‘Nobody is with the BJP during the elections. They are always with them after the elections’: Sajad Lone at Idea Exchange

Muzamil Jaleel: You are fighting an election after 15 years and against the former Chief Minister supported by the Congress. How challenging is it?

The Congress, with all due respect, is not very strong anymore in the North. And we fought the NC in the ’80s and that’s when Muzaffar Hussain Baig used to fight. At that time, the NC would get around 65 per cent of the votes and we would lose by two-and-a-half lakh votes. When I fought in 2009, I lost by 1.5 lakh (votes).

Then we fought in 2014, and lost by one lakh (votes). Last election, we lost by 30,000 (votes) and the difference was seven or six per cent. So the statistics are in our favour. It’s up to the people. Statistically, I think it is the NC that should be worried. From 65 per cent, they came to 29 per cent.

Muzamil Jaleel: In 2007, you came out with a vision document titled ‘Achievable Nationhood’ — your roadmap for a solution to the Kashmir issue. Is that your politics still?

I’d say that it (Achievable Nationhood) is a piece of academic and political work and they never lose relevance. They become relevant depending on the context and the environment. The way we are fighting today, we’re desperate to get our statehood back because we have been relegated to a UT. But I’m a firm believer of that document in the long run. Whenever there is a desire to establish eternal peace in South Asia, that piece of work will be relevant in terms of ideas.

Muzamil Jaleel: There is some calm in Kashmir. What do you think about the ground situation at this point?

There have been calms in the previous years too. It’s not the only period after 1989 when there has been a calm. I personally would want this calm to continue. But as a student of politics, I’d say it could be a deceptive calm too. A lot depends on how the future governments move on it. But until they don’t engage, this calm may not be long-term. You can’t have long-term calm purely by management. This is a tried, tested and failed method which the Congress also did in its time. They managed people and managed calm for a certain period.

But yes, the only thing where I’d give credit to them is the decrease in civilian killings, which unfortunately, whenever there was a Kashmiri government, were much higher. I do not know the reason. But I think the Kashmiri governments in the past have always come with connivance. They have never been clean — black and white — like in the rest of India. Apparently, (due to) some sort of collusion and understanding, they were allowed to get away with murder and so many civilian killings.

P Vaidyanathan Iyer: Leaders in Delhi say that everything is normal in Kashmir. How do you assess those statements?

As I said, there have been periods of calm in the past also. It’s not only during these last five years. But unfortunately, it was the lull before the storm. I’m not one of those people who is waiting for a storm. I’m very happy with the lack of violence, fewer hartals and no stone pelting. But I still believe that for long-term peace to prevail, to endure, you would need to engage with the people of J&K. You have to treat them as citizens of India and as equal stakeholders in all the decisions that you take. You can’t sit in Delhi and make all the decisions. You can’t let bureaucrats run the states. We were given a special status. You took that away. The least we expect is now to be equal Indians. You have to have the same set of laws and rules as in any other part of India. You can’t now make us inferior in the name of security or lesser violence or whatever.

Aakash Joshi: Since the BJP is not contesting in the Valley, and Omar Abdullah has been calling you and your party essentially proxies for the BJP, what is your response? Also, what do you make of the BJP’s place in Kashmir as a whole?

My problem is not Omar Abdullah. My problem is national journalists who don’t have enough knowledge of the Kashmir issue. How many votes did the BJP get in Kashmir in the last Parliament election? Not even one per cent. How can ‘not even one per cent’ all of a sudden float proxies? This is as absurd as it can get. Omar Abdullah is entitled to his delusions. BJP got one per cent in North Kashmir and 0.25 per cent in Central Kashmir. So have they suddenly become powerful after abrogating Article 370? They are not even on the periphery of Kashmiri electoral politics. They’re almost invisible. Had they fought, that would have been a direct indictment of what they did in Parliament. So maybe they chose to stay away. What support can they offer us? Yes, Omar Abdullah can paint us as BJP and anti-Muslim and then try to get votes out of it. And that too, from a person whose party has been in power for 32 years. They have had nine MPs in Parliament for 28 years. Rather than fighting an election on the basis of defending his record, he is fighting the whole election on the idea that Lone is a BJP proxy. I have been in mainstream power politics for (a few) years, so possibly whatever is wrong here cannot be because of me.

That too, as an animal husbandry minister, where I was no big deal. I was not some mover and shaker. I was not a CM. Neither was I a foreign minister in the Vajpayee cabinet. If anybody has a BJP tag here, it is Abdullah. At the height of Babri Masjid demolition, when even being in Shiv Sena’s company would have been a stigma for any Muslim, he sat with them in the Central cabinet. He was the commerce minister. By virtue of his statements, he was made the foreign minister. They passed an internal autonomy resolution in the Assembly, which the BJP government rejected. He stayed on, despite that, for two years. Now he has the audacity to label others as BJP (proxies).They (BJP) are totally absent. He has glorified them as if they are some lions and Kashmiri Muslims are dying to vote for them. That’s not the case.

Muzamil Jaleel: The NC was not in the coalition at the time of Babri Masjid demolition.

No, I am saying post-Babri Masjid, after the communal riots in which thousands of Muslims were slaughtered, he sat with the same Shiv Sena. Five days back, they met Farooq Abdullah. So, when Shiv Sena sits with them, they are good Shiv Sena. Otherwise, they are bad Shiv Sena. When my father was assaulted by a Shiv Sena goon called Kalki Maharaj, in full public view, in Jammu, that goon had Z-security. He was not even from Jammu and Kashmir.

