Mughal emperor Jalaludin Mohammad Akbar set his eyes on Kashmir, soon after occupying the throne in Delhi. But when a two-decade long military campaign failed to annex the region, his general Raja Bhagwan Singh in 1580, offered an olive branch to Kashmir King Yusuf Shah Chak, also known for his poetess queen Habba Khatoon. It took both sides five years to write down an agreement, the contents of which are almost comparable to what the current Constitution of India originally guaranteed under Article 370. Mughals insisted on the use of their currency, a say in foreign relations and use of the Mughal emperor’s name in the Friday sermons, a symbol of accepting Mughal sovereignty. A year after — in 1586 — the king was invited to travel to Fatehpur Sikri, the Mughal capital, to seal the deal. But on reaching Lahore, the king was arrested and brought to Akbar’s court as a caged prisoner. He was exiled to Bihar. His dilapidated grave in Biswak, a two-hour journey from Patna tells the story of deceit, treachery and bears testimony that accords and agreements hold good as long as they are enacted between equals.

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Centuries later, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the tallest political leader of Kashmir, signed the Delhi Agreement with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1952. Except that Nehru’s name wasn’t to be used in Friday sermons, all other clauses of this agreement bore striking similarity to what the Mughals had offered to Kashmir. But just a year later — despite their personal bond and friendship — Nehru ordered the Sheikh’s dismissal and arrest in 1953. Twenty-five years later, the Sheikh returned to power after negotiating the 1975 accord with Indira Gandhi. The accord had some political elements like reviewing of laws enacted by the assemblies between 1953 and 1975, since these assemblies were perceived in lacking representative character in the absence of the Sheikh’s non-participation in elections. In the absence of credible Kashmiri representation, these assemblies dominated by the Congress and their henchmen Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (1954 and 1960) twice recommended the dilution of Article 370 and the Delhi agreement, through Presidential references. 

But none of the political commitments of 1975 accord materialised because Indira Gandhi made it clear that the clock couldn’t be turned back, leaving  Sheikh dejected at the end. Soon after his death, his son Farooq Abdullah challenged Indira Gandhi, but was dismissed in 1984, learning the hard-way that without Delhi’s blessings, power in Srinagar was a distant dream. Abdullah negotiated an accord with Rajiv Gandhi to return to power in 1986. This accord was devoid of any political promise. Its sole aim was to anoint Farooq as Chief Minister and ensure Congress’s participation in power. The Rajiv-Farooq accord of 1986 triggered major political discontent that plunged the entire state into militancy.

It is, therefore, quite natural to hold your breath, when the two ideological poles — the BJP and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) — come together to form government in Jammu and Kashmir.

Keeping in view, the first three years of Mufti’s governance between 2002 and 2008, when the Congress kept him in the saddle, one hopes Mufti would be able to match his development agenda with the contemporary political lexicon. Mufti did change the daily experience of living in the Valley by calling for more sensitivity on the part of security forces. His era also coincided with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s famous overtures to Pakistan and the separatists. In Mufti’s own words, “Vajpayee-Manmohan Singh and former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf have already invented a wheel. This wheel only needs a well-oiled path to run.” The governments of India, Pakistan and those at the helm in Kashmir need to lay down such a path.

History shows that development planks alone don’t cut ice in Kashmir. Had that been the case, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and Governor Jagmohan could have been the most popular leaders in the region. Sheikh Abdullah used his political acumen to sell his 1975 accord despite the Kashmiri population initially rejecting it by responding to a complete shutdown call by then Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Mufti’s recent statements attempting to give credit to Pakistan, Hurriyat and even the militants for allowing the first normal elections in Jammu and Kashmir after 1983, is aimed at emulating the Sheik and to sell his agreement his voters.

Especially with the latter perceiving it as a sell-out. A large voter turnout in Kashmir in the recent elections was also triggered by the BJP’s aggressive Mission 44. Coming out in large numbers, people mostly voted for the PDP, hoping to prevent the march of the BJP. Ironically, the party whom they trusted to halt the BJP’s ascendancy to power is now in a ruling alliance with that very same political entity. 

Therefore, Mufti faces challenges that are even more daunting than the ones encountered by the Sheikh and Farooq. Mufti could well have finished the BJP’s arguments on Article 370 forever, by getting them to commit in writing that the “present position will be maintained on all the constitutional provisions pertaining to J&K, including the special status in the Constitution of India.” Significantly, in line with the PDP’s agenda, the joint document has stressed the need to address the political dimension of Kashmir by calling for talks with Pakistan and the Hurriyat. It suggests that the Kashmir tangle has been a challenge for all the prime ministers of this country — and that the current alliance would make efforts to change the history. These written promises have generated an atmosphere of hope and injected an element of optimism where none existed in a substantial section of the population in the state.

But, Mufti’s bigger test will be to limit the communal agenda of Hindutva forces, for whom Kashmir is a land to be conquered. The BJP’s aggressive tone in Jammu, with its ideological fountainhead in Nagpur calling the shots, does not go well with Kashmir’s political psyche. But wisdom demands that we give this unique alliance a chance, as Kashmir today stands at a crossroads. This alliance could be either a beginning of a new era or an end to whatever connection Kashmir still has with the rest of India. The alliance is fraught with high risk, but the risk is still worth taking. It is better to chart a new course of history rather repeat the fate of either Yusuf Shah Chak or Sheikh Mohamamd Abdullah or his son. 

The BJP must bear the responsibility of reining in its hardline elements who have politically prospered by deploying strong anti-Kashmiri rhetoric and allow Mufti to negotiate his path in Kashmir Valley. For decades, BJP has viewed Kashmir through a telescope mounted in Jammu. All political parties need to treat Kashmir as a national issue and perceive it through the prism of bringing peace to the whole region of South Asia. It is still to be seen how the PDP will survive an alliance with a party that has been historically aggressive and has been running an unparalleled political show.

The author is chief of bureau, dna