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Omar, without the Abdullahism

The front-page picture said it all. Young Omar Abdullah, with his son beside him, in the victory parade through the streets of Srinagar. Democracy and dynasty amiably juxtaposed in a morally acceptable frame; a moment to celebrate. The question that must be troubling every democrat is: how long will this mood last, once the young Abdullah takes the oath as the next Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir? The accession of the great Sheikh Abdullah’s grandson to power carries with it both a promise and a problem.

The question can be framed differently: will the arrival of an Abdullah at the centre of power in Srinagar aggravate or help resolve the “Kashmir Problem?” Admittedly, it cannot be anyone’s contention that just because the people of Jammu and Kashmir have defied the separatists’ poll boycott call, the “problem,” however defined, stands dissolved. Nor can be it easily overlooked that the “problem” got aggravated, and indeed degenerated, into a “crisis” because of the Abdullahs’ Abdullahism, which gave the Indian democracy a bad name and made the India connection for the Kashmiris an unenviable relationship.

Because the Abdullahs, especially after the Sheikh’s death, chose to shroud themselves in the “nationalist Kashmiri” chador the rest of India turned a blind eye to the liberties the Abdullah family was taking with the notions of good governance, ethical conduct, integrity of electoral processes and democratic humility. True, the Abdullahs’ excesses were replicated in many other parts of the country, but given Jammu and Kashmir’s history and geography the democracy’s corrective mechanisms were not allowed to kick in. Thousands and thousands of Indian soldiers had to shed blood to make up for the excesses of the runaway Abdullahism. And, inevitably, thousands and thousands of Kashmiri youths too were lured to their deaths, all with a fierce determination to rectify the Abdullahs’ misrule.

Ironically, it is through a democratic process that an Abdullah has made his way back to power. It must be presumed that unlike his father, who got power as part of a family legacy, Omar’s quest for a leadership role has got consecrated through a tempestuous democratic idiom. The defeat in the 2002 Assembly elections must have been a sobering experience for the Sheikh’s grandson, just as six years of a non-National Conference regime should have taught the Abdullah family a lesson or two in the creative impermanence inherent in a genuine democracy.

Young Omar Abdullah will do himself a favour if remembers over the next six years that he has no mandate to rule, only an opportunity to govern. It is not just a simple matter of being dependent upon another political party to garner a legislative majority. The democratic expectation is that the new Chief Minister will see his innings not as a resumption of a disrupted feudal entitlement but as an opportunity to resurrect his family’s name and reputation as the first servant of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

In other words, the onus will be on the young Chief Minister to restore the attractiveness of the Indian democracy project; indeed, to carry forward the process which began six years ago under Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Because the Mufti is not an Abdullah, it was relatively easy for him to kick-start the good governance process; and, precisely because Omar is an Abdullah, it would be doubly problematic for him to turn away from the National Conference’s political culture. This culture, perfected over more than six decades, thrives on political intrigues, family absurdities and aberrations, personal dishonesty and administrative pilferage. On the one hand, this culture spawned a relationship of mutual manipulation between Srinagar and New Delhi, and on the other, this soured the Jammu and Kashmir people’s experience of Indian democracy.

An equal and corresponding responsibility, therefore, devolves on all those who in “New Delhi” matter (or rather meddle) in the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir. Over the years and decades “New Delhi” (read the Intelligence Bureau, the Home Ministry, and now the Army and various paramilitary formations) has cultivated, financed, promoted, armed, and otherwise empowered any number of “clients,” some savoury and some not so savoury, including political parties and separatist groups in the troubled State. The legacy of these institutionalised meddlesome practices, justified mostly in the name of countering Pakistan’s equally odious “assets,” has prevented successive governments in New Delhi from letting the democratic exuberance find its honest level in Jammu and Kashmir.

These habits, too, must be tempered if the change of guard has to consolidate the power of the democratic idea. The Congress, in particular, will need to demonstrate a higher degree of maturity in dealing with Jammu and Kashmir than it has done these last three years. The Congress leadership in New Delhi has been amiss in its obligations as a pan-Indian party; by default, it allowed individual leaders to pursue personalised agendas, settling old enmities and nursing inflated egos. The Congress, too, has a responsibility to help the new democratic dispensation consolidate itself, especially in bridging the regional divides so ominously evident in the just concluded elections.

Only if the young Abdullah has the good sense to remain honest to the very limited nature of his mandate, can he motivate his administration to attend sincerely to the basic task of delivering a modicum of good governance. This would mean scraping the barrel for competence, sensitivity and imagination; capacities and skills needed for governance are invariably in short supply in conflict zones. Needless to say, if the civic dissatisfaction and grievances go unattended, the sullen citizen will become a potential recruit for the separatist camp. The high turnout in the recent elections may be touted as a rebuff to the separatists, but the larger war remains far from concluded.

Sincere and sensitive governance, then, becomes the basic minimum part of the democratic answer to the separatist sentiment. Apart from delivering on the administration front, the new regime will need to summon up political imagination in dealing with the “autonomy” constituency, without running foul of the ever mysterious “New Delhi.” The Abdullahs’ political management skills would be tested, by both the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the separatist camp.

To be sure, the PDP feels, rightly so, that it too has the mandate to insist on its demand that “the genuine aspirations of Kashmir people have to be respected and accommodated with dignity;” and, not to be left behind, the separatist forces can be relied upon to explore new techniques in political mobilisation as also in egregious provocation, egging on the security forces to overreact, producing world-wide images of an overzealous military presence.

No one knows for sure the exact nature of the rivalry between the Abdullahs and the Muftis, but the future of the State cannot be allowed to become hostage to a family dispute. The victor has the obligation to reach out to the vanquished. To that extent, the greatest challenge before the new Chief Minister (and his Congress coalition partners) will be to listen respectfully and, if possible, enlist the Mufti in the grand task of bringing about a reconciliation; in other words, the temptation to dismiss the PDP as a “soft separatist” outfit must at all costs be avoided. The PDP remains part of the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre. Instead of pushing Mufti Mohammed Sayeed into becoming a negative and unhelpful force, political wisdom demands that he and his party be recognised as a bridge to the alienated sections of the Kashmiri society.

Omar Abdullah’s success (or failure) will not be confined to the Kashmir Valley. If the Abdullahs succeed in putting in place a new culture of political accommodation and a new administrative protocol of good governance in Jammu and Kashmir, it is just possible that both India and Pakistan may be able to discover the potential of the democratic processes for sanity, reconciliation and peace. The post-Mumbai mood in the two countries does not countenance any suggestion of a mutually workable, cooperative relationship; but this moment of madness too will pass. And, then, it will be back to the “Kashmir problem” and its possible solution(s) that will define the India-Pakistan equation as also our own internal secular ethos. It is in this larger context that democratic voices will wish that Omar Abdullah should try to shed his family baggage and let the democratic ideas and practices strike root in the torn valley. And only then a few years down the line can Omar Abdullah hope to ride an open jeep in downtown Srinagar.

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