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An Open Letter to Rajiv Gandhi April 21, 1991by JAGMOHANDeluge—points of OriginThe disinformation deluge did not emanate from a single source. It had quite a few points of origin. The principal source of the deluge was Rajiv Gandhi and his coterie. Later on, another source—George Fernandes and his associates—made their contribution and added to the intensity of the deluge. Yet another source was the unimaginable ignorance about the fundamental reality of Kashmir. The personal and communal biases of critics like Shahabuddin and Imam Abdullah Bukhari also played their part in swelling the tide of deluge. Most of the disinformation was mala fide, intentionally coined, against the facts known to the framers of the accusations. The allegation of Rajiv Gandhi and Dr. Farooq Abdullah largely fell in the area.An Open Letter to Rajiv GandhiIncenses by the false accusations of Rajive Gandhi, Particularly those made at the election meeting, I wrote an open letter to him, laying bare various facts of his design of disinformation and distortion. The full text of the aforesaid letter is as follows: New Delhi April 21, 1991 Dear Shri Rajiv Gandhi,You have virtually forced me to write this open letter to you. For, all along, I have persistently tried to keep myself away from the party politics and to use whatever little talent and energy I might have to do some creative and constructive work, as was done recently in regard to the management and improvement of the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine complex and to help bringing about a short of culture renaissance without which our fast decaying institutions cannot be nursed back to health. At the moment, the nobler purpose of these institutions, be they in the sphere of executive legislature or judiciary etc., have been sapped and the soul of justice and truth sucked out them by the politics of expediency.You and your friends like Dr. Farooq Abdullah are however bent upon painting a false picture before the nation in regard to Kashmir. Your senior partymen, like Shiv Shanker and N.K.P. Salve have, apparently at your behest, been using the forum of the Parliament for building an atmosphere of prejudice against me. The former raked up a fourteen-year-old incident of Turkman Gate and the latter a press interview—an interview that I never gave—to hurl a barrage of accusations of communalism against my person. Mani Shankar Iyer, too has been dipping his poisonous darts in the columns of some magazines. I, however, chose to suffer in silence all the slings and arrows of this outrageous armory of disinformation. Only rarely did I try to correct gross distortions by sending letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines. My intension was remain content with a book, an academic and historic venture which, I believe, I owed to the nation and to history.But the other day some friends showed to me press clippings of your comments in the election meeting in Rajasthan. That, I thought, was the limit. I realized that unless I checked your intentional distortions, you would spread false impression about me throughout the country during the course the course of your election campaign.Warning Signals. Need remained you that the beginning of 1988, I had started sending ‘Warning Signals’ to you about the gathering storm in Kashmir? But you and the power wielders around you had neither the time, nor the inclination, nor the vision, to see these signals. They were so clear, so pointed, that to ignore them was to commit sins of true historical proportions.To recapitulate and to serve as illustrations, I would refer to a few of these signals. In August 1988, after analyzing the currents and undercurrents, I had summed up the position thus: “The drum-beaters of parochialism and fundamentalism are working overtime. Subversion is on theincrease. The shadows of events from across the border are lengthening. Lethal weapons have come in. More may be on the way.”In April 1989, I had desperately pleaded for immediate action. I said: “The situation is fast deteriorating. It has almost reached a point of no return. For the last five days, there have been large-scale violence, arson, firing, hartals, causalities and what not. Things have truly fallen apart. Talking of Irish crises, British Prime Minister Disraeli had said: “It is potatoes one day and Pope the next,’ Similar is the present position in Kashmir. Yesterday, it was Maqbool Butt; Today it is Satanic Verses; tomorrow it will be repression day and the day after it will be something else. The Chief Minister stands isolated. He has already fallen—politically as well as administratively; perhaps, only constitutional rites remain to be performed. His clutches are too soiled and rickety to support him. Personal aberrations have also eroded his public standing. The situation calls for effective intervention. Today may be timely, tomorrow may be too late.’ Again, in May I expressed my growing anxiety: “what is still more worrying is that every victory of subversionists is swelling their ranks, and the animosity is being diverted against the Central authorities.’ But you chose not to do anything. Your inaction was mystifying. Equally mystifying was your reaction to my appointment for the second term. How could I suddenly become communal, anti-Muslim and what not?When I resigned in July 1989, there was no rancor. You wanted me to fight, as your party candidate, election for the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Since I had, general revulsion for the type of politics which our country had, by and large, come to breed, I declined the offer. If you had very serious reservation about accepting the offer of J. & K. governorship for the second term, you could have adopted the straightforward course and apprised me of your views. I would have thought twice before going into a situation which had virtually reached a point of no return. These would have been no need for you to resort to false accusations. Maybe you do not consider truth and consistency as virtues. Maybe you believe that the words inscribed on our national emblem—Satyameva Jayate—are mere words without any meaning and significance for motivating the nation to proceed in the right direction and build a true and just India by true and just means. Perhaps power is all that matters to you—power by whichever means and at whatever cost.Reality in regard to the conditions prevailing before and after my arrival on the scene, you and your collaborators have been perverting reality. The truth is that before the imposition of Governor’s Rule on January 19, 1990, there was a total mental surrender. Even prior to the day (December 8, 1989) of Dr. Rubaiya Sayeed’s kidnapping, when the eagle of terrorism swooped on the State with full fury, 1,600 violent incident, including 352 bomb blasts, had taken place in eleven months. Then, between January 1 and January 19, 1990, there were as many as 319 violent acts—21 armed attacks, 114 bomb blasts, 112 arsons, and 72 incidents of mob violence.You, perhaps, never cared to know that all the components of the power structure had been virtually taken over by the subversives. For example, when Shabir Ahmed Shah was arrested inSeptember 1989 on the Intelligence Bureau’s tipoff Srinagar Deputy Commissioner flatly refused to sign the warrant of detention. Aanantnag Deputy Commissioner adopted the same attitude. The Advocate-General did not appear before the Court to represent the State case. He tried to pass on the responsibility of the Additional Advocate General and the Government Counsel. They, too, did not appear.Do you not remember what happened on the day of Lok Sabha poll on November 22, 1989? In a tantalizing gesture, TV sets were placed near some of the polling booths with placards reading: ‘anyone who will cast his vote can take this as a gift’. Near some other booths, coffins were placed with a cryptic note: ‘anyone who will cast his vote will get this’. No one in the Administration of Dr. Farooq Abdullah took any step to remove such symbols of defiance of authority.Let me remind you that Spore is the hometown of Ghulam Rasool Kar, who was at that time a Cabinet Minister in the State Government. It is also the hometown of the Chairman of Legislative Council, Habibulla, and also of the former National Conference MP and Cabinet Minister, Abdul Ahad Vakil. Yet only five votes were cast in Spore town. In Pattern, an area supposedly under the influence of Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, the then Congress (I) Minister, not a single vote was cast. Such was the commitment and standing of your leaders and collaborators in the State.And you still thought that subversive and terrorism could be fought with such political and administrative instruments.Around that point of time, when the police set-up was getting rapidly demoralized, when intelligence was fast drying up, when the press was bringing stories of subversive plans like TOPAC, your protégé, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, was either going abroad or releasing 70 hard-core and highly motivated terrorists who were trained in the handling of dangerous weapons, who had contacts at highest level in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, who knew all the devious routs of going and returning from Pakistan and whose detention had been approved by the Three-member Advisory Board presided over by the Chief Justice. Their simultaneous release enabled them to occupy key positions in the network of subversion and terrorism and to complete the chain which took them again to Pakistan to bring arms to indulge in killings and kidnappings and other acts of terrorism. For example, one of the released persons, Mohammad Daud Khan of Ganderbal , become the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of terrorist outfit, Al Bakar, and took a leading part in organizing a force of 2,500 Kashmiri youth. Who is to be blamed for the heinous crimes subsequently committed by these released 70 terrorists? I would leave this question to be answered by the people to whom you are talking about the ‘Jagmohan factor’.The truth, supported by preponderance of evidence, is that before January 19, 1990, the terrorist had become the real ruler. The ground had been yielded to him to such an extent that hedominated the public mind. He could virtually swim like a fish in the sea. Would it matter if the sea was subsequently surrounded?Labelling me Anti-Musllim in your attempt to hide all your sins of omission and commission in Kashmir and as a part of your small politics which cannot go beyond dividing people and creating vote banks. You took special pains to demolish all regards and respects which the Kashmiri masses, including my first term from April 26, 1984, to July 12, 1989. Against all facts, unassailable evidence, and your own previous pronouncements, you started labeling me as anti-Muslim.As a part of your overall design, the leader of your party in the Rajya Sabha, Shiv Shankar, on March 14, 1990, reminded the ‘House’ about my so called anti-Muslim leanings as reflected during the slum clearance operation of Turkman Gate in April 1977. This was the most foul, the most cynical, thing to do. Neither Shiv Shankar nor you nor anyone in your coterie had the mental alertness or depth to realize that in the process it was the memory of your late mother and your late brother that was being sullied. None cared to ascertain that with regard to this case, too, large-scale disinformation was resorted to in the post-emergency period, and it was primarily directed against Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi. I was roped in because I refused to step out of my ‘Island of Truth’ and put all the blame on them, as most of the bureaucrats and your partymen of the time