Jagmohan, the figurehead for BJP’s Art 370 outreach

By Anindya Banerjee

New Delhi, Sep 4 (IANS) BJP President Amit Shah and BJP Working President J.P. Nadda kicked off the party's month-long public outreach campaign on abrogation of Article 370 with a meeting with former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Jagmohan Malhotra.

The meeting on Tuesday was also attended by Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Malhotra, popularly known as simply Jagmohan, was the Governor of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1984 to 1989 and then for a few months in 1990. The nineties was the time when militancy erupted in the Valley with the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.

In those turbulent times, Jagmohan was the lone voice that opposed the erstwhile state's special status and called for tough measures against terrorists and separatists.

That the BJP embarked on its 'Sampark and Jan Jagran Abhiyan' after meeting him shows how much his views on Kashmir are respected within the saffron party.

Jagmohan was a rare nationalist figure in the militancy-torn Valley, where Yasin Malik would openly create terror in the nineties and guns were as easily available as Kashmiri bread.

In his first stint as governor, he was unanimously perceived as an able administrator. But after Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter was abducted in 1989 and the administration secured her release, then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah objected to Jagmohan's appointment.

He resigned in protest and the erstwhile state went under President's Rule. Which effectively meant that then Governor Jagmohan had full power to reign in militancy.

Many contemporaries believe that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits on the night of January 19, 1990, was facilitated by him to launch an all-out offensive against terrorism, a term still new to the Valley. Some however, brand this as a conspiracy theory.

On the night of January 19, security forces conducted house-to-house searches in Srinagar to find weapons and hidden militants. Hundreds were arrested followed by police firing on stone pelters in Gawkadal.

Jagmohan was dealing with a Kashmir where clarion calls were given from mosques to evict Kashmiri Hindus. The indoctrination of Pakistan-sponsored Islamic propaganda manifested in the worst kind of violence.

Handwara, Zakura, Byepass, Hawal and Mashaali Mohalla -- all these areas saw a security counter-attack to overwhelm street terrorism, which was sugarcoated and referred to as "militancy" in popular discourse.

No wonder, soon after returning to power in 2014, the NDA government decided to confer the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, on Jagmohan.

And little should it surprise anyone that Shah chose him as the first eminent citizen to reach out to for the BJP's 'Sampark and Jan Jagran Abhiyan'.

Decades after his stint in 1990, Jagmohan is still remembered as either a great unifier or a divisive character, depending on whom you speak to.