. Farooq wanted to hear about militants getting caught or about a police plan to combat militancy. So Jeelani Pandit got the sack and was replaced by J.N. Saxena, who had been my predecessor K.P. Singh's predecessor in Srinagar.

The other thing was that there was no hypocrisy about Farooq. Early on, after my first few interactions, I wanted to call on him. 'What is this "call on you"?' he said. 'Come home and have dinner.'

There was one other couple there and as soon as we sat down Farooq said, 'Will you have a drink?'

'Sir,' I said. 'If you have a drink then I'll have a drink.'

'Of course I'll have a drink,' he said.

I was once asked that since I knew so many Kashmiris, could I say how many liked to have a drink? I replied that I could say who liked his drink, but I couldn't say who didn't. That's how the Kashmiri is. And that's how Farooq is: he loves doing everything and people talking about it. He does not hide who he is. Being a doctor he was always careful about his health and his drinking was restricted to entertainment with friends.

Farooq was also very much a family man. I joined in May 1988 and in March my wife and I had to send our daughter off to boarding school since there was no place to send her to school in Srinagar. She went to Sanawar, where Farooq's son Omar was the head boy. The founders' day at the Lawrence School is early October and Farooq asked me if I was going. I had planned on taking leave to do so, so Farooq said, 'Come with me and tell your department that you're keeping a watch on the chief minister.' Of course I didn't take him up on his offer.

His wife Mollie was very much a part of things and despite all the talk of his womanising, she put up pretty well with him. She was totally apolitical and stayed in the background, busying herself in work at the nearby hospital on Gupkar Road. She was civilised and though she never took interest in politics, if she needed to accompany the chief minister somewhere, she would. No doubt she enjoyed being the chief minister's wife, but she left Srinagar in 1990 when things went out of control. It had become too much for her and she told her husband that it was no place for their girls to go to school. (Omar was already in college in Bombay.) First she spent some time in Delhi, at her mother-in-law's house in Safdarjung Lane; then she left for England.

After Rubaiya's kidnapping, Farooq repeatedly told the new prime minister, V.P. Singh, that he would resign the moment Jagmohan was brought back as governor. The BJP, which along with the Left supported the National Front government from outside, was demanding the deployment of Jagmohan to combat the militancy, which had gone out of control. Farooq obviously had bitter memories of Jagmohan, who had dismissed him in 1984 and had Gul Shah installed in his place. 'Anybody but Jagmohan,' Farooq told the prime minister. Railways Minister George Fernandes a.s.sured Farooq that it wouldn't happen, but in the end neither he nor V.P. Singh could stop Mufti, Arun Nehru and Jagmohan from having their way, and true to his word, Farooq resigned.

I was jettisoned then from Srinagar in March 1990, nearly two months after Farooq quit, because the governor thought I was Farooq's man and home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed did not disagree. It took two months to replace me because things were so bad in Kashmir that IB officers were reluctant to be posted in Srinagar. As I mentioned in chapter four, R.C. Mehta took up the a.s.signment, and when he reached he asked me if I would introduce him to the former chief minister.

Farooq was still in Srinagar. I rang him up and told him that my successor had arrived. 'You're leaving?' he asked.

'Yes, sir.'

'Oh, boy,' he said. Those were his exact words.

Farooq agreed that I could bring R.C. over for tea but asked me to come an hour earlier. I did and found myself chatting with a relaxed man, a man who spoke in an absolutely open way. And he said something to me that was crucial to understanding his politics.

'I'm not like father,' Farooq said. 'I'm not going to follow my father's politics.'

It was quite an admission because Sheikh Saheb had been the last word in Kashmir. But he had also spent decades imprisoned. 'I don't intend to spend twenty-three years in jail,' Farooq said. 'I've figured out that to remain in power here you have to be on the right side of Delhi and that's what I'm going to do.'

There it was in a nutsh.e.l.l: the simple and straightforward politics of Farooq Abdullah.

He then thanked me and said it was sad that I was going, that it was all a part of the job. Frankly, I was happy to get out of there because militancy had made the stress unbearable. I was relieved to be going.