did.If you had taken the trouble of glancing through the chapter titled ‘Untold Story of Turkman Gate’ in my book , The Island of Truth—a book which your mother had read and recommended to all those who were interested in knowing the truth about the city’s clearance-cum-resettlement project—you would have discovered that the Turkman Gate area had been declared unfit for human habitation as far back as 1938, that as was tragically demonstrated by eight subsequent deaths due to house collapses, the slum dwellers lived under constant fear of death, and that after clearance of 120 houses, about 1,000 alternative allotments were made, including 200 flats in the most attractive colonies of Ranjit Nagar and Shahdra. You would have come to know that the incident of April 19, 1769, was due to incitement and rumours connected with the family planning programme and that none of the six persons who died as a result of the action taken by the District authorities and the DIG (Police) was affected by the clearance of the slums, and five of them came from distant localities.In this regard, I may remind you that this book was filed as an affidavit by me in the special court of Justice M.K. Jain, wherein Mrs. Indira Gandhi was being prosecuted, and no one dared to file even a counter affidavit—so much of solid and unalloyed truth it contained.Incidentally, do you know that there was not even a scratch on anybody’s head during the course of resettling 7 lakh squatters, and the slum-dwellers of Turkman Gate did not even constitute 0.07 percent of this population? Now on the site cleared, 480 flats have been constructed and the erstwhile slum-dwellers have moved therein. Is it not ironical that those who provided them withnew habitation with modern civic amenities were projected as anti-Muslim, while those who virtually forced them to live in death traps assumed the role of their saviours?You took pride in the successful holding of the Asiad in November 1982. But do not know that not a single project of Asiad could have been undertaken if the massive clearance cum-resettlement programme had not been successfully carried out in 1976 ? No land would have been available for Nehru Stadium, Indraprastha Stadium, flyovers, bridges, expansion of roads, parking lots and other infrastructural facilities.May I, in this connection, also invite your attention to three of the important suggestion made in my book, Rebuilding Shahjahanabad: The Walled City of Delhi: One pertained to the creation of the green velvet between Jama Masjid and Red Fort; the second to the construction of a road linking Parliament House with the Jama Masjid complex, and the third to the setting up of a second Shahjahanabad in the Mata Sundri Road-Minto Road complex, reflecting the synthetic culture of the city, its traditional as well as its modern texture. Could such suggestions, I ask you, come of an anti-Muslim mind?How you and your associates used the forum of Parliament to undermine my standing amongst the Kashmiri Muslims was also evident from what N.K.P. Salve, M.P., did in the Rajya Sabha on May 25, 1990.Referring to the so-called interview to the Bombay weekly, The Current-an interview which I never gave—Salve chose wholly unjustified expressions; “There was a patent and palpable attitude of very disconcerting communal bias and, therefore, he (Governor) was happy under the grab of eliminating the terrorists, the saboteurs and the culprits, in eliminating the whole community as it were; now the Governor has himself given profuse and unabashed vent to his malicious malignity, hate and extreme dislike, branding every member of particular community as a militant.”I know Salve. I do not think, if left to himself, he would have done what I did. Clearly, he was goaded to say something which was against his training and background. But the elementary precaution which any jurist, at least a jurist of Salve’s eminence, would have taken, was to first check up whether any such interview to the Current Weekly had been given by me, and, if so, whether the remarks attributed to me were actually made. The unseemly haste was itself revealing. The issue was raised on May 25, while the weekly was dated May-26 June 2, 1990. You yourself rushed a letter to the President on May 25, on the basis of the interview that in reality did not exist. You explained that V.P. Singh had appointed a person with “rabid communalist opinion as Governor”. You also got your letter widely publicized on May 25, itself.Since your partymen did not allow me to have my say in the Rajya Sabha, even when an opportunity came my way to speak on the subject, I was left with no other option but to file a Rs.20 Lakh damages suit against the current Weekly in the Delhi High Court. The case may takea long time and I may donate the damages, if and when awarded, to charity, but I intend sparing no effort to expose all those who have played dirty roles in the disinformation-drama.On Article 370 you created a scene on March 7, 1990, at the time of the visit of the All-Party Committee to Srinagar, and made it a point to convey to the people that in 1986 I wanted to have Article 370 abrogated. At that critical juncture, when I was fighting the forces of terrorism with my back to the wall and beginning to turn the corner after frustrating the sinister designs of the subversives from January 26, 1990 onwards, you thought it appropriate to cause hostility against me by tearing the facts out of context. Whether this act of yours was responsible or irresponsible, I would leave to nation to decide.What I had really pointed out in August-September 1986 was: ‘Article 370 is nothing but a breeding ground for the parasites at the heart of the paradise. It skins the poor. It deceives them with its mirage. It lines the pockets of the “power élites”. It fans the ego of the new sultans. In essence, it creates a land without justice, a land full of crudities and