Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 27: In a newspaper interview last week, National Conference's General Secretary on 'medical leave' Sheikh Nazir Ahmad has proudly admitted that he has never visited New Delhi, the Indian capital, in the last 43 years. According to him, the Indian politicians, particularly Jawahar Lal Nehru and Mrs Indira Gandhi have been cruel to the NC founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Mrs Gandhi, according to him, did not release Sheikh Abdullah from jail when his daughter Surraya Matoo's wedding was happening in Srinagar in 1971. That event, he says, forced him to decide that he should never in his life visit New Delhi or any other place beyond the border at Lakhanpur.
Sheikh Nazir did not stop there. He made his anti-India sentiment manifest with a host of references, insinuations and instances, toeing the separatist Hurriyat Conference's line on critical issues including the return and rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits. Using Syed Ali Shah Geelani's, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's and the Hizbul Mujahideen chief Salahuddin's language, Sheikh Nazir asserted that the displaced Pandits would not be allowed to settle in safe settlements. According to him, they should return and live at their homes in different towns and villages.
It is a typical case of running with the deer and hunting with the hound. With a few pauses, NC has ruled the State of Jammu and Kashmir continuously in the last 66 years. Many members of Sheikh Abdullah's dynasty have retained and tasted the power with the blessings of the Centre. Though, Sheikh Nazir did not opt to function as MLA, MLC, MP or Minister, he worked as the NC's General Secretary for decades. Over the years, he demonstrated his obsession for the noun 'Advocate'. His statements invariably refer to him as 'Advocate Sheikh Nazir Ahmad', even as he is known to have never practiced law. And the licence to the 'Advocate' is reported to have been issued under a Central law, the Advocates' Act.
Not only that: This no-wife, no-children, no-family politician has had another obsession for the Indian currency. He doesn't object to Mahatma Gandhi's images and water seals on the currency notes he loves to save. He also does not appreciate the Indian Army troops' duty of protecting the scions of the Sheikh dynasty and their kith and kin from the jihadist militants who have been beheading and mauling their ideological adversaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan like thirsty predators.
It's in fact an irony that the Sheikh's progeny has seldom appreciated his contribution to the Kashmiris. Unlike Mufti Sayeed, Saif-ud-din Soz and Ghulam Nabi Azad, National Conference leaders like Sheikh Nazir, Dr Mustafa Kamal and Farooq Abdullah have their basket full of the praise and pride for the Sheikh. It was Sheikh who ratified Maharaja's decision to accede to India, not to a theocratic republic called Pakistan. Had the Sheikh opted for accession to Pakistan, or even Azadi, all the contemporary jihadists of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS et al would have settled their base in Srinagar. They would have first of all chopped off the heads of Sheikh Abdullah's own successors and other mainstream politicians who enjoyed unlimited freedom of plundering the exchequer and misusing their official positions for personal gains under the Delhi rule.
Significantly, not once has even Sheikh's grandson Omar Abdullah hailed Sher-e-Kashmir publicly in the context of the contemporary jihadist environment. He and others of his dynasty could have claimed plenty of credit for Sheikh Abdullah's farsightedness as he was the leader who foresaw what the Generation Third of Kashmir is watching today while feeling themselves secure under the Indian Army's gun. Even a fool knows the consequences of the opposite. |
