Failure Written at Conception

On 25 June 2000, Vajpayee had barely landed in Rome on a five-day Europe trip. He was updated about the autonomy resolution being passed by the J&K assembly, demanding restoration of the pre-1953 constitutional position, a few hours ago. The news spelt trouble: a core BJP-RSS demand was diametrically opposed—the abolition of article 370 and complete integration.

Vajpayee did not lose sleep over it. He knew Farooq Abdullah had acted out of desperation. Compromise was the soul of what he now referred to as ‘coalition dharma’. There was no colossal damage in a regional ally occasionally airing its pet demands. Besides. Vajpayee had taken an immense liking to Farooq’s son. He was moved by the gesture of the UK-born Omar supporting him during the 1999 confidence motion. He had recently promoted Omar Abdullah—the youngest MP in the current Lok Sabha—to junior commerce minister.

None of this changed the fundamental fact, however, that the NDA had a cabinet led by the Hindutva men. They met on 4 July and brusquely rejected the J&K assembly’s demand. Farooq was livid. He had only wanted Delhi to play ball for a while, discuss the matter once before assigning it a respectful burial. Humiliated, he threatened to pull out of the NDA.

He was yet to take a final call when, on 11 July, his mother passed away after a cardiac arrest. Four days ago, Vajpayee had alighted in Kolkata with his granddaughter to propitiate Mamata Banerjee. Now he gathered his ministers, and together they hopped on to his aircraft to attend Sheikh Abdullah’s wife’s funeral in Srinagar. Once again, he was bridging political difference with an emotional gesture. Farooq welcomed them with wet eyes. No one heard of an autonomy resolution thereafter.

In the meantime, the PMO-backed intelligence agencies managed to split Hizbul Mujahideen, one of the influential Kashmiri militant outfits. On 24 July, the leader of one of its factions, Abdul Majeed Dar, declared a unilateral ceasefire. Never before had a popular militant organization offered to lay down arms. In a choreographed gesture, the government reciprocated. This confused many observers—the government that had refused to discuss autonomy within the parameters of constitution was suddenly talking without any pre-conditions to the militants.

A week later, on 1 August, the militants opposed to Hizbul’s lovefest with the centre, gunned down more than a hundred people in nine separate incidents. It was the bloodiest day in the decade-long insurgency against India, aimed to disrupt negotiations. The next morning over breakfast, Vajpayee made an impromptu plan to visit Pahalgam, one of the massacre sites. And hurriedly put together an all-party delegation.

At the Srinagar airport on his way back, he w