Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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She is her own person
Mehbooba knows what she has to do; men should learn to respect woman


By Binoo Joshi



I am writing this piece as a woman. But this does not mean that I am prejudiced against men. Waves after waves have washed the political terrain of Jammu and Kashmir following the sudden death of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in early January. This has left a void, which many political players available on the current political scene , would be unable to fill. This is a bitter truth.

Another harsh reality is that Mehbooba Mufti, the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, is being pressurized to take a decision whether she wants to wear the mantle for which her father had prepared her or not? Why this pressure? Is it because she is a woman? The men are keen to decide path for her, despite their half- hearted claim that she is the only one who would take the call. Others in the opposition are directing barbs at her, asking her to form the government or call for elections.



A pertinent question is, Isn’t Mehbooba Mufti entitled to decide which course she should choose? She should be given time to think over each and every aspect. If she takes any decision in haste, the same very men who are urging her to take the call would say, “ Look, we told you so”. The kind of stories that would go around can well be imagined. She would be faulted for everything..



Mehbooba is clear that she is not a “ shock absorber” or “ bold” like her father who ventured into the hitherto unimaginable political terrain wherein he allowed himself to be seen in the same frame in which the right-wing BJP leaders were also present. She is her own person. The lady who twice propelled her father to the chair of Chief Minister must be having something in her, which no one is trying to discover at this moment.



Women are sentimental. They are bold as well. They have greater sense of the understanding of the pulse of the people. Mehbooba Mufti has been in the politics for the past nearly two decades. She has graduated in the field OF politics since her entry into politics on the eve of the 1996 Assembly polls. She never lost any Assembly elections. She won all these elections on her own. She lost only once – parliamentary elections in Srinagar constituency to National Conference’s Omar Abdullah in 1999 when her party was just three- month old.




In fact, when her father decided to launch a regional group Peoples Democratic Party in July 1999, it was she who resigned from her Assembly seat of Bijbehra and Congress and the position of leader of Congress legislature party. Her father resigned from Congress next day. That may have been a strategic move decided by her father.




In 2002, the strategy was used again. Mufti Sayeed was not to contest the Assembly elections. Mufti Sayeed, who had won the Parliamentary polls in 1998, but with the dissolution of the House following the fall of the Vajpayee government because of the single vote of then National Conference M P Saif-ud-Din Soz, was Congress leader without any position. He was yet to be seen as a regional leader. Her credentials as Congress leader were a big hindrance. On the their hand, Mehbooba, who had moved around, visited the families of the people killed in violence, was seen in a different prism. Kashmiris felt comfortable with her speeches delivered in chaste Kashmiri.




That time she had nothing to count upon except the slogan of dialogue with separatists and militants. The slogan that neither guns nor grenades would deliver any solution contained a message for both the militants and security forces. That had an electrifying effect. This made Mehbooba to win 16 seats. The result was good for a party in its infancy, but it was nowhere close to the magic figure of 44 in the House of 87. Congress had 21 seats. National Conference was having 28 seats but it was persuaded by the Vajpayee-Advani duo to stay away from government formation.




Mehbooba told Congress that there was an opportunity for it to get into power after a prolonged spell of being without power. She bargained hard. In one of her speeches at Qazigund in October 2002, she declared that the “sensitivities of Kashmiris should be honoured and only a Kashmiri should become the Chief Minister and that has to be Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.”



Her party has grown now into teens. It won 28 seats in 2014. Her stature has grown as well, but she is not as experienced as her father was. She has no shoulder to rely upon. Many are full of doubts as to what would she do as Chief Minister. And, all these doubters are men. I am sure she would take call one day on her own terms. If she was right in 2002, 2008 and 2014, she would not be wrong in 2016. Just wait and watch.





(Binoo Joshi is Jammu based senior journalist was associated with a reputed international wire service and broadcasting agency)Courtesy Greater Kashmir



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