Naveed Iqbal: Over the last few years you have repeatedly termed August 5 (2019) as a collective humiliation of Kashmiris.

There is a large consensus of helplessness and collective humiliation, that it was done by a governor. He, who was not a native of this place, signed on behalf of the people of Kashmir. I think most of the people in Kashmir believe that (and the same feeling) might be increasing across Jammu as well. Many people in Jammu, who would not earlier agree with us or for that matter in Ladakh, may agree with us now.

Muzamil Jaleel: What do you think about the restoration of statehood and elections? Is that going to happen?

The Supreme Court is clear on the elections and very unclear and, unfortunately, ambiguous on the statehood. The PM has promised it in Jammu and the Home Minister has promised it too. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We have no other option but to wait and encourage them through our statements that ‘yes, we are waiting, people are waiting’ and not give them an escape route.

P Vaidyanathan Iyer: What has been your assessment of district development councils (DDCs)?

This is what I call an unequal Indian. There is no DDC direct election in any part of India. So, why did you have to create a new creature, somewhat between a sarpanch and an MLA? It was, again, a very belittling process and they did not empower the DDC. They invited them to fight and go into the fray and did actually create a perception that in the new era of inequality, they were going to replace the MLAs. I don’t think anything like that happened. It was difficult for them to even seek an appointment. The overall attitude of the bureaucracy has been contemptuous.

P Vaidyanathan Iyer: In the period immediately after August 5, 2019, and subsequently, several arrests have been made in Kashmir. Many were detained under PSA. Are you still getting representation from people detained in different parts of the country? Have you been in touch with the administration?

Administration, I don’t talk to them. Once the political class is absent, it’s very difficult to talk to a bureaucrat here. But yes, there are many reports. It’s not only about being in jail now. There is an added figure which unfortunately nobody talks about and in which I think 40 to 50 per cent of the population is involved, which is the police verification system. In the entire country, where we see police verification for a passport or a job, it is the individual who is investigated. In Kashmir, the entire family is investigated. If any relative has a criminal past, especially in militancy, that person will not get a police verification. So you won’t get a job, or participate in government projects, or get a passport. Unfortunately, the shift from individual to family has been done during the NC era. No law was changed. These laws have been implemented by them and other governments in the last 20 years. Now they are doing it with greater vehemence, greater intensity. Not only that, there’s a list of over-ground workers, who are not militants, but who in the eyes of the law, facilitated them. Now 50 per cent of these lists, I believe, are fabricated and based on political rivalry, especially from 1996 to 2002 when violence was high and Farooq Abdullah was gifted a government on a platter, which was a selection and never an election. Elections have come and hundreds are being detained under PSA because their names were on the lists. Unfortunately, apart from the Central government agencies, the biggest role in these lists is that of the past governments.

P Vaidyanathan Iyer: In the last four to five years since Governor’s rule, and particularly current LG, have there been any discussions on issues of public interest? About the police system adversely affecting people, government employees being thrown out of jobs?

I have met him twice, for less than half an hour. So, imagine how much would I have been able to discuss. This whole termination was done and is being done very unfairly today, and I condemn it. But we have to put it on record, that the NC did it and all the other governments did it. Left alone, they would terminate at least 50 per cent of the employees. In these police verification systems, if in a family of 500, there is one person who has been involved in subversive activities, other’s jobs are in danger. Why? Even to get a promotion, you have to get a police verification. Basically, if you want to eat, you have to get a verification.

Shalini Langer: In last Assembly elections, the BJP swept Jammu but didn’t win in Kashmir. If a similar scenario is there after the Assembly elections, would any party be willing to have an alliance with them?

I can bet my life that the first party which will go running to them will be the NC.

Shalini Langer: They will not be scared after what happened the last time?

Nobody is with the BJP during the elections. They are always with them after the elections. And everybody says that vote for us to keep the BJP out. And then they go and sit in their lap. The 2014 elections were fought on the premise that we will keep the BJP out. Again, I had made this cardinal sin of meeting the PM. So I was the fall guy. I was a newcomer. That was the first time I was fighting Assembly elections. And thankfully I won and my other friend also won. And we got a good number of votes for just fighting from seven or eight constituencies. But both parties were fighting to keep the BJP out and both approached them. One made a government with them, while it didn’t work out for the other because the BJP thought it would be against the people’s mandate.

Muzamil Jaleel: Do you think any government in Delhi can restore  Article 370 and 35A now?

That’s what we are telling Omar Abdullah’s NC. They are lying to people when they say that we will get back Article 370. We contend that if with three MPs you could not stop it from being abrogated, how can you get (it back) with three MPs? I don’t think that the Congress or any other party would be in a position to actually do that, because the popular sentiment seems to be against it. Having said that, Articles 370 and 35A are names specific to Delhi-Srinagar relationship. In academia, the name would be decentralisation — the distribution of powers between the provincial government and the Central government. In the future times, I do see a very economically empowered generation of Indians across the country, including ours, coming up and having the courage to decentralise, to deregulate. I don’t rule it out. Deregulation, decentralisation and federalism are a reality. All other phases that we see of concentration of power, I don’t think they are permanent. I still believe that at the end of the day, the winds of federalism will be much stronger. They are essential for democracy and I think that they will finally prevail.

Muzamil Jaleel: When do you see this happening?

I don’t see it happening (now) but after 10 years, I do actually see an economic revolution in India. I do see the coming to power of what is today’s younger generation, which has the courage to decentralise and go in for the complete model of federalism, give full powers to any state which is demanding that power.