Kashmir will miss him
A day after India celebrated the 100th birth day of Atal Behari Vajpayee on December 25, death of Dr. Manmohan Singh left the country shocked. Both men were in the same league and Kashmir can tell why?
In 20004, Vajpayee-led NDA lost general elections and saw Dr. Singh becoming Prime Minister in one of the most dramatic and surprising spectacle on the country’s political landscape. Congress president Sonia Gandhi had announced Dr. Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister to the surprise of her supporters and political pundits maintaining a close watch inside and outside 10 Janpath that still controls levers of Congress.
Kashmir was watching the national political developments with its fingers crossed. Vajpayee had touched their hearts for he was a BJP man with a difference, he represented an ethos in which the word humanity had its real meaning. “If he (Vajpayee) contests from here, we will vote for him,” a tea seller at Nishat told this columnist who was working for Hindustan Times that time. He had become a household name in Kashmir not that he was the Prime Minister but what all he propounded in relation to Jammu and Kashmir, he wanted dialogue within the infinite limits of humanity.
These were difficult times in Kashmir, but with the help of the Vajpayee government, the then multi-party coalition government led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had created a new space in which those seeking dialogue with Kashmiris and Pakistan found voice that was listened to and addressed. It had eased the situation to a great extent. There was an air of relief in the Valley.
With the arrival of Manmohan Singh on the scene, Kashmiris were filled with a lot of skepticism. Why should a Congressman follow Vajpayee’s footsteps? But they had not to wait for long to see how the new PM unveiled his plans on Kashmir. He continued with the policy of dialogue, and acknowledged that there were two dimensions to the Kashmir problem-external and internal. But he was also quite ruthless in ruling out any further division of the state as he responded to the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf's five region idea, which he later modified to four-point formula.
It was a big surprise when he continued to pursue the idea of cross-LoC travel, and in April 2005 that became a reality. It was followed by cross-LoC trade though in 2008 against the backdrop of ugly protests, clashes and casualties. This was a bold decision, which many sections saw as pandering to the secessionist sentiment. There is some kind of a belief that anything concerning PoJK and Pakistan constitutes an anti-national act. Vajpayee and Manmohan always searched for ways to make idea of befriending neighbours relevant because neighbours could not be changed.
Dr. Singh was economist par excellence. He had saved the Indian economy as Finance Minister in early 1990s, and as PM he saved the country from the world-wide recession, and he knew what troubled Kashmir – he announced Rs. 24,000 crore packages for J&K in November 2004. As a refugee from Pakistan, Manmohan Singh understood what Kashmiri Pandits were going through – Jagti township which lifted the life of the migrant community squeezed in squalid one-room tenements or tented colonies to decency.
Two fundamentals were clear – Kashmir was an integral part of the country and no talks would be held with Pakistan unless the neighbouring country rolled back its men and machinery of terrorism. If he appreciated and admired Mufti’s political acumen, he was more than impressed by the intelligence and vision of Omar Abdullah – the two rivals in Kashmir politics.
But what he could not do in his life time, and as Prime Minister was to visit Pakistan. Somewhere down the line he was not allowed to act with freedom as Prime Minister the way he wanted, especially in his second term. He was vilified for the fault of others. Today he is gone but there are few words that continue to resound: “India will become permanent member of the United Nations Security Council because of its roaring economy, nothing else can hold it back,” he answered a question from this columnist at his press conference in Raj Bhawan, Srinagar on November 17, 2004 evening – the question was, whether the troubles in Kashmir were hampering India’s chance to become a permanent member of UNSC. The same economy and his legacy is being admired by the world.
