Part 12 (2/2)

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.

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