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Journalism of Courage
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s praise for the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi in a chapter she wrote in a recent book on his cross-country march, Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul, is yet another indicator of the growing bonhomie between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the grand old party.
“… In such distressing circumstances, one can’t state enough the crucial role the Congress can play in alleviating the suffering of the people across the state. Let’s not forget it was Jawaharlal Nehru’s relentless efforts on a personal and political level that ensured Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India. The people of my state placed an enormous amount of trust in his assurances about their future being secure with India. His promises of making Jammu and Kashmir a show window for the world is what convinced a Muslim-majority state to throw in their lot with a country where they would be a minority, as opposed to choosing another which was created on the very basis of their own religion,” Mufti says in the book.
Mufti, who forayed into politics with the Congress and was elected to the Assembly for the first time in 1996 on the party’s ticket, has many reasons to rekindle her party’s “bond” with it. The PDP’s bitter break-up with the BJP in 2018, growing fissures between the National Conference (NC) and Congress, and the exit of Ghulam Nabi Azad from the Congress are some of them.
Since the PDP-BJP break up in 2018 and the subsequent abrogation of Article 370 the following year, Mufti has emerged as a fierce critic of its former ally and its policies vis-a-vis Jammu and Kashmir and Indian Muslims. With the BJP out of the equation, the PDP is left with no other political force other than the Congress to ally with.
In a chapter in the book ‘Bharat Jodo: Restoring Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat and Insaniyat’ – a title drawn from former PM Atal Bihar Vajpayee’s historic speech in Srinagar in 2003 – Mufti and her daughter Iltija Mufti praise Rahul saying he has “managed to charm three generations (Mufti, her mother and daughter) effortlessly”.
The former CM goes on to say that Rahul “understands the pain and dilemma that Jammu and Kashmir has plunged into” while hoping that the INDIA bloc and the Congress can get Kashmir out of this “mess”.
“Today throughout the length and breadth of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the people feel shortchanged. If one turns the pages of history, it’s perhaps only the Congress, especially RG (Rahul), who can understand the pain and dilemma that Jammu and Kashmir has been plunged into. I hope that if the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) does indeed win 2024, it makes efforts to heal the gaping wounds of my people,” the former CM writes in her book.
Other than Mufti, only NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Supriya Sule and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut are among Congress allies to have written for the book on the Yatra. All other contributors are either Congress leaders, or civil society members like A S Dulat (the former R&AW chief who also participated in the Bharat Jodo Yatra for a stretch).
Speaking to The Indian Express, senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar defined the party’s equation with the Congress as being “on India’s side”. “It was the idea of India on the basis of which Kashmir aligned with this country, rather than following the logic of Partition, geography and history. I do not think we will get another Vajpayee or the India that was before 2014 (when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister),” he said.
He added that the experiment of aligning with the BJP showed the PDP that it had little in common with the Modi-dominated party at the Centre. “There are no meeting points. We tried to engage with the new India considering Modi’s time had arrived. We walked this road consciously, knowing that it was leading to the gallows, but with the hope of getting a trophy for Jammu and Kashmir, and the subcontinent. Their (BJP) promises proved to be as brittle as Constitutional guarantees. They have ruled Kashmir on the basis of their majoritarianism,” he said.
The PDP also believes that the BJP-led Centre has “disintegrated and destroyed” the party, and feels that it is “the only mainstream party that continues to be the Centre’s target”.
The rekindling of the bond between the PDP and Congress is also due to the growing distance between the Congress and its traditional ally, the NC. While NC vice-president Omar Abdullah joined Rahul for the Kashmir leg of his first Yatra, he skipped the INDIA bloc’s meeting at the conclusion of the second one, Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, in Mumbai amidst disagreements over the seat-sharing formula in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Congress has been pressing that the NC contest two seats in the Valley and leave Anantnag-Rajouri in South Kashmir to the PDP, for the sake of the alliance. The NC has opposed the proposal, with Omar even declaring that he would not have “joined the INDIA bloc had he known that he would have to weaken his own party to strengthen other members of the alliance”. The NC’s argument is that the last time Lok Sabha elections were held in J&K, in 2019, the NC had won all the three Kashmir seats.
The Congress and PDP fear that Omar’s reluctance to accommodate INDIA partners could open the doors for the BJP in Kashmir, which has never won a seat in this part of the J&K province. The Congress is expected to mobilise its cadre to support Mufti if she joins the fray from Anantnag-Rajouri, as she intends to do.
Another opportunity for a growing bond with the NC has been provided by the exit of Azad from the Congress. The veteran leader who belongs to the Jammu province was seen as a friend of the Abdullahs in the Congress, effectively scuttling any previous chances of the PDP and Congress coming together. Azad still carries the rancour of the fact that the PDP walked out of an alliance with the Congress in 2008, when he was CM, bringing down his government.
“He (Azad) was the bridge between the NC and the Congress. He did not let others come close to the Congress leadership,” a Congress leader said.
Azad, who quit the Congress in August 2022 and subsequently floated the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) in September, is trying to form a tentative “third front” with the Apni Party and other smaller groups.
