Both the Congress and National Conference fought the 1983 elections on communal lines. In alliance with Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq — father of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman, Umar Farooq — Dr. Abdullah gave his campaign an expressly Islamic colour. In one pamphlet, the National Conference equated the Congress with Maharaja Hari Singh, who had “enslaved the Kashmiris.” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi used identical tactics to push forward the Congress’ pursuit of power. She campaigned against the Resettlement Act, which would have allowed Muslim Partition refugees to return to Jammu and Kashmir and reclaim their properties. As the author and journalist Tavleen Singh has noted, Mrs. Gandhi sought to persuade Jammu voters that they “were really a part of Hindu India and had, therefore, been neglected by Muslim Kashmir.”
Inflammatory tactics paid off: the National Conference won 46 seats, all in Muslim-majority constituencies, while the Congress picked up 23. However, the Congress continued on with a campaign designed to annihilate Abdullah. His alliance with Mirwaiz Farooq — who was, ironically enough, to die at the hands of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen assassin —was characterised as anti-national. Sikh religious camps held in Jammu and Kashmir were described as state-sponsored training centres for Khalistan terrorists. Much of the propaganda was deceitful — the Congress itself, after all, had sought an alliance with the Mirwaiz — but it prepared the ground for the dismissal of the Abdullah government in July 1984, months after he sponsored a national opposition conclave in Srinagar.
http://newageislam.com/will-2009-be-kashmir%E2%80%99s-year-of-deliverance?--/current-affairs/d/1089
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9:59 PM
Moderate Islamist here
