The Mumbai daily Free Press Journal dated September 9, 2013 reported that it was the opinion of Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy incumbent and former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah that Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister will be dangerous and damaging for the Indian secular ethos. This is surely one of the most tragic-comic statements in Indian history. Yes, it is so, because, the 76-year-old Abdullah has either been totally affected by amnesia or deliberately chosen to hoodwink the people by overlooking the fact that his own State is not proclaimed as secular in its sacred Constitutional document.

Yes, the Preamble of the State Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, promulgated by the State’s elected Constituent assembly on November 17, 1964 did not proclaim itself as a secular State and more importantly, the State Government did not accept the introduction of the word ‘secular’ in the State Constitution’s Preamble although it became applicable for the rest of India under Indira Gandhi’s 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976. (This can be verified by looking up Appendix III of the Constitution of India, which details the scores of portions of the Constitution of India, which are not applicable to the J&K  because the Nehru-sponsored Article 370 of the Indian Constitution has given the State the right to refuse the applicability in its territory of any Parliamentary law falling outside the field of Defense, External Affairs and Communication.)

It is also revealing that unlike the rest of India, the J&K does not accord the ‘minority’ status to any portion of its population and, therefore, in a Muslim majority State, it denies benefits to the minorities as are handed out by the Government in New Delhi. What is particularly galling about Abdullah’s latest reference to India’s secular ethos is the fact that he himself is never known to have done anything at all to get J&K proclaimed as ‘secular’ despite being a dynastically lionesque figure in that State. He was the Chief Minister of the State between 1982-1984, 1986-1990, and 1996 to 2002. If he is touchingly enamoured of the ‘secular’ ethos, why, pray, did he not persuade his governments of the day to accept Indira Gandhi’s introduction of the word ‘secular’ in the State’s Constitution? Abdullah would not have an answer to that; else, so shrewd at dodging issues, he’ll divert the subject to a lecture on Kashmiriyat or on the urgent need to give pre-1953 autonomy to J&K.

Abdullah would also seem to have forgotten his role in those gruesome 100 days and more, beginning January 4, 1990, when two local Urdu newspapers in Jammu & Kashmir carried the Press release of Hizbul Mujahideen asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. In the following days, masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans. There was near chaos in the Kashmir as reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri pandits begin to trickle in; there were explosions; inflammatory speeches were made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir with a recorded cultural and civilisational history dating back 5,000 years. The fear soon spread fast and far and wide.

And, what, pray, did today’s upholder of ‘secular ethos’ do at that time? Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities of the State. His pathetic, whimpering and snivelling Government had all but ceased to exist and had gone into hiding. When, on January 19, 1990, Jagmohan arrived to take charge as Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah, resigned and went into a sulk.

That pogrom, that genocide. Is now part of Abdullah’s ‘secular’ amnesia, as he shamelessly takes pot shots at the BJP and Modi. But hypocrisy is but a part of Abdullah’s DNA, the arrogant Nawab, son of the ‘Tiger’ of Kashmir. Question him on how ludicrous the demand for autonomy is when, as per his own son’s admission (published in The Times of India on September 8, 2013, J&K’s annual total income is Rs 6,500 crores while the State’s annual liability on staff salaries is Rs 13,500 crores and on pensions is Rs 2,000 ctores respectively, has an annual income, which is way behind the salaries of the State forcing to be totally dependent on financial assistance from the Union Government. Mention that to the Nawab and he’ll probably talk of the State’s magnificent golf course, he could build in Srinagar. He will also probably add the promise Nehru made to his father, the Sheikh Sahab.

Question him on why he made a security guard put a shoe on his foot, and he’ll say the guard requested that favour, not failing to add that he put on the second shoe himself when a TV camera caught him doling that ‘favour’. Question him on how he could say in July this year that one can have a complete meal for one Rupee. And he will probably say, “Well, my people give me that!”

It’s only people like Farooq Abdullah and his Congress friends of unabashed appeasement who are the ones who are damaging and eroding the nation’s ‘secular ethos’, while the BJP and Narendra Modi are at best, the unproven villains of the game.