The first person who went against India was not Syed Ali Shah Geelani or Maqbool Bhat but Sheikh Abdullah himself. Way back in the 1950s, it was he who sowed the seeds of separatism among the people and then used it as a bargaining chip to blackmail Delhi that either he remains in power or Kashmir will not stay with India.
From 1947 till this day, whenever the NC is questioned about the crimes it inflicted on the people of Kashmir, it uses the accession with India as a shield & instantly brands you as anti-national.
Let the facts be put straight today: the first person who went against India was not Syed Ali Shah Geelani or Maqbool Bhat, but Sheikh Abdullah himself. Way back in the 1950s, it was he who sowed the seeds of separatism among the people, and then used it as a bargaining chip to blackmail Delhi that either he remains in power, or Kashmir will not stay with India.
Today, on the same old playbook, the NC ecosystem is telling Delhi that only they are Indians and the rest of Kashmir is anti-national. Here is a brief history of the contradictions of the Abdullah-led NC and how it used both Delhi and the people of Kashmir.
1) Isn't the very foundation of NC's politics rooted in anti-Hindu sentiment, when in 1931 Sheikh Abdullah mobilised Muslims against the Dogra Maharaja in the name of religion?
2) Didn't Sheikh Abdullah start backchannel contacts with Pakistan and the US for self-determination and independence just 7-8 years after J&K merged with India?
3) Isn't it a historical fact that NC backed the Plebiscite Front from 1953 to 1975? Wasn't that the first ever separatist movement against India? Wasn't Syed Ali Geelani himself a product of this Plebiscite Front politics?
4) Didn't NC use the state machinery in 1979 to crush its opponents — torturing religious people, burning the Quran, killing and disappearing people — and then sold the narrative that it was India that committed these crimes?
5) Didn't NC and Congress rob the public mandate in broad daylight in 1987? Didn't they torture, humiliate and terrorise those who dared to challenge them within the democratic mainstream, and then made people believe that it was India as a country doing this?
6) Didn't NC create the Ikhwan and use them to loot, rape and kill with impunity? Didn't they break our youth in torture cells and then sell the lie that Delhi did it?
7) Didn't Farooq Abdullah nurture the JKLF and use them when he felt he was losing his chair, to create fear in Delhi that if he is out of power, Kashmir will slip out of India's hands?
8) Didn't Farooq Abdullah in 2016 urge the Hurriyat leadership to continue the violent separatist movement and say, "We will never be free until we are united [against India], and I am asking NC workers not to stay away from the movement"?
PS: This is just the tip of the iceberg. If a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is established and a postmortem of NC's politics is done, even the sky will weep at how they ruined Kashmir.
They destroyed our past, mortgaged our future and are criminalising our present. They made Delhi suspicious of Kashmir and made Kashmiris suspicious of Delhi. For 75 years, Kashmiris paid the price in blood, in graves, in jails, in half-widows and orphans, while the Abdullah clan built palaces over our pain. The time has come to reclaim Kashmir for Kashmiris & re-engage with Delhi. We need a Messiah to do this.