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Dogged by unkept promises the besieged chief minister bargains for greater autonomy for his state.

By Ramesh Vinayak and Harinder Baweja 

He is a man who offers no apologies. He is criticised for playing golf when suicide squads are attacking army camp after camp. He retorts that he needs a few hours on the green to keep his sanity. His administration has been crippled by strikes for the past 40 days. Agitating employees ask where he gets the money for building a private mansion when he lacks the funds for their dearness allowance. He just shrugs his shoulders. He is lampooned for flying by chopper from home to his office in the Secretariat a few kilometres away. He snaps back that he's not ready for a burial yet.

That's Farooq Abdullah, chief minister of the most disturbed state in the country. A state whose borders reverberated to the sound of heavy gunfire last week when the Indian and Pakistani armies trained their guns at each other in Akhnoor in the Jammu sector. A day later, foreign mercenaries attacked an army camp in the heart of Srinagar. The next day, they triggered a series of blasts in Jammu to mark Republic Day.

Once again Jammu and Kashmir is crying out for attention and not merely because the militancy graph has climbed steeply. The terrorists are making their presence felt striking at will and fuelling the impression they are more in control than the Government. A dangerous dimension is now being added by the strike of 3.5 lakh government employees. For the first time since 1996, the pro-Pakistan All Party Hurriyat Conference is drawing crowds. Four years after he won a two-thirds majority, Farooq is faltering. This, as a senior state official pointed out, "means more support for the secessionist agenda".

The situation is turning ugly. Intelligence reports suggest that local Kashmiri youth, having abandoned hopes of getting jobs, are once again willing to cross the border for arms training. The chief minister who promised employment and reconstruction of the ravaged state, has failed to deliver even half way. Hard pressed to keep his party workers in good humour, he went on a recruitment drive and doled out 60,000 jobs but each of these is mired in charges of nepotism and corruption. Little, if any opportunities came the way of ordinary people.

Even his programme of rehabilitation of families hit by militants -- which evoked tremendous response and hope -- fell far short of expectations. Starting with a corpus fund of Rs 20 crore, the scheme aimed at those widowed and orphaned by terrorist violence petered out because only Rs 8 crore was sanctioned. The state Government has not released any money for this scheme for the past two years and the Centre too has stopped its matching grant.

An important pointer is Farooq's tone and choice of words. "If Jammu and Kashmir has to remain a part of India, autonomy has to be given. It's better the Centre starts thinking that this has to happen to win the hearts of the people. They can dismantle me but the issue of autonomy will not disappear," he told India Today.

It was the autonomy plank that won Farooq the 1996 election. That year he managed to drown the slogan of azadi with the cry for autonomy. If he's taking a tough stand on the issue again, he is doing it for two reasons. To cover up for his non-performance and bargain with the Centre. On both fronts his honeymoon seems to be over. A wave of disenchantment is beginning to sweep the state. By playing the autonomy card, Farooq, in fact, is only admitting his vulnerability.

He is also taking a calculated risk. The state Cabinet has endorsed the recommendations of the State Autonomy Committee that wants the state to be conferred the special status that existed before 1952. Then Jammu and Kashmir had its own constitution and was responsible for everything except defence, external affairs and communications.

In pitching to recover past glory, Farooq is taking on the Centre. It is a risky game, for he is threatening a BJP-led government with a report that can hardly find favour with a party that wants the state's full integration with India by scrapping even the much-diluted Article 370. Already, the autonomy demand has generated a lot of heat. State BJP President D.K. Kotwal is threatening to oppose it resolutely: "Farooq is trying to divert attention from his failures. Leave alone autonomy, we will not rest till Article 370 is abrogated. Our Central leadership will not dare grant any special status."

Farooq, entirely dependent on the Centre for funds and military help in tackling terrorism, can do little on his own. But says an aide: "He's decided to go on the offensive because a section in the Home Ministry is floating the idea that his government should be substituted with Governor's rule. Delhi should realise that Farooq has a very tough job. Who else do they have? He is the only Kashmiri who is willing to stick his neck out for India."

That's what Farooq seems to be doing -- demanding autonomy in the hope the Centre will dole out more funds. That may happen but he has also to set his own house in order. "His flamboyance gives the impression of the Government being a country club," says a state official. He did, after all spend Rs 15 crore on developing a golf course in Srinagar and another Rs 20 crore on a state airplane. Worse, Farooq is being described as a "non-resident chief minister". He has spent less than a month in the state since the Government moved to the winter capital of Jammu on November 8.