contradictions. It props up politics of deception, duplicity and demagogy. It breeds the microbes of subversion. It keeps alive the unwholesome legacy of the two-nation theory. It suffocates the very idea of India and fogs the very vision of a great social and cultural crucible from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. It could be an epicenter of violent earthquake in the Valley—an earth quake, the tremors of which would be felt all over the country with foreseen consequences’I had argued, ‘The fundamental aspect which has been lost sight of in the controversy for deletion or retention of Article 370 is its misuse. Over the years, it has become an instrument of exploitation in the hands of the ruling political elites and other vested interests in bureaucracy, business, judiciary and bar. Apart from the politicians, the richer classes have found it convenient to amass wealth and not allow healthy financial legislation to come to the Sate. The provisions of the Wealth Tax, the Urban Land Ceiling Act, the Gift Tax., and other beneficial laws of the Union have not been allowed to be operated in the State under the cover of Article 370 is actually keeping them impoverished and denying them justice and also their due share in the economic advancement.’My stand was that the poor people of Kashmir had been exploited under the protective wall of Article 370 and that the correct position needed to be explained to them. I had made a number of suggestions in this regard and also in regard to the reform and reorganization of the institutional framework. But all these were ignored. A great opportunity was missed.Subsequent events have reinforced my view that Article 370 and its by-product, the separate Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir must go, not only because it is legally and constitutionally feasible to do so, but also because larger and more basic considerations of our past history and contemporary life require it. The Article merely facilitates the growth and continuation of corrupt oligarchies. It puts false notion in the minds of the youth. it gives rise to regional tensions and conflicts, and even the autonomy assumed to be available is not attainable in practice. Thedistinct personality and cultural identity of Kashmir can be safeguarded without this Article. It is socially regressive and causes situation in which women lose their right if they marry non-State subjects and persons staying for over forty-four years in the State are denied elementary human and democratic rights. And, above all it does not fit into the reality and requirement of India and its vast and varied span. What India needs today is not petty sovereignties that would sap its spirit and aspirations and turn it into small ‘banana-republics’ in the hands of ‘tin-pot dictators but a new social, political and cultural crucible in which values of truth and rectitude, of fairness and justice, and of compassion and catholicity, are melted, purified and mounted into a vigorous and vibrant set-up which provides real freedom, real democracy, and real resurgences to all.I must also point out what when other States in the Union ask for greater autonomy; they do not mean separation of identities. They really want decentralization and devolution of power, so that administrative and developmental work is done speedily and the quality of service to the people improves. In Kashmir, the demand for retaining Article 370 with all its ‘pristine purity’, that is, without the alleged dilution that has taken place since 1953, stems from a different motivation. It emanates from a clever strategy to remain away from the mainstream, to set up a separate fiefdom, to fly a separate flag, to have a Prime Minister rather than a Chief Minister, and Sader-i-Riyasat instead of a Governor, and to secure greater power and patronage, not for the good of the masses, not for serving the cause of peace and progress or for attaining cultural unity amidst diversity, but for serving the interests of the ‘new elites’, the ‘new sheikhs’.All those aspiring to be the custodians of the vote-banks continue to say that Article 370 is a matter of faith. But they do not proceed further. They do not ask themselves: what does faith mean? What is its rationale? Would not bringing the State within the full framework of Indian Constitution give brighter luster and shaper teeth to this faith and make it more just and meaningful?In a similar strain, expression like ‘historical necessity’ and ‘autonomy’ are talked about. What do these mean in practice? Does historical necessity mean that you include, on paper, Kashmir in the Indian Union by one hand at a huge cost and give it back, in practice, by another hand on the golden platter? And what does autonomy or so called pre-1953 or pre-1947 position imply? Would it not amount to the Kashmiri leadership saying: ‘you will send and I will spend; you will have no say even if I build a corrupt and callous oligarchy and cause a situation in which Damocles’ sword of secession could be kept hanging over head?On issue of Kashmire Pandits you and the like of you have made India a country which has lost capacity to the true and just. Anyone trying to be faire is dubbed communal. The case of the Kashmiri Pandits bears eloquent testimony to this fact. Whatever be the vicissitudes of the Kashmiri Pandits History and whatever unkind quirks their fate might have brought to them in the past, these all pale into insignificance in comparison to what is happening to them at present. The grim tragedy is compounded by the equally grim irony that one of the most intelligent, subtle, versatile, and proud community of the country is being virtually reduced to extinction offree India. It is suffering not under the fanatic zeal of medieval Sultans like Sikander or under the tyrannical regime of Afghan Governors, but under the supposedly secular rule of leaders like you, V.P Singh and others