Former Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Chairman of the National Conference (NC) Farooq Abdullah, who, according to his critics, has become used as a politician to sparking controversies, said in his latest harangue that the people of Kashmir do not feel Indian and I don’t want to be as such.
“Today the people of Kashmir do not feel like Indians and they don’t want to be Indians. They are slaves. They prefer that the Chinese rule them, ”he told veteran journalist and television commentator Karan Thapar in an interview.
Reacting sharply to the government’s removal of the ‘State Subject Law of 1927’ and its replacement by a new domicile law in what is now called the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Abdullah said: “All the inhabitants of Kashmir believe that the new domicile laws are intended to create a Hindu majority. The gap between the people of Kashmir and the rest of the country is wider than ever and continues to grow. ”He added that the alleged attempts to change the demographics of J&K have further embittered the people of Kashmir.
He accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “misleading” and keeping him in the dark about the Center’s plan to repeal Article 370 and fork J&K. He said: “Modi deliberately misled me in August 2019, but I will fight to restore the dignity of the people of Kashmir until my last breath. The Abdullahs and Muftis have come together for the greater interest of Kashmir and now Mehbooba (Mufti) is politically close to Omar (Abdullah) and me. I talk to her frequently.
Revealing the details of his meeting with the Prime Minister approximately 72 hours before August 5, 2019, when J&K was stripped of its special status and split into two UTs, he said that he had met with Modi to ask for assurances about the continuation of Articles 370. and 35A. He said he asked the Prime Minister why there were so many troops in the Valley and if this was due to any perceived military threats.
He suggested that the Prime Minister made deliberate efforts to give him the impression that the massive increase in troops was due to security purposes. He said that the Prime Minister did not say a word about Articles 370 and 35A. Consequently, he left that meeting believing that the two items were not in danger. When asked, he agreed that the prime minister had tricked and misled him.
Senior Abdullah, who is a member of the Lok Sabha and represents the local Srinagar constituency, said in the interview published by The Wire that he alleges that Kashmiris are being treated as second-class citizens and are therefore “slaves” .
He also said that it was “complete nonsense” for the BJP to claim that the people of Kashmir have accepted the August 2019 changes just because there have been no protests. He said that if the soldiers in every street and Section 144 were raised, people would come out in their tens of lakhs.
When asked how Kashmiris view the central government and, in particular, Prime Minister Modi and Interior Minister Amit Shah, Abdullah said they were deeply disappointed. He said they did not trust the central government. He added that the trust that once linked Kashmir with the rest of the country has been completely broken.
He said that in August 2019, when the constitutional changes were suddenly announced, the NC and all the other major political parties were greatly discredited in the eyes of Kashmir. Speaking of himself, he said that he appeared to have fallen between two stools. The Indian government saw him as a traitor and arrested him. The Kashmiri people, on the other hand, saw him as a servant from India and said things like ‘serve Abdullah properly’ and they reprimanded and mocked him for saying Bharat Mata Ki Jai. This left him deeply shocked and upset.
However, he claimed that after seven to eight months in detention, his position and that of his party and other major parties had been considerably restored in the eyes of Kashmir. People now realize that they are not “servants of India,” he claimed.
He said that the CN and indeed all the other parties that had come together to issue the Gupkar Declaration of August 2019, which was reiterated on August 22 this year, were committed to restoring the dignity of Kashmiris. He said this meant reinstating Articles 370 and 35A and restoring statehood. He said he would fight for this, but always in peace, until his last breath.
The former prime minister said he had faith in the Supreme Court and hoped they would stop postponing the petition his party had filed and would listen to it quickly. In the interview, in fact, he appealed to the judges of the Supreme Court to hear the constitutional case quickly.
When asked why he had not raised this issue during the current session of Parliament, he said that he had not been given time. He said that he had gone to meet with the president, along with deputies from Congress, Trinamool, DMK and the communist parties, and the president had assured them that time would be allocated for a discussion. But that never happened. When asked if he believed the government had intervened and told the president not to give him time, Abdullah said he did not know, but agreed that the president had not kept his word.
In response to another question, he said that in the best interest of Kashmir, the Mufti and Abdullah families have buried their past differences and come together. He asked why PDP chair Mehbooba Mufti, who is also a former J&K chief minister, has not been released and if “she is a criminal”
When asked if her imprisonment had started to affect her, Abdullah asked a question in return: “How can it not be? After all, he is a human being. “
He said that whether the NC will participate in the next state elections is a decision that will be made, first, democratically within the NC itself and he, as its president, will not impose his personal thinking. However, he added that the decision will also be made in conjunction with all other signatories to the Gupkar Declaration.
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