Part 14 (1/2)

'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.'