Farooq talks azadi, ready to unite with separatists

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 5

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday offered a partnership to the separatist leadership, who have been steering the five-month-long unrest, telling them not to consider his party as an enemy and vowing to struggle for rights of the people.

Farooq said his party was ready to follow the separatists “till they are on the right path and were leading the nation in the right direction”. Putting up a brazen and rare separatist rhetoric, unusual for a mainstream politician, Farooq said the “path to Azadi is never easy”.

“We don’t have to stay silent, we don’t have to flee. We have to safeguard this land for our children and their children. This will happen when we all will unite,” Abdullah said while addressing his party workers at a commemoration event marking the 111th birth anniversary of his father and National Conference founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.

In a significant speech, Farooq, who was once a harsh critic of separatists, offered unity to the separatist leaders, suggesting a major policy U-turn of his party which has remained in power for most of the time in the past three decades. He was accompanied by his son and state’s former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

“I also tell the leaders of Hurriyat, don’t do it alone, unite. We are with you at this moment. We are not your enemy, but we are not ready to walk on the wrong path,” he said. “We have also struggled, we have spent all our lives doing so… I tell you from this sacred place that move ahead, we are with you till you are right and you can lead this nation right,” the former Chief Minister said.

Farooq’s National Conference is the main opposition party in the state Legislative Assembly and has 15 members as legislatures. The National Conference was routed in the last parliamentary elections and also lost to the PDP in the Assembly elections.

In recent weeks, the National Conference is attempting to put on a soft separatist image by issuing statements delinking Pakistan from the unrest and putting the blame on New Delhi.

Hinting at New Delhi, Farooq said that “they cannot suppress you, remember it”. “This fire will not douse till India and Pakistan will do justice to us… the more they try to extinguish this fire, the more it will rise. I want to tell the workers of the National Conference that do not be away from this struggle,” he said.

The ongoing unrest was an “agitation for the rights of the people”, Farooq said while adding that India and Pakistan needed to talk to solve the Kashmir issue.

The National Conference leader also criticised the state’s ruling party PDP, alleging that its healing touch had turned into a shock for people.