The irony is that once Farooq decided to resign he got a frantic message from Rajiv Gandhi, conveyed by Rajesh Pilot. Rajiv wanted to meet Farooq before he resigned, because the Congress party did not want Farooq to resign. Pilot came to Jammu and picked up Farooq and flew him to Delhi, but Farooq stuck to his guns and said, 'No, I'm resigning.'

From that day on, Farooq's worth went up many times in Rajiv's estimation, and Rajiv was always saying Farooq, Farooq, Farooq. In March 1990, Rajiv went with Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal on an all-party delegation visit to Kashmir, and the Congress president had a lot to say on that trip. He told the media that there was a great mess in Kashmir; that the National Front government did not know what it was up to; and that it was responsible for Farooq's resignation.

Here's another irony: the man with a key role in Farooq's resignation and Jagmohan's appointment was Home Minister Mufti Sayeed. Once V.P. Singh's government fell in November 1990, till Farooq was re-elected chief minister in 1996, Mufti had only one refrain: that there was no other solution to Kashmir but Farooq Abdullah. I remember at least six occasions on which he said this, all reported by the media.

Farooq went to England and would come to Delhi when he thought that something was going to happen. But he was mostly abroad and I met him once, in 1993, at his Suss.e.x home. In the early 1990s, in fact, there were only three constant visitors to Farooq at Safdarjung Lane. One was s.h.i.+a cleric and Congress leader Moulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari (the other two were a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi named Riyaz Punjabi, and A.S. Dulat). Like Abdul Ghani Lone, Iftikhar had been with the People's Conference and done a bit of party- hopping. As Kashmir's top s.h.i.+a leader he had extensive contacts with the Iranians, who gave him a lot of respect. His cousin, Abbas Ansari, would later be one of the stalwarts of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

In those lonely days of the early 1990s when no one would even visit Farooq, Iftikhar was closer to him than even Farooq's fellow partymen. As a mainstream leader Iftikhar was the most outspoken against the separatists and would repeatedly tell me, 'Why are you wasting your time on these fellows, yeh kissi kaam ke nahin.' On this, his and Farooq's thinking matched, except that Farooq understood Delhi's compulsion in reaching out to separatists and was fine with itso long as it didn't compromise him. Iftikhar, on the other hand, was much more suspicious of our hobn.o.bbing with separatists.

As mentioned, Iftikhar was closer to Farooq at the time than even the National Conference people, because the NC leaders had all but disappeared due to militancy and the threat to their lives. (Several were killed.) With Farooq away from the scene the party was hollow. For all the talk of it being a cadre-based party spread all over the state, it was nothing without Farooq. It was demoralised, and the only person flying the party flag in Srinagar, besides Farooq Abdullah on Gupkar Road, was Syed Akhoon from Budgam. Otherwise, there was no NC. There was only Farooq.

We were trying to get the NC back in business in the early 1990s, telling its leaders that it was high time they came out of hibernation and began getting politically involved. This was particularly so in 1994 and '95, when separatists like Shabir Shah and Yasin Malik were released and talking peace and Delhi was talking politics. The NC leaders would always respond: 'You get our leader back and then we'll talk politics.'

By then Farooq also got wind that change was in the air and that he was needed in Delhi, so he came back and stayed instead of returning to England.

There is a telling anecdote that concerns a London-based Kashmiri named Dr Siraj Shah, director of a human rights group called Kashmir Watch. Several expatriates were getting involved in 199394 and trying to get things resolved in Kashmir. Like Narasimha Rao, Dr Siraj was also hooked on Shabir Shah, believing him to be the ultimate solution to Kashmir. Perhaps he had heard on the Kashmiris' network that the government of India was more interested in Shabir.

So Dr Siraj met Shabir a few times, and then one day approached me and said, 'I've had enough of him.' He had become disillusioned with Shabir and thought the separatist to be a waste of time and money. 'Can you introduce me to Dr Farooq Abdullah instead?' Dr Siraj asked me.

The three of us had breakfast together and Dr Siraj came away impressed with Farooq. 'This is the right man for Kashmir,' he said to me. 'Why are you wasting your time on these other idiots?' he added, in reference to the separatists.

