Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: The man who built a bridge from the Valley

The votes had not yet been cast, let alone the results declared — which would throw up a hung assembly — but Mufti was already looking ahead at how to collaborate with the BJP, which had come to power at the Centre. Almost prophetically, he had said, “This time, it will be like walking on a talwar ki dhaar.”

He could have formed a government with the Congress but he said it would add up to “zero batta zero”. Combining “soft separatism” with “saffron” was fraught with risks for his PDP. “My own people were opposed to it,” he remarked. “Ghar mein hee revolt thaa. But what I am proposing to do, I feel, will be good for the country, for creating an inclusive politics, for retaining the Ganga Yamuna ki tehzeeb.” And for “keeping Jammu and Kashmir united”.

(Source: Express archive)

Mufti has gone at a time when geo-political uncertainties are growing, with the rise of IS in West Asia, the proposed withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan and the Pathankot attack. J&K needs wise counsel now more than ever before.

In his second stint, Mufti was looking beyond just being CM again. “I see Kashmir playing a role in India, I want to make it a leading light. I have been a through and through Indian, known to be a nationalist.”

To his mind, the success of the PDP-BJP alliance hinged on whether or not “Narendra Modi could be an Atal Bihari Vajpayee”. Mufti had enjoyed a warm equation with Vajpayee, whom he held responsible for the fair elections in J&K in 2002. He would often recall Vajpayee’s words on arrival in Srinagar in 2003, “Is hawa mein sugandh hai”, and laud his resolve to find a solution to the Kashmir issue within the realm of “insaniyat”.

(Source: Express archive)

During the course of my interview with Mufti Sahib in Pahalgam three months ago, he continued to express his faith in Modi, despite disappointments and delays in the transfer of money the Centre had promised for the flood affected. “But, remember,” he had said, “despite what happened during the first month of my CMship — and I stand by what I had said — the tussle over Masarat Alam, Pakistan flags at meetings, the PM did not give a knee-jerk reaction, like the Congress used to do. Ultimately saath chale.”

A bridge between Kashmir and the rest of India, Mufti was also a quintessential Congressman. The old school Congressman is a breed, given to accommodation in politics, some given even to making vague articulation a fine art. He was a marathon runner, not easily derailed by the pinpricks of coalition rule, his sight fixed on the bull’s-eye.

Mufti parted company with the Congress in 1987 along with V P Singh, and surprisingly stood for — and won — the Lok Sabha election from Muzzafarnagar in UP in 1989. He went on to float his own PDP in 1999, around the time other Congress leaders, like Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee, too were breaking away to emerge mass leaders in their own right. Mufti became chief minister in 2002 in alliance with the Congress, only to give it up in 2005 and make way for Ghulam Nabi Azad halfway down his term.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the deal that made him chief minister with the BJP as partner. (Source: Express archive)

During the course of a conversation in 2014, he had admitted it had been “a mistake” for the PDP not to insist on CMship for six years. The Congress wanted the government badly and “would have agreed, and the story would have been very different”. At one point, Sonia Gandhi had agreed to let him continue and this had been “conveyed to me” but the decision was later undone.

He had said the UPA’s biggest mistake, “what I call a Himalayan blunder”, was “for Sonia not to accept PMship in 2004”. That, he felt, “led to a duality of authority”. The second error, he felt, was “for Rahul not to take over in 2009. That too would have ended duality”.

He constantly made a case for improved relations with Pakistan. Talking about the Kashmir problem, he once said it was “secularism and democracy that binds us to India”.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed with daughter Rubaiya after militant abductors freed her. (Source: Express archive)

Just before he became Home Minister in 1989 in the National Front government, I had gone to his house, as a beat reporter. He had just come back after meeting V P Singh, and could not get over the fact that the PM had offered him, a Muslim from Kashmir, the country’s home ministership. His first test as Home Minister, ironically, was the kidnapping of his daughter Rubaiya, who was freed after the release of some militants.

Given his indifferent health, he had indicated, during an interview with The Indian Express, that his daughter Mehbooba would be taking over from him “soon”. She is “capable of giving leadership and she is the most credible face today”. He spoke of the “punishing schedule” she set for herself and “for me”, during the poll campaign, “which made my bones rattle”.

And that day in 2014, while he returned from campaigning in Bijbehara, he found himself recalling “an old saying” — “To attain heaven, you have to go walking on a dhaga.”

On Thursday he bequeathed the “talwar ki dhaar” he had walked on to Mehbooba, to fulfil his dreams for J&K — and for India.