October 1932, Sheikh Abdullah along with Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas founded All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference to give voice to the Muslims and organizationally conspire against the Dogra and Hindu rule of Maharaja Hari Singh. On 19th July 1947, a convention of All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference adopted the “Accession to Pakistan resolution” and demanded accession of Kashmir to Pakistan. Muslim Conference was renamed as National Conference (probably on persuasion of Jawahar Lal Nehru) but only name was changed while the intent and objectives stood conserved. Name was changed just to ensure secular optics, a social engineering technique of Nehru. But their hate for Hindus and Dogra rule can be easily deciphered when Sheikh Abdullah initiated “Quit Kashmir” movement against the Dogra oligarch.
A guy while pointing towards the palace of the Maharaja Hari Singh in Srinagar had openly incited a public gathering to wage war against the Maharaja and to raze him to ground. A case of sedition was filed against him to be tried before a trial court. Can we not appreciate the magnanimity of the Maharaja that he referred it for judicial scrutiny? In an oligarchy or autocracy, just allegation of utterance of such words would have had simply catalysed immediate death but in spite of having numerous precedents warranting the same, the monarch defied them all and made a latitudinarian choice.
That guy namely Abdul Qadeer Khan was charged under sections of sedition and wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riots under Ranbir Penal Code. Trail began and on first four hearings, the court room and compound was mobbed. Consequently it was considered appropriate by the administration to conduct the trial within the jail premises. When the trial commenced from jail on 13th July 1931, a mob of around 4000-5000 people thronged its walls, while some even intruded into the jail premises. The mob started sloganeering and intimidating the judge by raising slogan in support of the accused. People became unruly with slogans like Allah-o-Akbar, Islam Zindabad etc. and tried to barge into the jail premises. Consequently police took charge and resulted into some causalities.
Those unruly lynch mobsters became martyrs for Sheikh Abdullah and his gang. Sheikh Abdullah subsequently conducted a public meeting at the graveyard of the killed mobsters and announced 13th July to be Martyr’s day and compared the police action with Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Immediately after the monarch was forced to leave and Sheikh Abdullah was anointed as his democratic substitute, he declared the Black day for Dogras as martyrs day for the whole state; the people of Jammu and Dogras were forced to be part of this fiasco as it was declared as government holiday.
This martyr day fiasco was just canary in the coal mine, the religious rigidity and regional treachery had more despotic expressions when Sheikh Abdullah did not even allow the democratically elected people from Jammu to be part of the Constituent Assembly when on his behest the nominations of majority of the candidates of Praja Parishad were rejected. In 1953, during the agitation for “Ek Nishan, Ek Vidhan, Ek Pradhan” launched by Praja Parishad, numerous workers of Praja Parishad were murdered in broad day light via executive orders of Muslim Conference turned National Conference’s theocratic government which finally culminated in arrest of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and his consequent death. This whole series of events was popularly called as Nehru conspiracy by PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was also the smarmy politics of Sheikh Abdullah that he wheedled Nehru to incorporate a dastardly provision in constitution of India i.e. Article 370.
After the death of Sheikh Abdullah, the baton was passed to his elder son Farooq Abdullah, who is known for his enduring charm. Farooq Abdullah, a knee-jerk demagogue who knows exactly how to boot strap with the available resources. He can ally with Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress party to rig the 1987 elections to become Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir and then with BJP to make his son Union Minister. He can get offended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the sham resolution of autonomy is rejected but he can bow before the same Atal ji for vice-presidential hopes thereby defeating public endeavour and prioritising solitary pursuits. Hypocrisy is part of modus operandi of these political renegades. Farooq Abdullah is also popular for squandering incendiary rhetoric in public rallies in Kashmir while sounding very secular in Jammu by visiting Raghunath Mandir and singing bhajans and very patriotic in New Delhi.
After the vice-presidential hopes of Farooq Abdullah were dashed by BJP, Farooq Abdullah found friends in Congress again to be a union minister and handover the baton of National Conference to his son, Omar Abdullah. The political juvenile, Omar Abdullah while being the Chief Minister of J&K cried in legislative assembly for a boy who was killed in clashes between protestors and security forces in Anantnag. Such theatrics do find analogy in a fish complaining about water being wet. But neither he nor his charming father and former CM remember the killings of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus in different parts of Kashmir, killing of a whole Baraat along with the groom in Doda, the merciless killings of three dozen people by slitting their throats and burning them alive in Prankote, Reasi, killing of around two dozen persons in Pogal, Ramban and hundreds of other target killings. Let alone the security of minorities, they aren’t even having a sympathetic ear from them.
Recently they have made it a trend that they are dangling Hindus as their representative in Jammu province, be it making a Hindu, the Chairman of Doda municipality inspite of him being the solitary Hindu ward member from National Conference, or DDC Chairman of Kishtwar, again the solitary Hindu DDC member from National Conference. This dovetailing with Hindus is being done just to ensure some good optics and to cauterize the wounds given to the Hindus by them but I am afraid this attempt is vain as people have decoded such rhetoric as nothing but political subterfuge. What they have done in past can help us understand their present and discern their future actions. When they were in power the demography of Kashmir was changed big time by sustained attrition on Hindus while Farooq Abdullah was co-founding Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. Their chant of secularism can be easily ascertained by the fact that almost all their leaders and MLAs in erstwhile district Doda were picked muslim clerics who were popular for spewing venom against India and Hindus.
And then some Hindu politicians of National Conference from Jammu; Jai-Chands of Jammu will never serve unvarnished truth to their Kashmiri bosses but on the contrary will try to convince people of Jammu with extenuating reasons to accept them and vote for National Conference because their tawdry leader sings bhajans; thereby forgetting the perpetual genocide of Hindus in their regime.
