Immediately after the devastating floods of September 2014 in Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti as a star campaigner for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) passionately pleaded with voters to vote decisively for her party to stop the BJP from entering the valley’s turf. In the assembly elections held later that year, the PDP received a vote share of about 23 per cent and won 28 seats out of 87; the BJP drew a blank in Kashmir and the Ladakh region but won 25 seats from Jammu and a vote share of a shade over 23 per cent.
Eventually, the PDP invoked the ‘electoral arithmetic’ argument to seal an alliance with the BJP that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed described as a “paradigm shift” but which voters in Kashmir saw as a betrayal. Kashmir has paid a heavy price for the ‘unholy’ alliance struck in 2015, and renewed by Mehbooba after her father’s death in 2016.
A decade later, many in Kashmir have a strange feeling of déjà vu. The Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) is seeking a mandate citing the same argument of ‘keeping the BJP out’. Given the current political uncertainty and apprehension of being swamped by the BJP, the NC has an opportunity not to repeat the PDP’s experiments.
Elections to Jammu and Kashmir’s assembly are being held after a decade and in an altered political landscape. Jammu and Kashmir is no longer a state, it enjoys neither special status nor semi-autonomy, and does not have a separate constitution or a separate flag. Ladakh is not a part of it anymore. Drastic changes made on August 5, 2019, have rendered the Jammu and Kashmir assembly a toothless tiger in a federally-run territory where the lieutenant governor wields unprecedented influence and enjoys unbridled powers. A recent gazette notification has further expanded the LG’s authority.
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Eerie Resemblance
The 2024 elections bear eerie similarities to the 1977 assembly elections, though.
Much water — and blood —has flown down the Jhelum in Kashmir since February 24, 1975, the day G. Parthasarthy and Mirza Afzal Beg signed the contentious accord that is also referred to as the Indira-Sheikh accord. Aged 70 at the time, Sheikh Abdullah was unsure of his political future after years of struggle, prolonged incarceration in separate stints beginning August 9, 1953, and a brief exile. The fatigued Sheikh Abdullah offered a political surrender.
In the words of A.G. Noorani, whom Omar Abdullah described as “a man of letters, an accomplished lawyer and a scholar” in a tweet to mourn his passing last month, “The accord of February 1975 was the worst he (Sheikh Abdullah) could have secured, a fig-leaf to cover abject surrender as the price for return to power—not least because of his own ineptness during the Bangladesh crisis when he supported Pakistan…”
In The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012, Noorani records that “Constitutionally, the Sheikh lost all; but he aspired to retrieve what he could politically.” Can the NC retrieve anything politically if it is voted to power in 2024?
Two years before the 1977 election, the controversial Parthasarthy-Beg accord was sealed. In 2024, Jammu and Kashmir is a Union Territory, and Ladakh a separate Union Territory.
In the 76-member J&K assembly in 1977, the Sheikh-led NC won in 47 constituencies. It was a resounding victory for a politician who did not mind losing the constitutional post of prime minister for a return to power as a chief minister with less authority. Like Sheikh Abdullah had made a compromise to return as chief minister, not prime minister, Omar Abdullah too seems comfortable about entering the assembly in a territory where the Delhi-appointed LG would call the shots.
From left, Omar Abdullah, Rahul Gandhi, Farooq Abdullah and Mallikarjun Kharge. Photo: X/@JKNC_
It is in the interest of the NC not to dupe the people of Jammu and Kashmir and to draw lessons from the PDP’s near-decimation after its alliance with the BJP.
In the words of two former chief ministers – Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti – the assembly without statehood and special status for Jammu and Kashmir will be “the most disempowered (of) assemblies” and “less powerful than a municipality”. Mehbooba has decided against contesting the assembly elections in the absence of statehood but has fielded her daughter, Iltija Mufti, from South Kashmir’s Bijbehara constituency for her electoral debut.
At the time of the accord in 1975 and in its aftermath, Sheikh Abdullah had refused to merge his party with the Congress. Indira Gandhi was not pleased but knew that Sheikh Abdullah was no longer a roaring lion as he had described his struggle spanning 22 long years as ‘political meandering’ (siyasi awaragardi).
By the late 1960s, Sheikh Abdullah had almost given up on his principled political stance on Kashmir after prolonged incarceration and being out of power for about two decades. Pakistan lost East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in the 1971 war. Perhaps the Fall of Dacca might also have impacted Sheikh Abdullah’s decision-making ability in some way.
In a letter dated May 23, 1975, he wrote to his once close confidant Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg, then president of the Plebiscite Front (Mahaz-e-Rai Shumari), about the future of the movement and changing the nomenclature of the front.
“During the last few months you (Afzal Beg) and other leading members of your party have had opportunities of deliberating over this question of a new name and fresh political aims; and I am grateful to you for having kept me informed about your views and the trends in the party,” Sheikh Abdullah wrote to Beg, adding, “It appears now, and is revealed by your latest statements in this regard, that the Front (Mahaz-e-Rai Shumari) has decided to disband itself, and, in its place, form a new party.”
This paved the way for the NC to contest the assembly elections under its own banner and return to power in 1977. Although it won’t be possible for the NC to replicate the impressive performance of that year now, it could still emerge as the single-largest party in Kashmir in 2024 if the parliamentary election results are any indication. A decisive mandate though is unlikely and the NC would require the support of a coalition partner to form the next government. The Congress could be that partner.
