J&K govt removes photograph of Sheikh Abdullah from police medals, Kashmir parties condemn move

An order issued by J&K’s Additional Chief Secretary, Home, RK Goyal, on Monday read: “It is hereby ordered that in modification to Para 4 of the Jammu & Kashmir Police Medal Scheme, the ‘Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’ embossed on one side of the medal shall be replaced with ‘the National Emblem of the Government of India’. The other side inscribed with J&K State Emblem shall be inscribed as ‘Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry’ and the ‘Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Meritorious Service’, as the case may be,” it added.

Following abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of erstwhile J&K state into two Union Territories in August 2019, the J&K government had in 2020 dropped late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s title ‘Sher-i-Kashmir’ from both the police medals and renamed them as Jammu and Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry and for Meritorious Service. Prior to it, these were known as Sher-i-Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry/Meritorious Service.

National Conference’s Jammu province president Rattan Lal Gupta condemned the decision, saying the government was setting a wrong precedent by negating the decisions taken by its predecessors. Describing it as an attempt to erase the history and identity of the erstwhile state, he said that Sheikh Abdullah was the first Muslim in Jammu and Kashmir who rejected Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s two nation theory and sided with India. He introduced land reforms by giving land to the tiller, abolishing money lenders (sahukars), Gupta said, adding that Abdullah’s contribution has been written in golden letters in the history of both the province and the nation.

Former chief minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti also criticised the administration for the move to rename the police medals. Mufti said, “The removal of his (Sheikh Abdullah’s) name from the medal wouldn’t impact his personality. But those who did this, it shows their mentality. I doubt their mental stability. A personality… who played an important role in the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India, today after 70 years they want to erase his identity. It shows their mental bankruptcy.”

The former chief minister further said it was Sheikh Abdullah who disregarded the two-nation theory and took the bold decision to join hands with a secular India instead of Pakistan.

National Conference spokesperson Imran Nabi said: “It is an attempt to erase history. Sheikh sahib will continue to rule the hearts and minds of people in Jammu and Kashmir. The actual change of nomenclature took place in 2019. Just to distract people from the Kashmiri Pandit protests and the general failure of the J&K administration, they are digging up old issues. With due respect to the national emblem, these attempts to erase our history, identity and icon shows nefariousness of those running the show.”