Strengthen hands of real representatives of people of J&K
The Centre should listen carefully to Farooq Abdullah, the statesman, who was kept under detention for seven months after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. At the Shaheed Bunga Sahib gurdwara on Wednesday while attending the ‘antim ardas’ ceremony of Supinder Kaur, the slain principal of the government school in Srinagar’s Eidgah area, Farooq made a statement that should wake up our rulers in Delhi. Unequivocally, he told the gathering that Kashmir will never become Pakistan because ‘we are a part of India and will remain a part of India, come what may. They cannot change it even if they shoot me’. This three-time Chief Minister, who will soon turn 84, termed the cowardly, Pakistan-handled killers, who have been targeting Hindus and Sikhs, ‘beasts’ who serve the devil. Whatever might have been Farooq’s failings as an administrator, this one gesture exemplifies his stature as the tallest politician of Jammu and Kashmir and his role in building bridges and calming frayed nerves. And J&K needs its trusted, old politicians to play their mandated parts to restart the political process and re-engage the masses at the earliest. Farooq has always held the Indian flag aloft — be it in Geneva as part of the 1994 Indian delegation led by AB Vajpayee, or in 1996 when he revived and legitimized the electoral process in the troubled state.
Now, when a repeat of the exodus of Hindus and Sikhs is being feared and old memories of killings of Pandits in 1990 and Sikhs in 2000 are haunting the vulnerable minorities, the Centre should strengthen the hands of the real representatives of the people of J&K, for whom a threat to their lives is an occupational hazard. Pakistan is merely using the Afghan context to create greater terror and polarization in J&K, which can be effectively countered by the Indian forces under the political leadership of the sons of the soil. The J&K leaders who insist that they are Indians are our national treasure, but to appreciate their commitment to the Indian cause, our rulers need to remove their Hindutva goggles.
(Tribune, India)