Mufti: Man of the Moment

Time has come a full circle for Mufti Muhammad Sayeed who has spent most of his life in opposition while three generations of Abdullahs ruled the State.
From being on the fringes of the State politics, Mufti has come to become a key player having options to choose from Congress, Bharatiya Janta Party and National Conference.
The recent election results threw up a hung house with PDP emerging as the single-largest party with 28 seats and the rightwing BJP coming close second winning 25 seats from Jammu region. NC and Congress won 15 and 12 seats respectively while others won seven seats.
In such a scenario, PDP’s 28 seats have put them in a strong yet tricky bargaining position.
Mufti’s political career spanning over 50 years saw many ups and downs from being the first Muslim Home Minister of India to the kidnapping of his daughter Rubiya Sayeed by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front militants.
A product of the Maktab, Mufti, 78, did his LLB and M.A. in Arabic from the Aligarh Muslim University.
Soon after, he joined the Anantnag Bar Association and briefly practiced as a lawyer.
However, being an active student activist, Mufti was lured to politics and joined Democratic National Conference, a splinter group of National Conference, which later came into the Congress fold.
Talking to Rising Kashmir, 93-year-old Ghulam Rasool Kar, who is the only surviving member of the 75-member Constituent Assembly of 1951 besides Krishan Dev Sethi, said it was he who enrolled Mufti into State Congress.
“I was then the election inchage of Congress and was in Anantnag where Mufti was accompanying Mir Qasim,” Kar said. “It was I who enrolled him in Congress.”
The senior Congress leader said if Mufti would not come up with some equation to form a government in the State, he would commit a “historic blunder”.
Kar said Mufti needed to play a role in bringing the people of Kashmir, Chenab Valley, Pir Pinchal range, Jammu and Ladakh together.
“He is a visionary and I hope he delivers,” said Kar, who represented Hamal assembly segment in the Constituent Assembly, was a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in 1957 and served as a minister in the State government between 1965-1971 and 1972-1975.
Until 1975, Mufti worked under the leadership of Mir Qasim and Ghulam Muhammad Sadiq as a Minister for Development, which comprised of portfolios like Roads and Building, PHE and Irrigation, and Housing.
He also took over as the State President of Congress in 1975 and continued to hold the post for over a decade.
State Congress Vice President, Ghulam Nabi Monga, who was a Block President of J&K Youth Congress when Mufti led the party in the State, said his way of working was different.
“He always means business,” Monga said. “Mufti Sahab goes to every nook and corner, every block and gets feedback from ordinary people at the grassroots.”
Monga said it was under Mufti’s leadership that he had graduated from Youth Congress Block President to the Block President of the parent body of the Congress.
“During that time, I worked very closely with him and found working under him very interesting as he would encourage people who would put in efforts for making the party strong.”
Monga said Mufti had worked with State Congress stalwarts like Ghulam Rasool Kar, Mian Bashir, Moulvi Iftikar Hussain Ansari, Abdul Qayoom and Malik Mohuiddin and everyone found him accommodative and pleasant to work with.
In the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi-led government, Mufti was given the portfolio of the Union Tourism Minister.
He resigned as the tourism minister in 1987 citing Hashimpura massacre of May 22, 1987 as a reason.
In the massacre, 42 Muslim youth of Hashimpura mohalla in Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh were killed by 19 personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary.
Mufti then drifted to Jan Morcha and became the first Muslim Home Minister in the government led by the former Prime Minister V P Singh.
Even to this day, he continues to be the only Muslim Home Minister of India.
PDP chief spokesman, Naeem Akhtar, who has remained very close to Mufti throughout his life, said that Mufti had always played a role of a decent democratic leader and refused to tow the line of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.
It was in the regime of the Abdullahs that Mufti was even jailed while being in opposition.
This was for the first time when Congress workers including Mufti were jailed in Kashmir.
Akhtar said after remaining unpopular throughout his life, Mufti’s career was concluding as a phenomenon.
“He presented proof of Sheikh Abdullah’s corruption when speaking against Abdullah was considered to be blasphemous in Kashmir,” he said. “It was a time when Kashmiris would kill for Abdullah but even then, he came tall opposing Abdullah.”
Akhtar said at a time that could be the climax of Mufti’s life, he is seen as a leader around whom Congress, National Conference and reportedly BJP all are trying to converge.”
The PDP chief spokesman said Mufti craves for coming up with something that could change Kashmir impasse and bring development in the State.
“When he arrived, nobody would have imagined that his three years in power would lead to steps like opening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, initiate trade and travel across the Line of Control without passports and visas and India and Pakistan would make most significant concession on Kashmir,” Akhtar said.
He said perhaps Mufti’s idea was to take those developments to another level now.
Despite leaving an imprint during the three years of his tenure as the chief minister of the state, Mufti could not shed the shadow of infamous massacres like Gow Kadal and Zakura in 1990 when he was the Union Home Minister.
NC also blamed him for engineering the defections in the party in 1984 when Ghulam Muhammad Shah was installed as the chief minister of the state.
Mufti contested on the Congress ticket in the 1998 parliamentary polls from south Kashmir’s Anantnag parliamentary seat but the Parliament was dissolved after the famous vote of Saifuddin Soz brought down the Bharatiya Janta Party led government at New Delhi.
Mufti floated Peoples Democratic Party in 1999 along with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti, Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Ghulam Hassan Mir.
Noted journalist and political commentator, Muhammad Sayeed Malik, who is considered to be a close friend of Mufti, said, “At the moment there is no real politician in the State more experienced and mature than Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.”
Malik said Mufti had developed a perspective being in different positions.
“Ideologically and politically, no politician in the State has gained as much as him,” he said. “His political clout has increased due to the support he has garnered on the ground at the expense of NC.”
Malik said Mufti’s transformation was not a one-day affair as the emergence of his party that got only 16 seats in 2002 suggests.
“He was able to increase the numbers to 21 in 2008 and now 28,” he said. “Year after year, elections after elections, people are developing more confidence in him.”
Noted economist and banker-turned politician Haseeb Drabu said Mufti had turned around the situation from having 16 seats to a place where everyone is ready to support him.
“He has three words for his success – silence, political wisdom and patience,” Drabu said.
Mufti rarely gives interviews and is known for his guarded statements.
Jammu and Kashmir bureau chief of The Tribune, Arun Joshi concurs with Drabu.
“Impatience is not Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s weakness, neither is indecision,” Joshi writes in The Tribune. “The fractured verdict in the Assembly election will test the man of the moment on both these counts.”
Joshi writes Mufti is a true political being — amenable when required, flexible when needed, pragmatic when it suits PDP.
A bundle of options may have spoilt Mufti for choice but it is a double edged sword for him as well.
It remains to be seen if he can strike a balance between his political agenda and development if at all his party is able to negotiate with BJP on government formation.
In such a circumstance, famous poet, Mirza Ghalib’s couplet ‘Duboya Mujhko Hone Ne, Na Hota Main To Kya Hota’ (My existence destroyed me, if I was not there, what would have happened) may fit amply for summing up the dilemma the PDP patron may be in.
To be or not to be, that is the question for Mufti.