Dr Siraj said even he wanted to come back to Kashmir. 'When are elections going to be held?' he asked.

'Doc, you won't fit in here,' I said.

'No, I'm familiar with Srinagar,' he said. 'I've lived there all my life.'

'What about your European wife?'

'She can stay in London,' Dr Siraj said, without missing a beat. Now I'm told he dumped her and married an English girl.

The point was that Kashmiris of all hues, whether abroad or here, found Farooq indispensable to Kashmir. Indeed, till Farooq returned in 1995 and revived his party, there was no political mainstream in Kashmir. Which is why Irshad Malikthe militant whom I wish I had brought back to India when I was R&AW chief and who is now in Londonsaid that the 1996 a.s.sembly election was a masterstroke, because it revived the political process and broke the back of militancy. It could only revive the political process because Farooq jumped into the fray, which he had reservations about right till the last moment; in fact, he did not partic.i.p.ate in the 1996 Lok Sabha election in June, because the NC had not made up its mind about taking part. A lot of effort went into persuading Farooq to agree to take the plunge.

Farooq's party, of course, won the a.s.sembly election and was invited to form the government. A week before the swearing- in he was busy mustering his troops and we met for lunch at the Taj. 'Doctor Saheb,' I said. 'I'm told that in 1983 when you formed your first government you had only a handful of ministers and it made a huge impact. Why not do that again, keep the cabinet small, and afterwards you can expand it?' He agreed.

The swearing-in ceremony was held in the Sher-e-Kashmir auditorium and was attended by the Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, along with other opposition leaders. I also went, and I took along my IB colleague Ajit Doval, who was being posted in Srinagar and whom I wanted to introduce to the new chief minister. It was a moving ceremony. While he was being sworn in, the audience stood up and gave him a standing ovation. He became emotional. He was on stage and he began calling people on stage, 'tum bhi aajao', and in the end around twenty fellows got sworn in.

Among them was one non-NC member: Iftikhar Ansari, who was in the Congress party. During the ceremony, Farooq asked Kesri: 'Inko hamare saath aane dijiye.' Such was the goodwill that Kesri immediately agreed, and said, 'Inko National Conference mein le lijiye.'

Another irony is that Farooq and Iftikhar parted company over cases of corruption that were lodged against Iftikhar; the cases involved a scam in the cleaning of the Dal Lake. The two fought against each other in the parliamentary election of 2009, and in his campaign, Farooq took a few cracks at his former friend. 'Thankfully Iftikhar is not a woman or you can imagine the number of husbands he would have had,' Farooq said on the campaign trail, lampooning Iftikhar's past party- hopping.

Iftikhar pa.s.sed away in September 2014, while this book was being written. I went to see him in May; he had been suffering from cancer and had gone to the US for treatment. 'Your friend is going to lose,' he said.

'He is your friend too,' I said.

'That he is, I acknowledge,' Iftikhar said. 'But he doesn't.'

'Are you serious about his losing?'

'He will lose,' Iftikhar said. 'But even so, Farooq's place in history is a.s.sured.'

When Farooq returned to power, H.D. Deve Gowda was the prime minister and Farooq was most comfortable with him. There was no meddling in J&K's affairs and that was the best thing from Farooq's point of view. There was no panic in Delhi when Farooq's government set up the State Autonomy Committee because for somebody like Deve Gowda, who came from a state, and whose government was a United Front of regional parties, discussing how to expand a state's autonomy was the most natural thing in the world.

Those were also the best years I had with Farooq. It had to do with the fact that when I returned to the IB headquarters in 1990, the normal course of things would have been to go on to other a.s.signments. I started on that track, but thanks to my DIBs, Jos.h.i.+ and Narayanan, I headed the Kashmir group for eight years, till I joined R&AW. Perhaps Farooq felt that unlike other officials I wasn't a guy who had disappeared from the scene. We would thus meet often, either when he was in Delhi or when I went to Srinagar, and had many a drink together. Those were the days he relied on me.

