Jammu : Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who took charge of Jammu & Kashmir for a second time on Sunday, developed a passion for politics in his teens when he met then Kashmir ‘Prime Minister’ Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad in the mid-1950s to seek financial help for higher studies.
Sayeed’s father, Mufti Gulam Muhammad, was a religious preacher in the south Kashmir village of Bijbehara and didn’t own any farm land. His only income was the donations from disciples and whatever he got by imparting religious education to children.
The first in the family to go for formal education, Sayeed realised he needed help for higher studies. So, he called on Bakshi at his office in Srinagar. “Something happened that day,” a close friend told IANS. “Mufti Sahib has never been able to fully explain.”
A large number of people had also gathered to see Bakshi. Mufti wondered – the friend recalled – if one day he too will meet people a la Bakshi.
Sayeed did his post-graduation from the Aligarh Muslim University in Arabic and also obtained a law degree from there. When he returned to Kashmir, he realised his dream – politics.
Born on January 12, 1936 in a poor family in Bijbehara village in Anantnag district, Sayeed still respects the late Bakshi for developing the state. Over time, Sayeed too developed the habit of listening to all but taking his own decision.
“He has been in the high and low of politics, but he won’t allow adversity or prosperity to go to his head.” Sayeed set up the Congress party in the Kashmir Valley at a time when being a member of a pro-India party and taking on the National Conference of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was seen as a virtual sin. But he stood up to Sheikh Abdullah,” said Abdul Rehman, 80, who lives in Anantnag.
Sayeed became a junior minister in the G M Sadiq-led Congress government in 1967. In 1989, Sayeed became India’s first – and till date the only – Muslim home minister when V P Singh was the prime minister. To make a point, militants dramatically abducted Sayeed’s younger daughter, Rubaiya Sayeed. She was released in exchange for seven Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front activists.
In 1999, Sayeed, assisted by his elder daughter Mehbooba Mufti, formed the Peoples Democratic Party. It won 16 seats in the 2002 state election, and Sayeed became the CM after allying with the Congress. In 2008, the PDP won 21 seats, but remained in the opposition.
After winning all three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir Valley in 2014, it was widely felt that the PDP would sweep close to 40 seats in the state elections of last year. The PDP did come on top of a hung assembly but won only 28 seats, a result that did not please Sayeed. The result threw up the most serious challenge in Sayeed’s political career, should he ally or not with the BJP. It had 25 legislators. It took Sayeed more than two months to decide
that he will.
Sheikh Qayoom
