Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years Part 14

'Not at all,' Farooq said. 'You're like my brother.'

And that was good enough for me.

Once he became chief minister, Mufti reached out to Sajad. He wanted the younger Lone in government but Sajad turned it down. Perhaps he felt he would have been selling himself cheap. 'You never know with Mufti Saheb,' Sajad told me. In the case, one of the People's Conference winners who stood as an independent became minister.

Another consequence of the 2002 election was that the British and the Americans, who had till then shown much interest in Kashmir's happenings and its personalities, gradually decreased their overt interest. Till then they would go to Kashmir and inevitably meet separatists like Yasin Malik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Geelani. After 2002, meeting these guys in Srinagar was no longer obligatory, and they avoided Geelani like the plague. Geelani was now too extremist, and so persona non grata.

Even Musharraf told Geelani to step aside: 'We've heard you enough, old man,' he reportedly told Geelani. 'Now get out of the way, we have to move on.' Of course, Geelani was unhappy with Musharraf after that. It was no doubt the impact of the Americans' war on terror following 9/11. But after 2002, Pakistan also made a conscious decision to woo the mainstream in Kashmir, as we shall see.

For now, however, it was Mufti's moment.

14.

VAJPAYEE'S LAST CHOICEMUFTI

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed achieved his life's dream in 2002 and became the chief minister under an arrangement with the Congress party, which had won more seats but which disregarded Vajpayee's advice and allowed the junior partner to a.s.sume office. Mufti was to run things for three years and then hand over the chief ministers.h.i.+p to the alliance partner. Thus, during the remaining year and a half of the NDA's tenure, we in Vajpayee's team got a good look at Mufti's way of functioning. He was not a bad chief minister. From our point of view he was a focused administrator, on the ball and wanting to know even small details. Whenever there was a conversation with him and if there was a disagreement, or if you gave him information which he did not have, he immediately picked up the phone and checked with his director-general, intelligence. 'Dulat Saheb hamare paas baithe hain aur yeh bol rahe hain,' he would say. 'Isko check kariye.' And he would add, 'Please get back to me, I want to know.'

That was one of many ways he was poles apart from his bete noire Farooq Abdullah. Mufti was always keen to know what was happening where. Farooq's att.i.tude was, on the other hand, that you don't need to tell me this because he already knew what was happening.

From the Kashmiris' point of view, his tenure was successful at a different level. The 'healing touch' that he spoke of when he formed the PDP was made official policy and Mufti took a few measures. The routine hara.s.sment of the common Kashmiri was either stopped or reduced considerably, by keeping the security forces a little more in check; and this was done by curbing the constant frisking or pulling people off buses, etc.

It worked. It had nothing to do with governance or development or matters like that. The crux of the matter is that Mufti was someone who understood and cannily played on the Kashmiri psyche. He turned populism into politics. In due course Delhi understood what he was doing, and the usual hardliners in the NDA were not very happy, but it was getting nearer election time so there was precious little they could do. For the common Kashmiri, it was the defining trait by which they judged Mufti's three years, saying these were the best they had had since 1996.

Mufti has always been a highly ambitious politician, but having always been under the shadow of that great banyan treethe Abdullah familyhis is a complex personality. He has always been highly insecure and he has a fairly narrow way of looking at things. One reason for this is that Farooq, for instance, has always been a Kashmiri with a nationalist outlook, whereas Mufti started his career with the Congress and spent most of his years there. In Kashmiri eyeseven among those who grow disillusioned with the NCMufti is ultimately a 'Congressiya'.

This has been so from the beginning when Mufti was a lawyer in Anantnag in the late 1950s and was picked up as a protege by G.M. Sadiq. If you recall, Abdul Ghani Lone, who was four years senior to Mufti, was another protege of the last prime minister of Kashmir. Sadiq became the first chief minister in 1965, heading a Congress government that Mufti joined. Lone soon became disenchanted with Sadiq, and Sadiq's successor Mir Qasim, blaming them for eroding Kashmir's autonomy. Mufti, however, made a career at the Congressat odds with Sheikh Abdullah and company who, first with the Plebiscite Front and then with the National Conferencealways spoke of Kashmiri nationalism. And when Sheikh Saheb entered into an accord with Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1975 and became chief minister, Mufti was made the chief of the Congress party's state unit.