Once Farooq complained that he was being pressured by Delhi to get an outsider as chief secretary, and that the Union home secretary, K. Padmanabhaiah, had handed him a slip of paper with several names on it. One of the names was of a fellow who like Padmanabhaiah was a Maharashtra cadre IAS officer. I asked Farooq, 'Sir, what is this, do you want an outsider?' Farooq admitted that he wanted the J&K cadre IAS officer Tony (Ashok) Jaitley, so I tore up the slip and said get him only.

Then Tony came to Delhi and met me at the India International Centre one day. Why don't you come down to Kashmir, the boss would like you there as DG, he said. I wasn't interested because I had done my stint in Kashmir and I wasn't really a policeman's policeman. 'I'm basically an intelligence man,' I told Tony. 'I don't know if the force there will accept me.' So I didn't go but it didn't matter. Farooq and I had a relations.h.i.+p that whenever he had a problem, he would turn to me. It made many people uncomfortable. Soon after he took over as CM, Farooq wanted a change of his police chief. 'Why would you want an outsider?' I enquired. 'Sabharwal knows the force and they are comfortable with him.' 'Maybe,' he said, 'But I am not. Please get me a new chief.' So I suggested Gurbachan Jagat, a 1966 Punjab cadre officer with all the experience of dealing with terrorism. Jagat made an outstanding DG and went places after that, ending up as governor in Manipur. Farooq supported him at every step.

During this time he also helped me with my golf game. I had learned golf in Srinagar, from an old pro at the old course on Maulana Azad Road, which was burnt down during militancy. The golf club was a place for great kebabs and I also knew a couple of people in the air force and in the army who were keen on golf and who got me to learn.

After Farooq returned as chief minister in 1996 I would play with him. Of course he's a 4 or 5 handicap whereas I had a handicap of 24 or so. I never lugged a golf set up there, he had three-four sets lying at home and would give me one. Farooq loved his golf and any time he could squeeze out he would be on the golf course. He used to teach me, saying this is what you're doing wrong, this is what you're supposed to do. I used to tell him I was spoiling his game, but he was patient. He was a good teacher and I picked up a few things from him.

And it was in those days that one day, Farooq and I were sitting together on a flight from Jammu to Delhi, with his princ.i.p.al secretary, B.R. Singh, sitting behind us. Farooq suddenly turned around and told Singh that only one thing remained on his agenda, and that was to get Dulat to the Raj Bhavan as governor. I laughed. That will never happen, I told him. This story was to be repeated many times and my response always was the same: it won't happen. And for once Farooq was wrong and I was right.

Inevitably, the United Front government fell and the BJP-led NDA came to power. Sonia Gandhi had taken over the Congress with the departure of Sitaram Kesri, and though Farooq had never quite been buddies with Rajiv, with Sonia the equation was absolutely non-existent. When she pulled down Vajpayee's one-year-old government in 1999, Farooq did not side with her.

Farooq was determined not to go with the Congress and he was ready to go with the BJP because he was probably thinking ahead to the 2002 election, and in his thinking the BJP at the Centre during the election was preferable to having the Congress in power in Delhi. He thought the BJP was a lesser evil. On top of which was the lack of equation with Sonia. While he was chief minister, on at least four occasions when he came visiting Delhi and I met him at J&K House, I would say, 'You come to Delhi to meet everybody, but why don't you meet madam?'

His reaction was usually, 'Why should I?'

But siding with the BJP did not help Farooq. Vajpayee wanted to switch between father and son; Omar had been pampered by Delhi and Vajpayee thought he was just ripe to go to Kashmir as chief minister. It would be a good time to get Farooq out.

Farooq was given a lollipop: that he would become the Vice- President of India. The prime minister told him so. The home minister told him so. Brajesh Mishra told him so, at my house: 'Doctor Saheb, why don't you come to Delhi?'

Around May, however, the whispering in Delhi began. Farooq as vice-president? He's not serious! We don't know if he will sit in the Rajya Sabha. Talk went around. And, most significantly, the RSS did not approve of Farooq Abdullah.

