Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah: The Game Changer-II
Jammu, April 22: After heading the interim government of Maharaja Hari Singh, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was appointed as Prime Minister and took oath as Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on March 17, 1948.
The government of Pakistan viewed Abdullah and his party as agents of Nehru and did not recognise his leadership of Jammu and Kashmir. He spoke against Pakistani government in United Nations by comparing it with Hitler’s rule and also endorsed Indian stand on Jammu and Kashmir. However there was a change in Pakistan’s viewpoint with the passage of time. When he visited Pakistan in 1964 he was awarded a tumultuous welcome by the people of Pakistan. Among the persons who received him was Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas his once colleague and later bitter political enemy who earlier in his book Kashmakash had denounced Sheikh Abdullah as a turncoat and traitor. Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas embraced him and in his speech described him as one of the greatest leaders of the subcontinent and a great benefactor of the Muslims of the subcontinent. President Ayub Khan and his then Foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto discussed the Kashmir problem with him. The government of Pakistan treated him as a state guest. Sheikh Abdullah had the rare distinction of having poems in his praise written by three major Pakistani Urdu poets namely Hafeez Jullundhri, Josh and Faiz Ahmed Faiz who admired his lifelong struggle against injustice and for democratic rights of the common man.
In 1951, the government of Jammu and Kashmir with Sheikh Abdullah as Prime Minister held elections to a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Sheikh Abdullah’s Government had been accused of rigging in these elections to the Constituent Assembly.
On 8 August 1953 he was dismissed as Prime Minister by the then Sadr-i-Riyasat (Constitutional Head of State) Dr. Karan Singh, son of the erstwhile Maharajah Hari Singh, on the charge that he had lost the confidence of his cabinet. His dissident cabinet minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was appointed as Prime Minister. Sheikh Abdullah was immediately arrested and later jailed for eleven years accused of conspiracy against the State in the infamous “Kashmir Conspiracy Case”.
According to Sheikh Abdullah his dismissal and arrest were engineered by the central government headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He has quoted B.N. Mullicks’ statements in his book “My Years with Nehru” in support of his statement. A.G. Noorani writing in Frontline supports this view, as according to him Nehru himself ordered the arrest. On 8 April 1964 the State Government dropped all charges in the so-called “Kashmir Conspiracy Case”, Sheikh Abdullah was released and returned to Srinagar where he was accorded an unprecedented welcome by the people of the valley”.
After his release he was reconciled with Nehru, who requested Sheikh Abdullah to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan and make President Ayub to agree to come to New Delhi for talks for a final solution of the Kashmir problem. President Ayub Khan also sent telegrams to Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah with the message that as Pakistan too was a party to the Kashmir dispute any resolution of the conflict without its participation would not be acceptable to Pakistan. This paved the way for Sheikh Abdullah’s visit to Pakistan to help broker a solution to the Kashmir problem.
Sheikh Abdullah went to Pakistan in spring of 1964. President Ayub Khan of Pakistan held extensive talks with him to explore various avenues for solving the Kashmir problem and agreed to come to Delhi in mid June for talks with Nehru as suggested by him. Even the date of his proposed visit was fixed and communicated to New Delhi. On 27 May while he was en route to Muzaffarabad in Pakistani Administered Kashmir news came of the sudden death of Nehru and the Sheikh after addressing a public rally at Muzaffarabad returned to Delhi. On his suggestion President Ayub Khan sent a high level Pakistani delegation led by his Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto along with him to take part in the last rites of Jawaharlal Nehru.
After Nehru’s death in 1964, he was interned from 1965 to 1968 and exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. The Plebiscite Front was also banned.
In 1971 an insurrection broke out in erstwhile East Pakistan which ended in the creation of Bangladesh. Sheikh Abdullah realised that for the survival there was an urgent need of reconciliation and dialogue rather than confrontation. Critics of Sheikh hold the view that he sold cherished goal of plebiscite for gaining chief ministers chair. He started talks with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and came to an accord called 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord by giving up the demand for a plebiscite in lieu of the people being given the right to self-rule by a democratically elected Government.
He assumed the position of Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. The Central Government and the ruling Congress Party withdrew its support and mid-term elections were held.
The National Conference won an overwhelming majority in the subsequent elections and re-elected Sheikh Abdullah as Chief Minister. He remained as Chief Minister till his death in 1982.
After his death his eldest son Dr. Farooq Abdullah was elected as the Chief Minister of the State.
In 1933 he married Akbar Jahan, the daughter of Michael Harry Nedou, the eldest son of the European proprietor of a chain of hotels in India including Nedous Hotel in Srinagar, and his Kashmiri wife Mirjan. Michael Harry Nedou was himself the proprietor of a hotel at the tourist resort of Gulmarg. (The writer Tariq Ali claims that Akbar Jehan was previously married in 1928 to an Arab Karam Shah who disappeared after a Calcutta newspaper Liberty reported that he was actually T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) a British Intelligence officer. He claims that Akbar Jehan was divorced by her first husband in 1929.)