Mufti and his bosom chum Makhan Lal Fotedar were always looking to pick a fight with Sheikh Saheb but Mrs Gandhi was not keen to do so (though she obviously changed her mind once Farooq hosted an opposition conclave in 1983). She realised, particularly after the accord, that they had an understanding that the NC would rule in Kashmir and the Congress in Delhi. She wanted it thus so that the Congress need not contest the a.s.sembly election and the NC need not contest Parliament.

Sheikh Saheb once referred to these Congress politicians by saying: 'Yeh gandi naali ke keere hain'they are c.o.c.kroaches from the gutter.

During the Parliament election in May 2014, I met Mufti and he reminded me of that. He would go on to win all three Kashmir Lok Sabha seats, and though he was perennially on the defensive, on this occasion he was feeling confident. 'Hum toh gandi naali ke keere thhe, na?' he said. 'We have proved today that we are a regional party now.'

In my early Kashmir days, I did not know Mufti. In fact, I had not met him even by the time he became home minister under Prime Minister V.P. Singh and his daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped. During the kidnapping, however, we would have long, long conversations on the phone. In one call he asked me what I thought of Farooq as chief minister. But the calls otherwise were always about the kidnapping and what the latest was. It was a father's natural anxiety.

It has been mentioned earlier how Mufti sent all sorts of interlocutors like the judge Moti Lal Bhat to tell the chief minister how concerned he was about Rubaiya. Bhat and others told Farooq to hurry up. I had just had my most important meeting during the kidnapping, when I met Ashfaq Majid Wani's father, and I told Farooq that we could get her released without giving too many concessions. Farooq had told Mufti's interlocutors that he was not in favour of releasing terrorists, and I told him that since the home minister is so concerned, why not give him a call? Farooq's first reaction was, forget him. 'No, give him a call,' I said. He did, and courteously so.

The day after Rubaiya was released, one of my neighbours on Gupkar Road, Vijay Dhar, warned me that Arun Nehru and Mufti and Jagmohan were gunning for me. I realised that Mufti did not like me at all. Like the others, he thought of me as Farooq's man.

I came face to face with Mufti on the final day of 1989. My son Arjun had gone to Calcutta to look for a job and I went along to take a break. The home minister, however, summoned a meeting for the 31st and I had to be there. Interestingly it was a Kashmir meeting and I sat there without being asked one single question. Also noteworthy was the fact that the Kashmir chief minister was not at that meeting; by then it had likely been decided to dump Farooq.

At the end of the meeting, Mufti asked the IB special director Padmanabhan (the punster from chapter one), 'By the way, where is Dulat?'

'Here he is,' Padmanabhan said, pointing at me.

That was my first meeting with Mufti.

The following month Jagmohan became governor and Farooq resigned, and two months after that I was replaced in Srinagar. Later in the year the V.P. Singh government collapsed and I was installed in the Kashmir group. Mufti was no longer home minister. Soon enough, Narasimha Rao took him back into the Congress.

And then Mufti began coming to Delhi and publicly saying that there was no other way in Kashmir, no other solution, but Farooq. It became his mantra for the next four years, till about 1995: Farooq, Farooq, Farooq.

During this time I was formally and properly introduced to Mufti. A Kashmiri Pandit named V.K. Vaishnavi, who was close to Mufti, came over one day. He was originally a journalist but not a serious one, but he was so close to Mufti that when things were bad, he even went grocery shopping for Mufti. 'Dulat Saheb, aapko Mufti Saheb se milwana hai,' he said.

'Vaishnavi Saheb, you know I meet everyone,' I said. 'But I don't think Mufti Saheb likes me, so kya faayda.'

'Nahin-nahin, Mufti Saheb aapko bahut acchi tarah se receive karenge,' he said. 'Aap chaliye mere saath.'

Mufti was living on Akbar Road. We met and it went well. We got to know each other.