whose unabashed search for personal and political power is symbolized by calculated disregard of the Kashmiri migrants’ current miserable plight and the terrible future that stares in their eyes. And to fill their cup of pain and anguish, there are bodies like ‘Committee for Initiative on Kashmir’ which are over-anxious and over-active to rub salt into their wounds, and to label anyone who wants to stand by them in their hours of distress as communal.In a soft, superficial, permissive and, in many ways, cruel India which has the tragic distinction of creating over one lakh refugees from its own flesh and blood and then casting them aside like master less cattle to fend for themselves on the busy and heartless avenues of soulless cities, chances for Kashmiri Pandits to survive as a distinct community are next to nothing. Split, scattered, and deserted practically by all, they stand today all alone, looking hopelessly at a leaking, rudderless, boat at their feet and extremely rough and tumultuous sea to face before they can reach a safe shore across to plant their feet firmly on an assured future.The deep crisis through which the Kashmiri migrants, or for that matter, entire Kashmir, is passing is really the crisis of Indian values—the perversion, in practice, of its constitutional, political, social and moral norms. If I visited the camps of the refugees and tried to extend the firm hand of justice to a community in pain, if I instructed that, instead of cash doles, the migrant Government servants should be given leave salary, and if I conceded the demand of a widow of the person brutally killed by a terrorist, for allotment of a house on payment, I became communal, a ‘known anti-Muslim’, about whom concocted stories were planted in the press. If, on the other hand, someone falsely accused the Indian army and the Governor’s Administration, if he assailed ‘Jagmohan’ in particular’ of giving inducements through provisions of plots and trucks, without giving particulars either of plots or of trucks, his accusations got published all over the press, his reports were flaunted in national and international forums and were copiously quoted in Parliament by the members of your party and he was labeled as secular and progressive and champion of human rights and what not.Hard Evidence about ‘Jagmohan Factor’. I do not like to refer to anything that looks like indulging in self-praise. But not t let you get away with your calculated campaign of disinformation, about Jagmohan/communal factor, I must invite attention to some hard evidence about what the people of the Valley actually thought about me before you and your protégés started the smear campaign on my appointment for the second term.Writing in the Indian Express’s issue of July 30, 1987, under the caption ‘The Alliance in Kashmir’, Pran Chopra, reputed politician commentator, noted:“But there is a recent example from which Farooq Abdullah can learn much; despite the same limited resources and the same administration to work with, but through sheer diligence andapplication, Governor Jagmohan accomplished so much during the recent spell of Governor’s rule that everyone I met was full of praise for it. I had not expected to see so much affection shown for Governor’s rule in a State so highly politicized as Kashmir is, especially because the present Governor is also thought wrongly. As I now learn, to have been responsible for foisting G.M. Shah’s rule on the State. But diligence and application are not qualities which people have detected much in the Chief Minister yet.”This is the scene as depicted by the noted journalist Kum Kum Chadha at the time of my departure from the State in the second week of July 1989:“Tears, emotion, poetry, sentiment , adjectives and smiles marked the farewell of Jagmohan who relinquished charge as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir last week. Perhaps no other Governor has, in recent times, got the kind of tribute from the people as Jagmohan did. For them, he was a ‘messiah’, an architect, a crusader, a reformer, a revolutionary and a visionary. The nostalgia of Governor’s Rule still lingers. Even its bitterest critics admit its achievements. As Ritu Jeetendra, a lecturer in a women’s college told Jagmohan: ‘As a student of political science I am totally opposed to Governor’s Rule but I liked your rule, Sir!’ Described as a ‘legend’, State Minister P.L Handoo said: ‘On April 26, 1984, Jagmohan took the oath as Governor. On July 26, 1989, he lays down office. Between these two dates, he has written the contemporary history of Jammu and Kashmir.’ Even Ruskin was quoted: ‘The value of a thing is not known until it is lost.’…perhaps no other Governor generated the kind of emotion that Jagmohan did.” Earlier, On February 27, 1987 Prem Bhatia, in his editorial comments in the same paper, said: “In Jammu and Kashmir itself, many of those who opposed the imposition of Governor’s rule following the fall of the G.M. Shah Ministry did not take long to praise Jagmohan who showed a rather uncommon responsiveness to the people’ problems”.This is what A. N. Dar, Editor of the National Herald, observed in his article, what is wrong in Kashmir, of April 15, 1989:“ It has to be admitted that the last two years in Kashmir have been administratively sterile. The coalition has not been a shining example of purposeful administration. This is sad indeed, more so because it had the example of purposeful administration. This is sad indeed, more so because it had the example before it of what the Governor Jagmohan did during Governor’s rule. Jagmohan showed that it was possible to win the goodwill of the people through fair-minded, selfless and effective administration. Even the fundamentalist and the anti-national accepted that he was fair and efficient.”The widely circulated Urdu daily of Kashmir, Srinagar Times, editorially observed: “What governor Jagmohan did during the six