His detractors used to call him a “surrogate” of New Delhi and for separatists he was a “collaborator” in Indian “tyranny”. But Mufti Muhammad Sayeed considered himself an “Indian by conviction”. He, indeed, was a true nationalist, a patriot of integrity, a gentleman politician and statesman.
It, evidently, was in acknowledgement of his unquestionable integrity and patriotism that in 1989 he became the first Muslim minister for home affairs in the V.P. Singh government.
Again post-2002, the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saw in Sayeed the most “trusted man” in Kashmir and his Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), though ruling the state in partnership with the Congress, became very close to the NDA. PM Vajpayee chose Srinagar to address a rally, arranged by the PDP, to offer a hand of friendship to Pakistan and the highest point of the Sayeed-led government was when first Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service rolled in nearly six decades across the Line of Control on April 7, 2005.
Subsequently, a similar service started at Poonch-Rawlakote crossing point. The opening of the bus and trade routes, which despite being sluggish in many ways and not as prolific as had been expected, is seen as a major confidence-building measure between the two countries and meant to bolster the peace agreement the two sides had reached in 2004. It had brought smiles not only on the ordinary Kashmiri but the political parties, irrespective of their ideologies, too hailed it as a victory.
Sayeed was born on January 12, 1936 in Kashmiri town of Bijbehara in southern Anantnag district, to a family of religious clerics. He came down to capital Srinagar where he graduated from the city’s prestigious Sri Pratap College and subsequently earned a law degree and a post-graduate degree in Arab history from Aligarh Muslim University. After his studies, he started a law practice in Anantnag, which brought him close to Syed Mir Qasim, a Democratic National Conference leader. Soon, Sayeed joined the party which was being led by G.M. Sadiq and had been formed allegedly at the behest of the Congress leadership in Delhi after legendary National Conference leader and Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was dismissed and jailed in August 1953.
Later the DNC, virtually a Congress proxy, merged with it, giving the party its first real presence in Kashmir. Sayeed, along with Mir Qasim, was a part of Sadiq’s inner circle and in the 1967 state Assembly elections which were manipulated in favour of the ruling party he won from home constituency Bijbehara uncontested on a Congress ticket and was appointed deputy minister in Sadiq’s government.
However, he soon resigned to side with Mir Qasim who had risen in revolt against Sadiq. In 1972, after the death of Sadiq, Mir Qasim took over as chief minister at the head of the new Congress government and Sayeed was made a Cabinet minister. In 1975, Mir Qasim stepped down to pave the way for Sheikh Abdullah’s returning to power following the accord between him and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sayeed was made the J&K Congress chief and with that his effort to wrest power from the Abdullah family began.
He orchestrated the ouster of Farooq Abdullah and replacing him with his estranged brother-in-law Ghulam Muhammad Shah as chief minister in 1984. However, his plans were again cut short when Rajiv Gandhi formed an alliance with Farooq Abdullah in 1986.
Sayeed was not happy with the move and was soon removed as J&K PCC chief and sent to the Rajya Sabha. He subsequently became Union tourism minister, the assignment he was not really happy with. Though Abdullah’s National Conference and the Congress contested the Assembly elections together in 1987, Sayeed could never reconcile to the alliance.
He soon joined V.P. Singh and in 1989 was elected to LS as a Janata Dal candidate from Muzaffarnagar in UP and was made the Union home minister. Back home, the separatist campaign burst into a major violence and pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front militants kidnapped his daughter Rubaiya Sayeed. She was released from captivity only after the JKLF managed to get five of its top members released in exchange. The coming weeks saw fresh faceoff between him and Farooq and when Sayeed sent Jagmohan Malhotra as governor of the state despite vehement opposition by the chief minister, the latter resigned in protest.
Sayeed returned to the Congress during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s time. In 1998, he contested the LS polls from Anantnag on a Congress ticket and won. However, he quit the Congress and with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti launched his own party, the PDP, in July 1999. The party tried to squeeze space for moderate separatists by talking about restoration of honour and dignity to Kashmiri people. It pleaded for applying “healing touch” to the wounds inflicted on the Kashmiris due to years of insurgency and violence and “repair their hurt psyche, salvaging their bruised dignity, rekindling a new hope in their hearts and motivating them to mould their destiny through a participatory political and democratic process”. He also flaunted one-liners like, “Democracy is battle of ideas”, and “bandook se na goli se, baat bane gi boli se”.
