Srinagar: After the Narendra Modi government conferred him with the Padma Bhushan last week, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Muzaffar Baig gathered party workers at the PDP office in Jammu on Republic Day and unfurled the tricolour in the Union territory’s winter capital.
The gesture was more symbolic than patriotic, Baig’s colleagues in Kashmir told ThePrint.
PDP president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti had said last year that if Article 370 was struck down, New Delhi would not be able to find anyone in the erstwhile state to “shoulder the Indian tricolour”.
The singular gesture by Baig, whose on-off relationship with the Muftis is an open secret, proved the statement wrong.
Along with the country’s third-highest civilian honour, the unfurling of the tricolour also helped in shaping Baig’s new image as Delhi’s point-person in J&K within the political landscape of the Valley — a fact not liked either by his party or other regional powers.
The honour for Baig came at a time when most senior leaders of the Valley, including his own party chief and two other former CMs, remain under detention.
The continued detention of the leaders since August last year doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for Baig who is being seen as the face of an emerging political front in the Valley that is willing to look beyond J&K’s special status, a stand opposed by all mainstream parties of the region.
Yet Baig’s ascendance has met with little to no resistance so far within his own party, which expelled several leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Nazir Ahmad Laway for deviating from its official stand by being involved in central and civil administration mechanisms.
Be it the meeting with J&K Lieutenant Governor G.C. Murmu or visiting foreign envoys, PDP came down hard on its leaders for what the leadership saw as an acceptance of the new status quo set by the Modi government by scrapping Article 370 and bifurcating J&K into two Union Territories.
But Baig, who was one of the few senior leaders who weren’t detained, has not only survived the rough weathers of Kashmir politics but also dodged the axe of his firebrand party chief even after dropping enough hints of being part of the new front.
One look at his four-decade long career and it can be understood how he is surviving this tense period in J&K.
Also read: Kashmiris can watch Netflix, Amazon but can’t access PDP, NC sites as internet ban is lifted
From PC to PDP
A lawyer by profession, Muzaffar Baig’s political career began in the late 1970s with the Peoples Conference (PC). The party’s founder Gani Lone became close to Baig, who went on to play a crucial role in writing the PC constitution.
Lone’s son and PC chief Sajad Lone is among the detained politicians in J&K today.
Baig grabbed headlines not only in Kashmir and the country, but also in the international arena when he took up the clemency case of Maqbool Bhat, an ideologue of now-banned separatist group Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front who sought J&K’s Independence from India. Bhat was hanged in 1984.
While Baig’s rise in PC was quick, his stint with the party came to an abrupt end in 1983 when he accepted the offer of becoming the advocate general of J&K under the regime of Gul Shah, brother-in-law of National Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah. Shah had floated his own party, the Awami National Conference, to oppose the NC after breaking away from it.
“The NC defectors were considered close to (then prime minister) Indira Gandhi with whom the National Conference shared hostility back then. Baig then went on to serve as AG during the governor’s rule in the most turbulent times of insurgency owing to his growing affinity with New Delhi,” said a senior PDP leader on condition of anonymity.
“It was during this time that he got close to Mufti Sayeed, who was then the Home Minister of India,” said the leader.
In 1999, Sayeed founded the PDP along with other leaders. Baig was among them. The lawyer-turned-politician wrote the constitution of PDP as well.
“He had tried to stand for elections as an Independent candidate in 1996 but that didn’t work out. Eventually he joined Mufti Sayeed. He was, however, close to Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad as well,” said a second PDP insider who didn’t wish to be named.
Also read: Modi’s ministers promise Kashmiris industry, development and jobs
‘Old things, best forgotten’
PDP came to power in J&K within just three years of its formation — a fact often attributed to New Delhi’s plans of introducing a counterweight to NC to keep the Abdullahs in check.
But Baig became bigger than the party he had helped start. In the PDP-Congress coalition government, he was given the position of deputy chief minister when Azad took the reins from Sayeed. The latter had served as CM for three years as part of the arrangement with Congress.
In response to Baig’s promotion, another PDP founder Ghulam Hassan Mir exited the party and formed his own group.
Mir is now among the Kashmiri leaders who are said to be part of the emerging political front in the Valley. He also met the L-G and foreign envoys.
Asked to comment on his exit from the PDP then, Mir told ThePrint, “Those are old things. They are best if forgotten. I congratulate Baig sahab for this honourable award. He continues to be one of the senior political leaders of the Valley.”
Also read: J&K Police now deploys drones to map Srinagar and conduct ‘surveillance’ in Valley
‘He carried a lot of weight in Delhi’
In 2006, Muzaffar Baig’s growing proximity to Azad and the Congress was not taken kindly by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. As a result, PDP sought to take back some portfolios from Baig. At the time, he stepped down as deputy CM.
But his on-off relationship with the Muftis continued. He was again given a ticket for the 2009 state elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
“This too was because Baig sahab carried a lot of weight in Delhi. But things started to change after PDP formed a government with the BJP in 2015,” said another senior PDP leader requesting anonymity.
The leader added that Sayeed didn’t want to yield too much power to Baig who had won the Lok Sabha seat from Baramulla in 2014.
“Leaders like Naeem Akhtar and Haseeb Drabu had grown close to Mufti Sayeed and that had irked Baig who was a party patron and a heavyweight political leader. With Mufti sahab‘s death and Mehbooba ji taking control of party affairs, Baig’s power suffered another blow as Mufti sahab had not completely alienated him but just maintained enough distance,” said the leader.
“Mehbooba ji was more rigid and knew what vision she had for her party. So Baig sahab acted out multiple times criticising the party leadership. There was talk that he might shift to Sajad Lone and rebel PDP MLAs who were looking to form a government in late 2018. But that didn’t happen,” added the leader.
Baig is now looking to play a major role in Kashmir by either creating a rival front to the PDP and the NC, or by creating a PDP of his own by gathering rebels, defectors and expelled leaders, he added.
‘Man of all seasons’
Muzaffar Baig remained off the political grid for most part of 2019 only to emerge for an interview after the scrapping of Article 370.
He was one of the first few to initiate the discourse around Article 371 and domicile law to protect jobs and land of locals in J&K. The Modi government is currently working on this position, according to sources.
His colleagues seem to be bitter about Baig’s movement but aren’t able to do much.
One of the PDP leaders quoted above took a shot at Baig over the Padma Bhushan honour.
“Moma Kanna was also awarded Padma Shri, does it mean his sins washed (away)?” said the leader, referring to Ghulam Mohmmad Mir, a militant-turned-state-backed counter insurgent. Mir was awarded the Padma Shri in 2010.
But some others, who are aware of Baig’s political journey, have a different view.
Also read: MHA gets bigger role in picking J&K Police days after DSP’s arrest for ‘aiding militants’
Baig is more or less of the same mould as Mufti and Abdullah and in all probability will do a Royal flip once he gets CM posts. Only saving grace will be that being a UT royal court and powers will have shrunken so flip will be a circus trip by old wag. Lone though unstable but has on few occassions made some noises against militancy and violence. To lead Kashmir you need a leader who is two notches against violence and azaadi than Lone.