India’s only Muslim home minister

Srinagar: His detractors used to call him a “surrogate” of New Delhi and for separatists he was a “collaborator” in Indian “tyranny”.

However, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed considered himself an “Indian by conviction.” He, indeed, was a true nationalist, a patriot of integrity, a gentleman politician and statesman.

It, evidently, was in acknowledgement of his unquestionable integrity and patriotism that in 1989 he became the first Muslim minister for home affairs in the V..P. Singh government.

Again post-2002, the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saw in Sayeed the most ‘trusted man’ in Kashmir and his Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), though ruling the State in partnership with the Congress, became very close to the NDA.

Sayeed was born on January 12, 1936 in Kashmiri town of Bijbehara in southern Anantnag district, to a family of religious clerics. After his studies, he started a law practice in Anantnag, which brought him close to Syed Mir Qasim, a Democratic National Conference (DNC) leader. Soon, Sayeed joined the party which was being led by G. M. Sadiq and had been formed allegedly at the behest of Congress in Delhi after legendary National Conference leader and Prime Minister of Ja-mmu and Kashmir She-ikh Muhammad Abdu-llah was dismissed and jailed in August 1953.

Later the DNC, virtually a Congress proxy, merged with it, giving the party its first real presence in Kashmir.

In 1972, after the death of Sadiq, Mir Qasim took over as CM at the head of new Congress government and Sayeed was made a Cabinet minister. In 1975, Mir Qasim stepped down to pave the way for Sheikh Abdullah’s return to power following the accord between him and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sayeed was made the J&K Congress chief and with that his effort to wrest power from the Abdullah family began.

He orchestrated the ouster of Farooq Abdullah and replacing him with his estranged brother-in-law Ghulam Muhammad Shah as CM in 1984. However, his plans were again cut short when Rajiv Ga-ndhi formed an alliance with Farooq Abdullah in 1986. Sayeed was not happy with the move and was removed as J&K PCC chief and sent to Rajya Sabha.

He subsequently became Union minister, the assignment he was not really happy with. He could never reconcile to the alliance. He soon joined V P Singh and in 1989 was elected to Lok Sabha as a Janata Dal candidate from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh and subsequently made the Union home minister. He returned to the Congress during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s time.

He quit the Congress and with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti launched his own party PDP in July 1999.