After this Vaishnavi called up and said, 'Mufti Saheb chahate thhe ki aap Farooq Saheb se milwa dijiye.' This was interesting, that Mufti was keen to meet Farooq, who happened to be in Delhi at the moment. It was some time in 1995.

'What is the problem in that?' I asked.

'No, he wants to do it a bit quietly,' Vaishnavi said. 'Aap karwa de toh theek hain.'

I spoke to Farooq, we set it up for dinner at my residence in Kidwai Nagar, Delhi.

Mufti was punctual and arrived at 8:30. 'Sir, have a drink,' I said.

'Nahin-nahin, Doctor Saheb ko aa jaane dijiye,' he said.

Farooq took his time in coming. He did it purely for effect, and he did it deliberately because it was Mufti. They were meeting after a long time, and of course, don't forget that Farooq had been forced out of his job at the start of 1990. He got a kick out of keeping Mufti waiting. At 9:00 p.m. Mufti said, 'Are you sure Dr Farooq is coming?'

'Sir, aap drink le lijiye,' I said.

'Nahin, drink toh koi baat nahin, but are you sure Farooq is coming?'

'Jab woh kehte hain toh zaroor aatein hain,' I said.

Farooq came at about quarter past nine and Mufti was relieved to see him. We all had a drink. 'When Kashmiris talk, it's best that the third man goes out of the room,' I said, and left the two of them in high spirits. Their meeting went off well.

But then after the 1996 a.s.sembly election and his swearing- in Farooq came to Delhi and I met him in J&K House. 'I've come to say my thank yous to all the leaders that I know in Delhi,' he said, because a lot of them had come for the swearing- in.

'Who all have you met?' I asked. 'Who all are you meeting?'

He named some people.

'What about Mufti Saheb?' I said.

'Do I have to meet Mufti?' he asked.

'You should meet him,' I said.

Just then Saifuddin Soz, still a member of the NC, intervened. 'My leader will not go to him,' Soz said. 'It's Mufti who should come to him.'

'Soz Saheb, yeh chhoriye,' I said. 'Doctor Saheb ko jaane dijiye.'

But he wouldn't relent. 'Bilkul nahin jaane denge,' Soz said, and that was that.

Similarly, some time later it was Ramzan and there was an iftaar party in Delhi. There was a big crowd, and I also showed up. And again I found Mufti missing. 'Sir, I don't see Mufti here,' I said to Farooq.

'I invited Mufti,' Farooq said. 'Why don't you ask Soz? He said he had sent an invitation.'

So I asked Soz: 'Soz Saheb, Mufti Saheb ko nahin bulaya?'

But Soz insisted he had personally delivered the card.

Later I asked Mufti: 'Mufti Saheb, aap aaye nahin?'

But he said he got the card only in the morning, for an evening invite. 'Is that any way to invite someone?'

So Soz was the spoiler in all this.

After this there was no great love lost between them. I spoke separately to them and asked why they didn't get together, the NC and the PDP. My logic was that they were always cribbing about Delhi but basically cancelling out each other, and that if they joined forces they could get a lot more done for Kashmir. 'Nahin koi opposition toh chahiye na,' Mufti said. Fair enough, perhaps it was a bad suggestion.

In any case, Mufti came to power in 2002 and his three years were acknowledged as good. When we met in 2014, he pointed out that his tenure looked even better after Omar Abdullah's tenure from 2008 to 2014. 'Omar has wasted the last six years,' Mufti said. 'Farooq would never have allowed things to come to such a pa.s.s. He has a feel for Kashmir. He had a good cabinet and a competent bureaucracy with him. Omar is over-dependent on security and is far too insular for Kashmir. Here he's called tweet CM.' (This is in reference to Omar's preference for the micro-blogging site Twitter.) Mufti attained power with the help of his friend Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Both of them are Pirs, who are groups of families from whom Kashmir gets its religious preachers, and that explains their proximity. The feeling among some Kashmiris, however, is that most Pirs are frauds.

Once during Mufti's tenure Geelani was shooting off his mouth and angering the NDA government in Delhi. Geelani was an irritation also because whatever he said was used by the hardliners in Delhi to put pressure on the government. One day Brajesh said Geelani had crossed the limit. 'Why don't we put away this fellow and lock him up?' he said. 'He's becoming a nuisance.'

