Stalwart Of J&K Politics No More
The first Muslim Home Minister of India and the current Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, passed away this morning at 7.30 a.m, in Delhi’s AIIMS hospital. He was 79.
Mr. Sayeed was undergoing treatment for a lung infection, sepsis and pneumonia, and had been admitted since two weeks. He was put on ventilation support just a day ago due to his health deteriorating. His mortal remains have been flown to Srinagar, where the body will be kept for people to pay homage. He will be buried in his ancestral village of Bijbehera, in South Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir government has declared a seven-day mourning. Indian flag and the state flag will be flown at half mast for these 7 days. In view of the demise of the Chief Minister, all the exams of Kashmir University have been postponed. The Central University of Kashmir exams along with board exams scheduled for today have also been postponed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid wreath on Mr. Sayeed’s coffin in Delhi before his body was flown to Srinagar. Condoling his death Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “My heartfelt sympathies to Mrs Syed, Mehbooba & the entire family in this most difficult of times. My & my family's prayers are with them.” Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be flying to attend the funeral. Congress President Sonia Gandhi also expressed grief over the demise of Mufti as she communicated her condolences to his wife and Mehbooba. Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who expressed his condolences to Sayeed's family at AIIMS, tweeted, “Just heard the terrible news of Mufti Sahib's passing away. I'm shocked and deeply saddened. May he rest in peace.” Several other political leaders from across parties mourned his death. In his long political journey, Mr. Sayeed won many admirers across the political spectrum.
Born and brought up in Anantnag, Jammu & Kashmir, Mr. Sayeed’s political career spans over 6 decades. He started his political career by joining the Indian National Congress, whom he served till 1987. For several decades Mr. Sayeed was the face of Congress in Jammu & Kashmir. In 1972, he became a cabinet minister and also Congress party’s leader in the Legislative Council. In 1975, he was made the leader of the Congress Legislative Party and the President of the Pradesh Congress, but lost the next two elections. It was in 1983, however, that he was accused of engineering a split in the National Conference and collapsing the Farooq Abdullah government.
Post this, he joined Jan Morcha under VP Singh, under whose regime he became the country’s first Muslim Home Minister in 1989. During this stint, he saw his image dented when he accepted a demand by a terrorist group that five of their men be set free in exchange for the release of his kidnapped daughter, Rubaiya. The release of the terrorists in exchange of his daughter’s freedom had rather far-reaching implications on the politics of Jammu & Kashmir. It was during his tenure as the HM that the very controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act was enforced in Jammu & Kashmir. The revocation of this Act has been the key agenda of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that Mr. Sayeed founded along with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti in 1999. While serving as the chief of PDP, he transformed his image with a soft separatist agenda of self-rule or limited sovereignty for the state.
Mr. Sayeed’s first stint as the Chief Minister of his state was in 2002, less than three years after forming the PDP, in coalition with the Congress government, due to a fractured verdict. He was sworn in as the CM and served the state for 3 years (2002 – 2005). When he became the Chief Minister, Jammu and Kashmir was witnessing problems on many fronts. Personal liberties were restricted and army was in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack on Parliament. Seen as a smart political strategist and masterful politician, his arrival on the stage and his deft handling of the delicate political equations resulted in an almost instant change in the situation, both within the State and in the regional context. His party was, however, ousted by young Omar Abdullah’s National Conference in 2008. His second stint came along in 2014 elections, again due to a fractured verdict, but this time by crafting a delicate alliance with the BJP. He had taken oath in March last year after partnering with the ideologically opposite BJP, the alliance he had termed as, “North Pole meeting South Pole.”
The stalwart of Jammu & Kashmir Politics always maintained that the last wish of his 60-year political career was to bring peace between India and Pakistan, and often said that the decision to collaborate with the BJP was to forge the dream to its fulfillment.
From being an obscure lawyer to a suave politician, India has seen Mr. Sayeed creating a niche for himself in state as well as national politics.