months of Governor’s Rule, to set right the deteriorating conditions in the valley and improve its environment, would never be forgotten by the people of Kashmir.” The same newspaper, in its issue of February 19, 1987 published an editorial—Memory of Governor’s Rule is coming to mind and stated:“During Governor’s Rule theadministration became alert and development and construction work got speedily executed. Whatever work was done was done properly and in a neat and clean manner. The important roads like Maulana Azad Road, Dal Gate Road, Boulevard and many other roads which were earlier being repaired and damaged ever year, were made with such solid and sound material that in spite of grave winter and continuous snow-fall, the roads remained in excellent shape. Even when heavy bull-dozers were put on the roads for removing the snow, they remained as strong and smooth as they were before snow-fall not even a single stone came out.The offices functioned in a disciplined manner and everyone attended office in time. The Governor listened to the grievances of the people personally, high or low, rich or poor, man or woman, urban or village folk. He passed some order or the other on every application. He followed up the matters and ensured that his orders were complied forthwith. Now, no one is attaining to the grievances of the people and they are seen waiting for days in the Secretariat.”(Translation from Urdu by the author.)On my demitting office on July 12, 1989, the reporting of The Hindustan Times from Srinagar was as under:“The news of the exit of Jagmohan from the Kashmir scene has created a mood of shocked disbelief and quiet anger of a kind which the Valley had not felt before.Fed up with the prevarication of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, the people always had a ray of hope in Jagmohan. During Governor’s Rule, the Bureaucracy was tamed and developmental work proceeded at a feverish pith. New roads were constructed and old ones repaired almost in every corner of the State. People were bewildered as they had rarely seen an elected government function at such a furious pace. For the people, it was like a dream come true.Even today when people travel along a pot-holed road, they call it a ‘Farooq Abdullah Road’, but well-meltalled road is known as ‘Jagmohan Road’. An able administrator, Jagmohan cleared all pending cases and took on-the-spot decisions, expediting development work.Tourists still fondly remember the time they spent in the city forest. On the slopes of Shankaracharya-Zaberwan hills, descending to the shores of the Dal Lake, the city forest was created during Governor’s rule. Tourists described in hordes on the 907 hectares of the city forest to delight in the peace and serenity of its exquisite foliage and lush greenery. It was also given the status of a national park, but with the installation of the Farooq Government, thousands of trees were felled to convert the area into a golf course.Jagmohan had also introduced “district merit system” in the selection of candidates. He was of the opinion that merit should be the only criterion for selection. Jagmohan had also banned private practice by doctors employed in public hospitals. Dr. Abdullah has allowed doctors to go in for private practice. Jagmohan had stopped construction of hotels around Dal Lake to restore it to its pristine beauty. Jagmohan looked upon Dal Lake as a historical legacy of the people of theState to be protected at all costs. But now encroachments and construction of hotels have again commenced in the area.”A 21-years-old Kashmiri youth, Javed, went to Pakistan for training. While returning in a group of 85 trainees, he was apprehended at the border by the Indian Army. In an interview to the press and television, Javed gave an account of his experience. Describing the conditions in Pak-occupied Kashmir, he said, “They have only outdated suspension bridges. The roads are as bad as these were in Srinagar before Jagmohan came to the State.’ Despite turning militant, the Kashmiri youth nursed a latent respect for the welfare and development work done by me in Kashmir.The purpose of citing these comments and observations is not to draw attention of personal achievements but to expose the treacherous role of those elements in national and State leadership who moved heaven and earth to portray me as anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri and in the process scuttled the great effort to rescue the State from the jaws of death and destruction. I could have tapped, for the good of the State and the country, the regards and affections which existed for me in the inner layers of Kashmiri mind. But you were bent upon strangulating everything and denying me the opportunity to make use of the goodwill.Your principal prop of current politics of Kashmir, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, was not to be left behind in the drive launched to create an ‘anti-Muslim’ Image of mine. In his interview, “A Known anti-Muslim was appointed as Governor of a Muslim majority State”. How untrue, how unfair, was the propaganda, should be obvious from the fact that on November 7, 1986, at the time of his swearing-in ceremony, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, in public speech, for which the records exist, said: “Governor Sahib, we would need you very badly. It is, indeed, amazing that such remarkable work could be done by you in a short time through an imbecile and faction-ridden bureaucracy. If today three ballot boxes are kept—one for National Conference, one for the Congress and one for you, your ballot boxes would be full while the other two ballot boxes would be empty.”The misfortune of our country is that we have leaders like Dr. Farooq Abdullah who have no regard for facts or truth and whose superficiality is matched only by their unprincipled politics.Incidentally, did it not strike you that Dr. Farooq was virtually