Will Kashmir Get Azad?

For years Ghulam Nabi Azad was the reluctant Kashmiri who would rather build his career in the backrooms of 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi. Basharat Peer on the man who could become the first CM from Jammu

After three years in the small town college at Baderwah, Azad moved to a Jammu college and the University of Kashmir in Srinagar in 1972. The young man didn’t study law or political science like other students inclined towards politics those days. He took a Master’s in zoology

Few in Kashmir have heard of Soti village in Baderwah tehsil in the hilly, militant stronghold of Doda district. But if upa chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who has been consistently refusing to answer the question about the change of government in the state, confirms the Congress takeover of the chief minister’s post, the media might make a beeline for this obscure place. For in this village, in March 1949, was born the man most likely to become the Congress candidate for chief ministership, Ghulam Nabi Azad.

It might have been difficult for his parents, Rahmatullah and Basa Begum, to imagine that one day their son will grow up to become a Union minister, a powerful man in the Indian National Congress and tipped to become the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. But the young Ghulam Nabi was an ambitious man; he dared to look beyond the mountains that seemed to block the horizon a few miles from his ancestral village. After school, he moved to the nearest town Baderwah to attend college. His ambitions didn’t end here. He joined the National Cadet Corps, like most students at that time did and was one of the few means of grooming available for most rural youth.

After three years in the small town college at Baderwah, he moved to Jammu’s SP College, and the University of Kashmir in Srinagar in 1972. The young man didn’t study law or political science, as was the tradition amongst students inclined towards politics those days. He joined a Master’s course in zoology. There he became the cultural secretary of the zoology department, possibly the first of many posts he held.

The brush with bigger towns and the capital indicated a vent for his political ambitions. Ghulam Nabi joined the Congress, returned to his native Doda and in 1973 served as an unknown block president of the party unit in Balesa near his ancestral village. The Congress in Jammu and Kashmir was a party without much following. Ghulam Nabi was a young, educated man representing the party in the National Conference-dominated Doda district. Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who had been unsuccessful in making a dent into nc territory in the Valley, took the young man under his wings. In 1975, Mufti became the leader of the Congress Legislature Party and the state Congress president. He appointed the young Nabi as the president of the state Youth Congress.

But the man from Doda had his eyes set on New Delhi. Five years later, he worked his way up to become the All-India Youth Congress president in 1980. A year later, he contested and won the election to the Seventh Lok Sabha from the Congress stronghold of Washim in Maharashtra. Apparently, influenced by veteran Muslim leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Ghulam Nabi took to using the title Azad. With his political career taking off, the young Azad fell for and married one of the finest singers of Kashmir, Shameema Dev.

From there began the battle to survive and rise in the intriguing world of Congress politics. Azad, the outsider, turned towards the Mecca of all Congressmen: 10 Janpath. The Kashmir connection of the Nehru-Gandhi family helped. As a young Lok Sabha mp, he flew to Iraq as part of a political delegation; the years to come were to take him to more than 30 countries as an Indian representative on some issue or the other.

Yet his first tryst with power came in 1982, when he found a place in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet as a deputy minister. Now there was no looking back. Following Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and Rajiv Gandhi’s ascension as the prime minister, Azad was one of those young Congressmen Rajiv allowed into his world. Azad was loyal, bankable. He had become the Dilliwallah, the Congress leader who walked in and out of 10 Janpath. Azad’s resume posted on the Rajya Sabha website gives a glimpse of the man’s self-image in his own eyes. It describes his special interests as: Organising camps, symposia and seminars on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. And his favourite pastimes are gardening, meeting people and cultural activities related to secularism and national integration.

The Nehru-Gandhi family made the man, and the man remained faithful to it. Unlike the mentor of his early days, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Azad stuck to the Congress, not even leaving it for a day for stints like Mufti had with the VP Singh government that got him the Union home ministry portfolio. Maybe because Azad was conscious that all he had was the Congress. For in his home state, he had no mass base. In the late seventies, he lost an election for the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly from Doda, and ever since remained a parachute politician, dropping in off and on for a visit to Kashmir.

By the time the armed conflict in Kashmir had entered its 13th year, Azad had been a Union minister, a member of the Congress Working Committee and was routinely described in the media as ‘senior Congress leader’. In the run-up to the 2002 Assembly elections, Azad had fallen out of favour with the Congress high command; his rivals in the party ensured a punishment posting for him: manage the election campaign for the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Nehru-Gandhi family made the man, and the man remained faithful to it, unlike his mentor, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Azad was maybe conscious that all he had was the Congress. For in his home state, he has no mass base since losing an Assembly election in the 70s

In the Valley, the National Conference and Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party vied for the mainstream political space. Congress was a non-entity. In Jammu, the BJP had eaten into the urban, middle-class Hindu vote, and demoralised Congressmen were a hopeless lot.

Most Kashmiris did not know much about Azad apart from the fact that he was the Delhi-based Congress leader from Doda. But only until then. Azad saw the brewing discontent in Jammu region against the BJP. He organised his flock, campaigned hard and when the results were declared, Azad’s rivals in the All India Congress Committee had to garland him on his return. The Congress made one of its biggest comebacks in Kashmir politics, winning 21 seats and came close to forming the government in a state where it has hitherto been mostly despised. It even bagged four seats in the troubled Valley.

The 53-year-old from Soti was tipped to be the new chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, however, let pdp chief Sayeed have the post in the “national interest”, for it was deemed better to have a Kashmiri from the Valley as a chief minister and also Mufti had established his organisational capabilities.

But in October 2002, as the speculation was rife about the chief ministership, Azad asserted his origins during interviews. He reminded the press that his home district Doda began where Mufti’s home district Anantnag ended. Geographically, Doda is like a bridge between Jammu and the Valley; technically it is a part of the Jammu region but culturally it is closer to the Valley and has a significant ethnic Kashmiri population.

Azad, who currently holds the portfolios of parliamentary affairs and urban development, was seen to be reluctant to move to Srinagar as the chief minister till some months back. But the man now seems ready for the job, has been travelling to the Valley often in the last two months, and has begun talking about the ‘pain of Kashmir’ with a renewed vigour. On October 4, while addressing a gathering in Medak, Andra Pradesh, he talked about the ‘pathetic’ condition of the orphans of the conflict in Kashmir and spoke of the need to help them. Earlier, on a visit to Srinagar, he talked about the need to improve the drinking water facilities that have become a problem in the summer capital.

And a few hours after the earthquake struck the Valley and the death toll had crossed 200 and was mounting, Azad left the Congress chief ministers’ conclave in Chandigarh as the pm’s delegate to assess the situation in the worst-hit areas of north Kashmir. The signs of Azad preparing for the top job are all there but the question is if he becomes the chief minister, can he govern?