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| What is new about latest bonhomie between Gandhis and Abdullahs? | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Oct 6: The latest bonhomie between Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is definitely rooted in the history of the State, but it has not always necessarily been to the advantage of the two families.
One needs to go back into history to realize that in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies and what is true about politics as a general rule has also been true of the political relationship of Gandhis and Abdullahs.
Immediately after the state's accession with the country in 1947 late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah told Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru in his famous Lal Chowk speech, 'Tu Man Shudi, Man Tu Shudi' which means 'You and me are two bodies but one soul'. This was followed by one of the most serious betrayals in the post Independence history of Jammu and Kashmir. Late Sheikh started hobnobbing for carving out an independent state with the support of the West (Read Mac Pherson papers de-classified by the US administration). Nehru had to order Sheikh's arrest to save face before the country as the opposition in the Parliament wanted to know the reasons for which the Sheikh had been incarcerated. The reasons were laid before the trial court where a case of conspiracy for secession was slammed on Sheikh and his associates.
That was the first breaking of the 'Tu Man Shudi, Man Tu Shudi' doctrine. Then came the relationship between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Dr. Farooq Abdullah.
After all the patronage and support from Indira Gandhi to Dr. Farooq Abdullah to settle down as the Chief Minister after his father's death in 1982, the relationship reached an unfortunate end when the activists of the ruling NC behaved in the most obscene and vulgar manner during Madam Gandhi's speech in Iqbal Park in Srinagar.
"Madam was so infuriated at the vulgar and obscene acts that she slapped a senior police officer who tried to come near her as she was boarding a flight back for Delhi at Srinagar airport," recalls somebody who witnessed her anger that day.
The result was the Congress masterminded the NC revolt in 1984 which brought Dr. Farooq's brother-in-law G.M. Shah to power with the support of NC dissidents and the Congress.
After Indira Gandhi's assassination there were intermittent periods of bonhomie and bitterness between Rajiv Gandhi and Dr. Farooq Abdullah. What has been said in Sonamarg during the foundation laying ceremony of the Z-Morh tunnel by the Gandhis and the Abdullahs is, therefore, nothing new to the idiom of State's political history. History is always unkind to those who refuse to learn their lessons from it. |
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