accusing your late mother of being anti-Muslim because she the Prime Minister when, in April 1984, ‘a known anti-Muslim’ was appointed, for the first term, as ‘Governor of a Muslim majority State?’Apparently in consultation with you, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, on February 15, 1990, issued a written statement to the press in Urdu in which he, inter alia, said , “The Governor, in the personification of ‘Hallaqu’ and ‘Changez Khan’, is bent upon converting the Valley into vast graveyard. On account of continuous curfew since January 20, it is difficult to say how many hundreds of people have become victims of the bullets of the army and para-military forces, and in this general slaughter how many hundreds of houses have been destroyed. At this moment,when Kashmiris are witnessing their beloved country being converted into a vast graveyard, I appeal to the national and international upholders of humanity of intervene in Kashmir and have an international inquiry made into the general slaughter of Kashmiris at the hands of army and para-military forces.”Here is your ‘patriot’ calling Kashmir ‘Aziz wattan” suggesting a separate country. Here is your ‘national leader’ asking for an international inquiry into the general slaughter of the Kashmiris by the Indian Army and para-military forces. Here is your ‘responsible friends’ speaking about the continuous curfew for twenty-five days in the Valley and his consequent inability to find out how many ‘hundreds of innocent unarmed Kashmiris’ had been massacred and how many hundred of Kashmiri houses raised to the ground, although he knew perfectly well that there had been a number of days when there was no day-furfew, partially or wholly, and the authorities had brought out the list of casualties, about 40 up to February 16, and were daily asking the public to provide with additional names, if they had any, so that correction in the official list could be made. Here is an erstwhile Chief Minister who did not care to explain how ‘innocent and unarmed peope’ ruthlessly shooting down I.A.F. officers, B.S.F. Jawans, senior officers of the Television and Telecommunications Department and young men in the streets; and how, while inciting people through lengthy and fiery statements, he did not find single word to condemn such brutal murders.Is the nation not entitled to know why you have not disowned such unfortunate behavior on the part of Dr. Farooq Abdullah? and how do you account for his recent statement as published in The Times of India of February 7, 1991: “I directed my partymen to lie low, go across the border get training in arms handling; do anything but do not get caught by Jagmohan’?Stabbing me in the back at personal level, perhaps, did not matter. But keeping the pot boiling, you and your protégés prolonged the agony of Kashmir and caused many more deaths and much more destruction. The politics of unscrupulousness was brought to its lowest depth.You once said, ‘I do not read history; I make history.’ Apparently, you do not know that those who happen to make history without reading it, usually make bad history. They cannot understand the undercurrents and the fundamental forces that really shape the course of events and determine the ultimate destiny nation.In the absence of historical perspective, you and the like of you never perceived the roots and tendrils which gave rise to the current crop of separatism and subversion in Kashmir. Poisonous seeds were persistently planted in the Kashmir psyche. And these were liberally fertilized. Those of you whose obligation it was to stop these plantations and their fertilization, were not aware of even the elementary lesson of history: to compromise with the evil was only to rear greater evil; to ignore the inconvenient reality was only to compound it; to bow before the bully was only to invite the butcher the next day. I could cite score of cases to support my contention. Here, I would restrict myself to only two examples.On October 2, 1988, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, his statue was to be installed in the new High Court Complex at Srinagar. The function had been announced. The Chief Justice of India, R.S. Pathak, was to do the formal installation. But a few Muslim lawyers objected. They threatened to cause disturbance at the time of the function. The Chief Minister gave in, almost willingly, to the bullying tactics. The function was cancelled.What were the implications of what happened? A secular Kashmir, part of a secular India, could not have even in its highest seat of justice, a statue of the Father of the Nation, of a sage who laid down his life for communal harmony. Who was the person spearheading the move against the installation? It was none other than Mohammad Safi Bhat, an advocate of the J.&. K . High court and an active member of the National Conference, who was later on given party ticket for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in the elections held in November 1989 and with whom you kept warm company during your visit to Srinagar on March 7, 1990, to create as many difficulties as possible for Governor’s Administration.At that time there was National Conference (F) Congress (I) Ministry in office. Such was its lack of adherence to principles.Such was the character of Congressmen who formed part of the Ministry and such was its disposition to cling to power that not even a little finger was raised when the function was cancelled.The bully’s appetite could not have whetted better. Intimation could not have secured better results. The trouble-makers could not have perceived a more casual and non-committed adversary. Was it not natural for them to nature higher ambitions and think that more spectacular results could be achieved by deploying a more aggressive and threatening strategy? Only a naïve would believe that in the context of the Kashmir situation, softness and surrender