I spoke to the chief minister but he said no. 'I will not make a martyr out of him,' Mufti said. 'Just let him be. It's better if he lets off steam. He's more harmless outside than he would be inside. We can deal with him politically.' And he was right.

When he was chief minister I made it a point to go and meet him. He was more relaxed during this time though he never got over his belief that Farooq was the worst thing for him, and that I was Farooq's man. Even nowadays, whenever he comes to Delhi he makes it a point to call me and enquires about Farooq, even if I haven't met Farooq in six months or whatever.

But as chief minister he was more friendly, hospitable. On one occasion he even took us to Dachigam for lunch, which was unthinkable with Mufti Saheb. Even his wife came out. Our relations.h.i.+p was at its best during that period, when he was chief minister and I was in the PMO.

Mufti was a man who loved his Black Label whisky. If after one drink you said you had enough, he'd say no, have one small. Mufti also loved his bridge and played whenever he got a chance at the Delhi Golf Club. Though he fancied his skills at bridge, those he played with were not so impressed. He had a few bridge partners in Srinagar, but I think in recent years he's had less time for it.

Though he made time for me while I was at the PMO, the same was not for those who had stuck by him over the years. For instance, Vaishnavi, his sidekick who used to buy his vegetables and occasionally pay for them as well, got nothing when Mufti became chief minister.

One day I said: 'Mufti Saheb, Vaishnavi feels a bit left out.'

Mufti didn't like it. 'Mufti Mohammad Sayeed apne doston ko nahin bhoolta,' he said.

'Sir, I'm only flagging a point,' I said. 'He's a little disappointed.'

'Nahin, main jaanta hoon,' Mufti said.

Two years later, just before Mufti's term was ending, Vaishnavi was given the chairmans.h.i.+p of some state corporation. He went on a trip to Agra and died, being a highly diabetic and hypertensive man. It was a sad ending.

Then there was a gentleman in Jammu who was actually an astrologer. He hung around Mufti and was like the furniture in his house. Mufti used to call him Kakaji. Once Mufti said, 'Why don't you help him?' We got his son a job in R&AW but when Mufti became CM he disowned Kakaji.

On one occasion Kakaji was sitting here at my place in Delhi and Mehb.o.o.ba, Mufti's other daughter, who played the main supporting role in the PDP's 2002 win, arrived. 'Main mara gaya,' he said. 'Now it's confirmed that I'm an intelligence agent.'

Poor Vaishnavi and Kakaji and Firdous, all of them got it for the same reason, that they were intelligence agents, even if they were introduced to me by the person accusing them. In fact I called Kakaji in Jammu. 'Aapki sarkar ban gayi hai,' I said. 'Mufti Saheb ka phone aaya?'

'Nahin, saheb,' he said. 'Ab kya phone karenge.'

This is the difference between Farooq and Mufti. If in a crowd Mufti sees Farooq, Mufti won't know whether or not to approach him, or how, because he is so insecure. Whereas if Farooq is sitting in a room and sees Mufti in a crowd he will call out, 'Mufti aao, yahan baitho.' Farooq is confidence personified.

Though Mehb.o.o.ba, as mentioned, had a role to play in the 2002 election she has been restrained in her ambitions, unlike the youngsters of other political families. Mufti Saheb has made it clear that her time will come but for now, she is to remain subdued.

It may also have to do with perceptions of Mehb.o.o.ba. When Vajpayee went to Srinagar in April 2003 and famously extended his hand towards Pakistan, a stage was erected high up for the public meeting. Sitting up on the stage were Vajpayee and Mufti, the chief minister. Mehb.o.o.ba wanted to join them, but she was politely told that there was no place for her on that stage.

Vajpayee did not want her up there. He did not want her projected. There were grave doubts about Mehb.o.o.ba in Delhi, about her links with the Hizbul Mujahideen and the help it provided to her and her party during the 2002 election.

