At a public meeting in Baderwah, National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah said autonomy to both sides of Jammu and Kashmir was the only viable solution to the seven-decade old Kashmir conflict. In a throwback to the former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s four point proposals, Abdullah said that the "borders cannot be changed but these can be made irrelevant and soft for people to people exchange and opening new vistas of trade and commerce for overall economic prosperity of the region." He reiterated that J&K had acceded to India on three subjects of defence, foreign affairs and communication and that the genesis of discontent among people in Kashmir was due to breaking of promises and the consequent mistrust. And for a good measure, Abdullah had warning for RSS too, saying that Kashmir had acceded to a secular but not a Hindu India. Earlier, speaking at Doda, the party’s working president Omar Abdullah repeated his by now boilerplate statement that Kashmir is a political problem and thus needed a political solution.
The past several weeks have witnessed the re-emergence on the state’s political scene by the senior Abdullah. He took the command of the party when Omar was away in US. The attempt is to step into the political vacuum created by the discrediting of People’s Democratic Party as a result of the events over the past four months. However, it is also a fact that despite the loss of once vaunted aura of PDP, NC hasn’t been able to make a dent. And perhaps, this may also be the reason why the father-son duo have moved to Chenab Valley to carry out their political activity. Truth is that the party’s own history is coming in its way. It hardly did any better when faced with a similar situation in 2010 when more than hundred people died.
To really make a difference, there is an urgent need for NC to re-invent itself, to take over a role consistent with its larger historical role – albeit it also needs to make amends for the gaping inadequacies in the discharge of that role. Need is for the party to stand up, get down to the issues that matter and weigh with the people and build its politics around them.
But NC seems to have stopped doing this. Not now. In fact, long long back. One can argue with some confidence that NC has ceased to be a party of the mass politics in the state since the 1975 Indira-Sheikh accord. The accord, in a sense, dumbed down the party and fundamentally altered its priorities. From a party of masses, the NC changed into a party of power. And if the past one and a half years om opposition are any guide, this power mantra continues unchanged. Need is for Omar the politician to shows up. Along with a new leader, NC also needs some rejuvenation and of course, revitalization.
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