on basic principles would not act as an invitation to terrorism and militancy.The Union Government enacted the Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1988. It was made applicable to all the States of the Union except J. & K. Because of Article 370, concurrence of the State Government was needed for extension of this law to the State. But the same was not given. Why? Because J. & K. is different. What an argument for not having a law which aimed at eradication of misuse of religious premises for political purpose!Nowhere was this law needed more than in the State of J. & K. Nowhere were religious places misused more than here. Nowhere were seeds of fanaticism and fundamentalism shown every Friday more assiduously than from the pulpits of mosques here. Nowhere was it preached more regularly than here that Indian democracy was un-Islamic, Indian secularism was un-Islamic, and Indian socialism was un-Islamic. And yet, neither the State Government which was ruled by two supposedly secular parties, nor the Union Government took the matter seriously. What intrigued me most was that the law which was considered good for 100 million Muslims in other parts of India, was not considered good for 40 lakhs Muslims of Kashmir.What was the use of the nationalist forces ruling the country when they would not act national interest at all; when they remained mental slaves of the politics of communalism; when they were inclined to place reliance on words and not on deeds; when they did not lead, but succumbed: when they encouraged and not defeated, separatist elements; when, instead of building a new society, strong in human and spiritual values, they did everything, wittingly or unwittingly, to repair, renovate and strengthen the old, decaying and smelly citadel of obscurantism; and when they invariably gave precedence to expediency over the basic goals and principles of our Constitution? What could be the result of all this? Did it require any unusual insight to understand where such spurious forces would take us?While the prospects of my success rattled you and Dr. Farooq, as both of you apprehended exposure of your past lapses, it equally caused worry to Pakistan authorities, including Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and her agencies like ISI. They clearly understand that I could not only set the administrative machinery right, get rid of internal subversion, and secure loyalty and cooperation from sizable section of the bureaucracy, but also win over public support by speedily redressing the grievances of the people, launching a drive against corruption, and reviving the tenor and tempo of the development of 1986. They, therefore, mounted a special campaign against me. That also explains Mrs. Benazir Bhutto’s hysterical outburst against me personally on Pakistan television and in her public speeches. Otherwise, there was no reason why she should be picking on a Governor of a State and not the Prime Minister or the Home Minister or any other high central functionary. She knew that I was aware of the deeper currents of Kashmir polity and administration and my approach was bound to be effective and fruitful. Mrs. Bhutto also knew that Pakistan had benefited immensely from the shallowness and superficiality of the approach of the earlier regime. How could she and her officers of the ISI allow their years of labour to go waste when they had almost attained their objective?I leave it to the well-wishers of the nation to consider, without any political or personal bias, a basic question. How was it that Dr. Farooq was calling me Hallaqu and Changez Khan, and you were travelling all the way to Srinagar to ‘expose’ me as anti-Article 370, anti-Kashmiri and anti-Muslim, and, at the same time, Ms.Benazir Bhutto was vowing to tear me to pieces—‘Jag-Jag-Mohan ko Bhag-Bhag-Mohan Kar Denge’?There are many other facets of Kashmiri’s truth which lie buried underneath the heaps of disinformation and also of superficiality and shallowness. These days I am busy in an attempt to remove some of these heaps. One day, I hope, the country will acquire the true perspective of the problem. The Kashmiri masses would also realize that I was their greatest well-Wisher. I wanted to save them permanently from the exploitative oligarchs and also from the machinations of religious ‘Czars’ and forces of obscurantism.You have already committed the sin of letting down the Bharat Mata in Kashmir. Now do not add it another sin of letting down the other Mata also. There is, after all, some power above. Be conscious of Her. She may condone your negligence. But she would not condone your sin ofblaming an innocent person for what were your own faults, particularly when he had been persistently reminding you of your obligations.So far as I am concerned, I am content with my gloomy pride of having done correct thing in Kashmir. True, I seemingly and, perhaps, temporarily, lost the goodwill of some of the locals. But I was not seeking a certificate from anyone. I had gone for the second term to do a national duty.The country’s polity and administration have assumed such a character that it has become incapable of solving, from its roots, any serious problem. Elections have virtually lost all meaning. And these would continue to be meaningless until and unless Indian democracy and its constitutional structure acquires a healthy cultural base, a pure soul and soil, from which the seed of justice, truth and selfless service could sprout and blossom into a Great Tree providing shade and shelter from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Currently, the inner light is gone, and we are being led virtually by blind men with lanterns in their hands. We stumble from one crisis to another. As poet says:It has happenedAnd it goes on happingAnd it will happen again.With best wishes,Your sincerely,(Sd.) JagmohanI got it from hereAn Open Letter to Rajiv Gandhi April 21, 1991