Good Morning India:Good Luck, Omar Abdullah

Media Pulse

It was a memorable Sunday. At a public function in Srinagar on June 23, the President of the ruling National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, took off his black Karakuli cap, placed it on the head of his 32-year-old son, Omar Abdullah, and thus Omar was appointed the new President of the National Congress which had stood between the Kashmiris and the terrorists exported from Pakistan for more than half a century. It was a happening which millions of eyes in Srinagar, New Delhi and Islamabad were watching with bated breath on TV screens. Every word which Omar Abdullah uttered, and every single action and gesture of his, after he wore the black Karakuli cap, would be closely linked with the future of Kashmir and Kashmiris. It would have a close bearing on Indo-Pakistan relations and the political climate of the South-Asian region. Before him, his father, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, and before him his father, the legendary Sheikh Abdullah, had stood between the Pakistani and Indian political extremists. How far and how well would the young Omar carry the tradition, was the question.

There were many other sensitive political questions linked with the emergence of Omar Abdullah as the new leader of the largest democratic party in the Kashmir region. Of course there were more than four dozen
so-called militant Kashmiri factions operating on both sides of the LoC, funded mainly by Pakistan and supported by Pakistan's military and fundamentalist leaders. How will the young President of the National Conference withstand the overt and covert threats and challenges from those extremists and fundamentalists who had always talked of "liberation" at the cost of the freedom of the individual? How would he fight hypocrisy and terrorism, operating in various garbs and forms in the Indian subcontinent?

There were also questions like who will be the next Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir? Will it be the father or the son? Omar made it clear that it would be up to his father and the party to decide on that. Of course he did have heartburn over the way the ruling NDA leaders at the centre had treated his father on the question of the Presidency of India. But he seemed to have reconciled himself to let bygones be bygones. There were other issues. How will the new leader lead his own party and the State of Jammu and Kashmir to the much awaited Assembly elections? Who would be the main contenders of the National Conference in the Valley, in the Jammu and Ladakh regions? He gave some indication of this in an interview to the correspondent of a national English daily. He made it clear that his party's main fight will be against the Congress and the BJP in Jammu, against the PDP and the Congress in the Valley and against Congress in Kargil and Ladakh.

There were those who wondered whether the All Party Hurriyat Conference, split right down the ranks after the assassination of the soft-liner Abdul Ghani Lone, will have the courage to accept the challenge of a democratic poll and oppose the National Conference candidates in the battle of the ballot. Most of the leaders of the 23-odd factions which form the APHC are old and decaying persons, separatists and pro-Pakistanis for the simple reason that much of their clandestine political and financial support comes from across the border. They would rather obstruct the poll than risk being defeated. That was the reason they had been repeating ad nauseum that someone should ensure that the Assembly poll must be free and fair. The insinuation was that those who did not wield guns and grenades could not ensure a free and fair poll.