Azad’s report card: but where’s the politics?


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Muzamil Jaleel

Posted online: November 02, 2006 at 1657

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After one year as J&K CM, Ghulam Nabi Azad comes across only as an efficient administrator. His tenure has seen a weakening of the Indo-Pak peace process.

Srinagar, November 2: Today, when Ghulam Nabi Azad completes his first year as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, his successes and failures have serious political significance. This is, after all, the first time that the Congress — or any other national party for that matter — has directly ruled the state in 30 years. National parties in this state have always been viewed with suspicion. They have been blamed for serious political blunders like the sabotaging of the 1952 Delhi accord; the arrest of Kashmir’s tallest leader, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, in 1953; and the 1975 Indira-Abdullah accord. The midnight dismissal of Farooq Abdullah’s government in 1984 was seen as the most recent Congress betrayal in the state and it deepened, considerably, the alienation of the people.

When Azad took over as CM last year, he carried this historic baggage with him. Here was a Congress leader who had limited grassroots experience in the state, since he had been thus far a national leader, and belonged to Doda district, a region outside the Kashmir Valley. So he was not just a Congress politician heading the state government, he was the first ever chief minister who didn’t belong to the Valley.

At first, he carried a strong hangover of national politics. The Congress national leadership had always believed that it was a lack of development, high levels of unemployment, widespread corruption and rigging in elections that had caused the rise of militancy in Kashmir. Azad, therefore, made development, good governance and a “jihad against corruption’’ his government’s priority. A quick look at the past one year, and it is clear that Azad has taken several steps to put J&K on the development track. His government introduced three major pieces of legislation: an anti-defection law, the restriction of the size of the council of ministers to 24 in order to reduce the burden on the state exchequer and a demonstrable commitment to probity at the highest level.

J&K also became the first state in the country to enact legislation which allows the state government to take over properties of public servants that are disproportionate to known sources of income. Properties of eight individuals have already been taken over and that of around 50 others in the process of being taken over. In fact, Azad even introduced the Chief Minister’s Gold Medal for Honesty and Integrity. The Azad government’s decision to reorganise the state politically and administratively by creating eight new districts and thus increasing the existing number of constituencies by 25 per cent is also seen as a positive step towards enhancing economic prosperity.

But a sensitive state like J&K, politically volatile and conflict-ridden, requires more than an efficient CEO. Azad’s reign has witnessed a paradigm shift in Kashmiri politics. The focus that his predecessor and coalition partner, PDP leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had brought to politics, one that saw even hardline separatist leaders involve themselves in the peace process, gave way to an exclusive pre-occupation with governance and administrative issues. This has undermined the peace process, at least within the state.

This shift is obviously at the behest of the Congress’s national leaders. They are responsible for weakening the party’s CM in J&K. Azad comes across today as just an envoy of the Congress high command, unlike the Mufti who enjoyed considerable autonomy in shaping UPA’s Kashmir policy. Over the past year, Azad has not been viewed as being particularly relevant to any major peace initiative, whether it has to do with dialoguing with separatists or with Pakistan. Consequently, the CBMs launched by the UPA during the Mufti’s tenure, like the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road link, have lost their vigour. In fact, the road link — hyped by the UPA as the biggest ever CBM between India and Pakistan in Kashmir — has become the butt of jokes. Bureaucratic red tape has made travel across the border in this dream bus almost impossible for Kashmiris from either side of the LoC.

The round table conference initiative has also been rendered hollow, as also the Centre’s direct dialogue with the Hurriyat and other separatists. Although the official figures clearly indicate a decline in the number and intensity of militancy-related incidents during Azad’s one year, the hope that the Indo-Pak peace process is turning Kashmir-centric has almost dissipated in Valley.

As a Congress leader who has spent more than two decades as a national politician, the tough language Azad initially adopted did not help. Unlike the Mufti, he wasn’t diplomatic in his approach to the separatists but openly opposed anything that would be seen as a compromise at the national level. Whether this tough line was being dictated by New Delhi, or was just a hangover of national politics, is not known. But it certainly did harm the peace process at a very sensitive stage. Therefore when Azad did make a concerted bid to change his style — suddenly appealing to the Hizbul Mujahideen for a ceasefire before the holy month of Ramazan — it didn’t yield dividends.

Azad and the Mufti are two politicians with sharply differing personalities and political agendas, but it is time for both Azad and the Congress high command to understand that they are dealing with a different Kashmir today. A chief minister cannot just be an envoy of the national party. He has to function as a true political representative of the state and its people. As he completes his first year in office, that is the lesson Azad needs to learn.

Mail the author at muzamiljaleel@yahoo.com/ muzamil.jaleel@expressindia.com

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