Another similarity with the 1977 assembly election is the revival of sorts for the NC. Kashmir’s oldest political formation, the NC was founded as J&K Muslim Conference in 1931 and rechristened as J&K National Conference eight years later (1939). With a history of 85 years, the onus is on the NC to set things right.
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A.G. Noorani notes that Sheikh Abdullah “presided over a rigged election to the Constituent Assembly in 1951, was opposed strongly to a plebiscite from 1947-53, and abused political opponents and connived at acts of violence against them—for example, against Beg (Afzal Beg) in 1978.” He, however, adds that Sheikh’s heart “lay with Kashmiris and he had a vision.” Sheikh Abdullah “became an idol of the masses, especially in 1953, because he articulated their urges.” After Kashmir was robbed of its autonomy in 1953, and Kashmiris of their pride and self-esteem, “Abdullah did little to restore either,” according to Noorani.
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti. Photo: X/@MehboobaMufti
When the BJP walked away from the J&K coalition government in 2018, the PDP has been found wanting on the region’s slippery political terrain. As a former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti has lost back-to-back parliamentary elections (2019 and 2024) in her South Kashmir bastion while about 20 winnable candidates, including former MLAs, have either deserted the party or been shown the exit door.
Finding the PDP on a weak wicket, it is natural for the NC to see an opening for a comeback and target at least 30 assembly seats in the forthcoming elections from the valley alone. The NC wouldn’t like to offer any relief to the PDP, which is widely perceived as a ‘sinking ship’ after its alliance with the ideologically antithetical BJP. Apart from the blow to its reputation, there is palpable anger among the voters against Mehbooba Mufti’s public statements in 2016 in which she had blamed civilians for protests.
Now, the NC is fighting the assembly elections in an altered environment, and when the total number of seats after delimitation exercise has risen to 90, minus Ladakh. Omar Abdullah has softened his earlier stance and agreed to contest from Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal constituency. In 2020, he had said on record: “I have been (the) leader of the assembly of the state. In its time the most empowered assembly. I cannot and will not be a member of what is now one of the most disempowered assemblies. It’s as simple as that.”
It did not prove ‘as simple as that’. Now, Omar Abdullah defends his decision to fight elections in a federally-run territory (not a full-fledged State). This is politics. What Omar Abdullah is doing in 2024, Farooq Abdullah has done in 1996, and Sheikh Abdullah did it way back in 1975 and 1977.
According to Noorani, “The grandson Omar Abdullah has proved to be worse still. The regimes of all three (Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah) were riddled with corruption and repression. The Sheikh (Abdullah) freely used the Enemy Agents Ordinance to throw dissenters across the cease-fire line. He was no democrat.”
Ironically, Sheikh Abdullah was unceremoniously dismissed as prime minister on the orders of the Sadr-e-Riyasat, then a young Karan Singh, and detained on August 9, 1953. Of course, a green signal for dismissal and detention came from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as is recorded by M. O. Mathai, then private secretary to Nehru (31 July 1953). Abdullah suffered in prison in various stints under the infamous Kashmir Conspiracy Case. All charges were dropped later.
Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah campaigning ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Photos: X/@MehboobaMufti/@tanvirsadiq
Young party spokespersons of the National Conference and social media influencers should read a bit of history before airing their opinions on the subject. Some commentators are describing the NC manifesto, which promises to strive to fully implement the Autonomy Resolution passed by the J&K assembly in 2000, to restore Articles 370 and 35A, and statehood, and endeavour to redraw the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, as panacea and a significant shift. The same set of commentators had lavished praise on the formation of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) as well. Everyone knows its fate.
Common sense suggests that to restore Articles 370 and 35A and the state’s semi-autonomous status, you either require a geopolitical upheaval or a brute majority in the Indian Parliament. Only then can you pragmatically think of undoing the changes made on 5 August 2019. Promising things that are beyond your jurisdiction and mandate is electoral rhetoric and an attempt to tap into the emotions of the voters to secure an electoral goal.
Still, there is a window of opportunity for the NC’s revival if it genuinely represents people’s aspirations and addresses their apprehensions, not just in the party manifesto but in practice. In the 2002 and 2008 assembly elections, the NC won 28 seats. But in 2014, it was reduced to 15 seats. The party should assure voters that government formation with the BJP after the elections is out of question.
Instead, it should convince the Congress to take an unambiguous stand on Articles 370 and 35A and only then seal an alliance. If the Congress fails or refuses to take a stance that is in sync with the voters’ aspirations, the NC should consider post-poll partnerships with other regional parties in Kashmir. There was a time when the NC referred to members of the Congress in Kashmir as “Gandi Naali ke keede” (the worms of the gutter)” but political compulsions of the time made it stitch partnerships with the same party.
The NC shouldn’t forget what happened in the aftermath of the Rajiv-Farooq accord, the dismissal of the Farooq Abdullah-led government in 1984 by Indira Gandhi, the hard lessons of the 1987 assembly elections, largely believed to have been massively rigged, and also the fate of the PDP after aligning with the BJP in 2015-16. Historical lessons cannot be brushed under the carpet.
Gowhar Geelani is a Kashmiri writer and journalist, and the author of Kashmir: Rage and Reason. He posts on X @GowharGeelani.