In early May I was in Srinagar and received a message that the chief minister wanted to meet me. The time given was 11:00 and I took it for granted that I had been called home, but then I was told, 'No, Saheb ne office bulaya hain,' which is very unlike Farooq. I went to the office and he sat me across the desk and said: 'Do you believe that these guys will make me vice- president?'

'Why not?' I asked.

'I don't believe it, that's why I'm asking you.'

'What do you believe?' I asked. 'Sir, you've spoken to the home minister about this, haven't you?'

Farooq said yes.

'You've spoken to the prime minister about this?'

'Yes.'

'If both have given you their word then you will be the next vice-president,' I said.

'But I don't trust them,' Farooq said. 'I don't trust Delhi.'

The moment Krishan Kant was out and Alexander in, Farooq's fears were confirmed. 'They can't both be minorities,' he reasoned about the two const.i.tutional posts.

He was proved right. Dr Kalam out of the blue became president and Farooq had to be ditched. The NDA leaders.h.i.+p had obviously said to Farooq whatever they had said, but they were not sincere about what they said, and it did not bother any of them to go back on their word. Farooq was ditched and that was that.

That was the end of Farooq Abdullah.

Later that year his party lost power in J&K and when it did return to power, Omar was leading the government. For Farooq, however, 2002 proved a terrible year. He did not get the vice- presidents.h.i.+p; then there was a lot of talk that he would be taken into the cabinet as a Union minister. After the elections, I asked him, 'What happened, why did you refuse a ministers.h.i.+p here?'

'Which ministers.h.i.+p?' he asked.

'Weren't you offered a ministers.h.i.+p?'

'What rubbish,' he said. 'n.o.body's offered me anything. But now that you are talking of ministers.h.i.+p, at least get me a house. I don't even have a house in Delhi.'

Even that he did not get. Omar had been allotted a house on Akbar Roadwhere Vajpayee and his family had once had dinnerso Farooq was told: your son has a house, why do you need one?

Not surprisingly, Farooq was cut up at that point of time. He was disgusted and he might have thought I was a part of the conspiracy but never showed it, though he might have held it against me. I know that I was absolutely taken by surprise.

By now, the story with Farooq is pretty much over. By the time the 2014 a.s.sembly elections were to be announced his health was not good and he was in London for a kidney transplant. While he was a minister in the UPA government, he went on record in an interview to journalist Saeed Naqvi and said outright, 'Delhi doesn't trust us.' Imagine, a minister of the Union saying thatin Delhi.

Delhi has wasted Farooq. For instance: Pervez Musharraf was once invited to one of the Delhi media's conclaves after he stepped down from power, and Farooq was there. Farooq went up to Musharraf, offered his hand and said: 'Mujhe Farooq Abdullah kehte hain.' The point here is that Farooq is one Kashmiri leader whom the Pakistanis are wary of, and whom they would never approach directly. If the Pakistanis could buy everybody in the Valley, the one person they would still be unsure of would be Farooq Abdullah. Pakistan never messed with Sheikh Abdullah after 1975 because he was too big. Farooq was not only big but unpredictable, something which even Delhi never understood.

Since 1997, the Sindhu Darshan festival has been celebrated annually in Leh; it is a festival that L.K. Advani worked hard to bring into existence to wors.h.i.+p the Indus river. On 1 June 2000, it was celebrated with great pomp and even Vajpayee came for the inauguration. Of the three people who spoke on that occasionVajpayee, Advani and FarooqFarooq was easily the best orator. Farooq, incidentally, has also been to the Vaishno Devi temple near Jammu. And whenever he lands up at cultural functions in Kashmir, he is sure to sing a few ghazalsand bhajans.

Yet when it comes to the Republic Day and Independence Day awards and honours, Farooq has never figured. He hasn't even got a Padma Shri, whereas one of the Ikhwanisthe counter-insurgents who are not much considered heroes in Kashmirreceived a Padma Shri a few years back. It's simple, someone recommended it, the Ikhwani got it. People laughed.

There were times when Sheikh Abdullah's name was recommended for a posthumous Bharat Ratna, but he was turned down. Farooq should have at least been given a Padma Vibhushan by now. He's not even considered for a governors.h.i.+p or an amba.s.sadorial a.s.signment.