After a few years, strangely, Kashmiris again began yearning for Farooq's return. There is a particular word in the Kashmiri language, fetir, which means lovable fool. 'Uss fetir ko wapas lao,' became the refrain. In any case, after three years, as per their agreement, Mufti stepped down and handed over the reins to the Congress party, which made Ghulam Nabi Azad its chief minister. It was once again a mistake that Delhi made, not because Azad was not a good chief minister but because of the signal it sent Kashmir that Delhi would not do without its own man in Srinagar. This was unnecessary because Mufti was at the core a Congressman and provided a convenient buffer.

In 2008, the NC won more seats and this time it tied up with the Congress, though Omar ruled for all six years of the a.s.sembly's term (the J&K a.s.sembly's life is a year longer than that of other state a.s.semblies). Omar's tenure was marked by several lows, including a summer of stone-throwing by youngsters in 2010 in which over 100 boys died. The situation became so tense that it looked as if Omar's government would not survive; Mufti and Mehb.o.o.ba were summoned to Delhi by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

A special aircraft brought the father and daughter to Delhi and they met Sonia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Even I got a chance to meet them, and Mufti was upbeat. They hung around for three weeks. But nothing happened. Mufti went back disgusted.

By April 2014 Omar was so discredited that Mufti's party won all three parliamentary seats, and even Farooq lost the Srinagar seatthat too to a former junior member of his party. It was during that time that I had a chat with Mufti, and he made several remarks.

Mufti said that Pakistan had got to everybody in Kashmir. 'They're financing everybody,' he said.

I looked at him.

'Hamein bhi contact kiya hai,' he said.

This was something; the ISI approaching Mufti, former Union home minister. He obviously spurned them.

'The situation is dangerous, there have been aggressive protests, even in the countryside,' Mufti said. 'Pakistan is spreading its tentacles.' For us, Pakistan's influence used to be confined to three a.s.sembly const.i.tuencies in downtown Srinagar, around the mosque, and in other towns like Baramulla. Mufti was saying that it had now spread into the countryside.

Also, Mufti was concerned for Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. 'He is an a.s.set for both sides but he's more important to us so we need to look after him,' Mufti said. 'His security must be ensured, and we need to engage with him also, as well as with Pakistan in due course.' At that time, Mirwaiz was having a spat with Geelani over who was meeting Modi's emissaries, and Mirwaiz had publicly made various allegations against Geelani.

Possibly he said this because the Mirwaiz had indirectly helped the PDP considering that Farooq had lost in Srinagar. Also, however, he felt that the Mirwaiz had grown in stature at the Pakistanis' behest. Importantly, the separatist Hurriyat 'represented a thought that cannot be wished away, and must be engaged'. The Mirwaiz was the key to that, because Geelani would never come around.

Mufti described Geelani in two ways: a Pakistani and a disruptive force. It appeared they had a falling out, even though the PDP was said to be a brainchild of the two of them. Perhaps Geelani found Mufti, when he was chief minister, to be as dictatorial as the Abdullahs. It could also be that when Omar Abdullah was the chief minister, he helped get Geelani's son, a doctor in Pakistan, back to India. Whatever the case, by 2014 there was a lot of disenchantment within the Jamaat-e-Islami against the PDP. But Mufti and Geelani still have a common bond.

Mufti mentioned that Farooq might lose the parliamentary seat he was contesting, but added that even if he lost, Farooq Abdullah would remain Farooq Abdullah.

The feeling in Kashmir was that Mufti had some understanding with the BJP for the Lok Sabha election and may have even had some financial help to contest the election. Prior to the Parliament election, Mufti had sent Dilawar Mir, a former minister, as his emissary to meet Modi in Ahmedabad. The PDP suits the BJP as a soft separatist; in the BJP's way of thinking, if it can deal with Mufti then why does it need to deal with the Mirwaiz? Mufti is a nationalist.

Of course the floods of September 2014 changed a lot of the dynamics, and then the BJP began to speak of Mission 44of capturing power by themselves. It was just rhetoric, but it made Mufti a nervous man.

But not as nervous as the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, who in 2014 were afraid of getting politically squeezed out by Modi. This was a far cry from 2004, during Mufti's chief ministers.h.i.+p, when another hardliner, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, engaged the separatists in talks.