Farooq has no one to blame but himself for acquiring a dubious reputation. Nobody expected wonders from him when he assumed office in 1996. But neither his ministerial team nor the National Conference cadres are willing to step out of the safety of their homes to even lend a sympathetic ear to basic, everyday problems. In four years, Farooq's Government has done little to rebuild schools, hospitals and bridges.

The people in the Valley are still talking bread and butter issues but Farooq is not grasping the opportunity. "We are not asking for the moon, just bare minimum relief from nine years of destruction," says Haji Mohammad Ismail, a farmer in Arwami village of Anantnag district. The bridge linking his village with the districts of Anantnag and Pulwama was burnt in 1997 but is still to be repaired. Hundreds of villagers like Ismail now have to take a 42-km detour to reach Srinagar.

Of the total number of damaged bridges -- 157 major and 244 minor -- only 130 have been repaired. Similarly, of the 828 schools that were gutted only 489 have been rebuilt. Against Rs 14.44 crore needed to repair school buildings, only Rs 30 lakh were provided in 1999-2000. "Farooq has frittered away the chance of turning the tide," says former Union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.

At Anantnag's 125-bed hospital, Ghulam Mohammad Lone watches his son writhe in pain as he waits to shift him to Srinagar. Catering to a population of 12 lakh, the hospital has only one ambulance. "The Government has let us down," says the bitter father. Adds medical superintendent Dr M.A. Attar: "Things have really deteriorated in the last two years." Each bed has two to three patients, most of whom cannot even be given adequate medication. As compared to Rs 90,000 provided for life saving drugs last year, only Rs 10,000 was sanctioned this year. Boxes containing 23,500 ampicillin drug capsules were withdrawn last October because they were spurious. No replacements were sent. The last straw came when the local MLA turned down the pleas of the hospital authorities for a Rs 25,000 contribution from his constituency fund.

MLAs and ministers, who represent the face of the Farooq Government, are the worst culprits. Frozen by fear, the local administration does not make its presence felt. Confined to their security cocoons, officials rarely venture out even in the relatively safe Jammu region. Says Divisional Commissioner (Kashmir) Khurshid Ahmed Ganai: "The worsening security scenario is affecting the movement of officials to the field."

They are probably taking their cue from Farooq and his cabinet colleagues. Last week, when the state Government wanted several of its ministers to be present at the Republic Day function in Srinagar, they came up with quick excuses for staying away. As Ganai points out, "Disenchantment with the administration could translate into sympathy for the militants and add to their numbers." There is already some evidence of disenchantment with democracy. In 1998, 30 per cent of the Srinagar electorate voted in the Lok Sabha election; in 1999, this was down to 11.9 per cent.

All of this has been brought to Farooq's notice but he too seems to be guilty for he is sitting over a police file which recommended that 340-odd government employees with links to militants be purged. While 300 of them were identified by intelligence agencies during governor's rule, the others, though suspended, are now back in service and have even claimed their arrears.

Farooq, it seems, is slowly giving up and directing his flak at the Centre. In 1996, the state Government had asked for a Rs 3,000 crore package from the Centre to put the state back on the rails. The package did not materialise but Delhi committed itself to an annual special assistance of Rs 815 crore. In 1998, however, Farooq was asked to fend for himself and in 1999, when tourism was picking up, the Kargil war dealt a severe blow. The state is spending more on itself and little on development. For implementing a plan of Rs 1,000 crore, it spends Rs 3,000 crore on salaries. It spends Rs 675 crore on the purchase of power but is able to collect tariff worth Rs 100 crore. Repayment of loans -- accumulated since governor's rule -- has further reduced the money available for development. With an outstanding debt of Rs 3,000 crore, the state's annual debt servicing has been to the tune of Rs 700 crore. Its non-plan expenditure too has zoomed from Rs 922 crore in 1996-97 to Rs 2,800 in the current year.

While Farooq blames the Centre for backing off from financial commitments, his detractors charge him with indiscipline and mismanagement. A CAG report found that out of 233 controlling officers, 192 had not completed financial reconciliation for Rs 5,043 crore of expenditure.

"The people are not interested in my problems. They want what's due to them but I can't create Shangrilas overnight," says a beleaguered Farooq. But there in no region in the state -- Jammu, Kashmir or Ladakh -- that seems to be happy, leave alone appreciative. He has not delivered on any of his promises; even the Pandits realise that they are better off selling their property than waiting for the day they can return to live in their homes. But Farooq still has another two years to go and he cannot run away. He is using the autonomy report to shore up his image but will need to do more than just hide behind slogans. Or, in a state as mercurial as Kashmir, he may find all support melting faster than the winter snow.

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