Farooq is the tallest and most meaningful Kashmiri leader. His nationalistic and secular credentials can never be doubted. He was the first chief minister to adopt the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which some people in India say is a law that has been misused disproportionately against Muslims and Farooq adopted it despite being the chief minister of India's only Muslim-majority state. Yet the UPA did not even consult him on Kashmir even though he was a member of the cabinet. It is not surprising that he went on record to say that Delhi did not trust Kashmiris. It is not surprising that he felt bitter when betrayed over being made the Vice-President of India. And this feeling of betrayal would carry over to the 2002 a.s.sembly election, when he lost power and suspected it to be a conspiracy of the government of India.

13.

WAR AND PEACE.

Between the autonomy resolution in the J&K a.s.sembly and the vice-presidential election in August 2002, several events happened which had their role in Vajpayee's master plan for cutting the IndiaKashmirPakistan Gordian knot: the 2001 Agra summit, the 9/11 attacks on America, and the attack on our own Parliament and India's subsequent military mobilisation along the western border. After this series of events coincidentally came the 2002 J&K a.s.sembly election, which would prove to be another milestone. Vajpayee and Brajesh Mishra had tasked me with overseeing a completely free and fair J&K a.s.sembly election, if possible with the partic.i.p.ation of separatists. I had been talking to the separatists individually, some for years, some like Abdul Ghani Lone as recently as during my tenure at R&AW. The only separatist I never spoke to was Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who was in touch with an aide of mine. Getting them into the electoral process was another matter altogether because they were so tightly controlled by Pakistanremember that when Lone began making reasonable noises he was shot deadbut the brief had been given, so I got on the job.

I used the opportunity of a public lecture to make the case for involving 'more people'a way of saying those outside the mainstream, namely the separatistsand the case for continuing talking. In February 2001 I went to Jammu to deliver the Amar Kapoor memorial lecture. Kapoor was an IPS officer of the J&K cadre and from the 1964 batch, a year senior to me, and as mentioned earlier, a pal of Lone's who got along equally well with Farooq. He was an amiable person and had earlier served with us in the IB. He had been the additional director-general of police four years earlier when he died suddenly of a heart attack; this lecture was inst.i.tuted in his memory. I was still in R&AW when I accepted an invitation to deliver the lecture, which was called 'Kashmir, the way forward'.

Governor Gary Saxena was a former R&AW chief and he insisted I stay at Raj Bhavan. This is the time that on the way to the lecture I went to the chief minister's residence, because Farooq was presiding over the function, and I unsuccessfully pleaded that former militant Firdous Syed be given another term as a member of the legislative council.

The lecture also did not go down well with Farooq and the National Conference, because I talked about dialogue and involving the separatists. The NC was always wary of Delhi trying to replace them by separatists. The concern that Narasimha Rao was actively courting Shabir Shah might have been one of the factors that tilted the scales for Farooq to partic.i.p.ate in the 1996 a.s.sembly election. Our dialogue with Lone, as mentioned earlier, also made Farooq anxious before the 2002 election.

I made mention of Lone and his statements during his recent visit to Pakistan for his son's wedding and on his return; Lone had realised the futility of the gun and the ruin it could bring to Kashmir. I referred to him as 'Lone Saheb'.

Thus, a few NC people did not stay for tea though they did not go so far as to stage a walkout during the lecture. They were not happy. 'Yeh Lone kab Lone Saheb ban gaye?' one of the NC fellows asked me.

'It was only out of respect for age,' I said. 'He's older than me.'

Gary Saxena read about it in the papers the next day. He understood what was going on and he complimented me. 'Tum accha bole,' he said. 'Bara balance kar ke.' Farooq was not happy, though I did compliment him while he sat on the dais.

If a dialogue process with separatists had begun then the government wanted a political face to the process, in the way that Rajesh Pilot was the face in Narasimha Rao's time. The NDA thus appointed the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, K.C. Pant, as its political interlocutor for Kashmir in April 2001. Pant was a senior politician who had spent his life in the Congress and was credited with successful negotiations with Telangana agitators in the 1970s. He immediately said he wanted to meet the Hurriyat.