Omar Abdullah offering an explanation on why it was not possible for him to expunge corruption completely from his government was a silent confession of his being a man incapacitated.
His explanation might sound ridiculous, but actually is not. In a coalition like the one we have in J&K right now, it is not about corruption but the arrangement
of corruption. There are too many backs to be scratched and too many hands to scratch them with. So it makes a science of sorts to put all the backs and hands in place so that every time there is an itch in a back there is a hand that really comes handy. So corruption is not an isolated spot in this government, it is an elaborate architecture. Omar was only telling you that working in such an architecture makes it inescapably important to know all the time that you have a back to take care of and a hand to lend. So honestly speaking what Omar said adds up.
Beyond this it is a misfortune; one, that runs deep in history. Before setting off into this history of misfortune, just a little warm up.As a religious belief the concept of rebirth is known to us all. That you are born multiple times in multiple forms may have its own explanation in the doctrinal realm that it belongs to, but there are strident contestations to this idea in the larger metaphysical and religious epistemes. Nevertheless, we are not concerned about how many times you are born, in which form and how when we talk about National Conference.
It is rather an enigmatic cycle of suicides. From Sheikh Abdullah down to the third generation,each one in the familial line has committed multiple suicides. It is a Suicide squad in a long struggle. Twenty three years of unmitigated resistance it was that the entire nation had to take up. Everything went into it. It took the days and nights of millions of people for over two decades. It demanded the mental and physical energies of old and young. All this was done to undo the effects of a suicide committed well before 1947. But finally, Sheikh Sahab was corned into believing that suicide was sweeter than life. In 1975 another attempt was made at suicide.After doing this, Sheikh Sahab thought that he can, by the magic of his leadership, make the enfeebled body recover from the shock. Though compromised, he still tried to present National Conference as a party from Kashmir that had a reason to distance from the parties in the Centre. He resisted the attempts of Indira Ghandi to have NC as an electoral ally in the impending elections after the Accord was done. Whatever, but Sheikh knew the importance NC as regional party that had to live in a dynamic tension with the parties in the Centre.After the death of Sheikh Abdullah, his son tried to stick to his regional ground. But with the loss of power in a party intrigue, he could not stand his ground. Gone were the days of 1953 when dislodging the regional leadership gave birth to a mass movement. Farooq Abdullah simply thought it axiomatic that to be in power at Srinagar was possible only when you were in the good books of Delhi. This led to another massive attempt at suicide. Rajive-Farooq deal was struck and with this National Conference openly accepted that the ground beneath was no more her own. NC was now stationed on a borrowed ground. This was Farooq Abdullah’s ‘contribution’ to a party that came to existence as a result of a historical awakening in the political history of Kashmir.
Finally, it is in the hands of Omar Abdullah. He, true to the legacy, is consuming this party bite by bite. By defending the corrupt, simply because he cannot afford displeasing Congress,he is ensuring that nothing remains in National Conference that can actually tell you that it was once a party that belonged to Kashmir.
PS: Each death in this universe is accompanied by a birth. With every rise there is a fall. So if National Conference breaths her last, there must be another political force that can fill the space. Who would that be! A political force from the Kashmir, of the Kashmir

Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 IST