As the first woman Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti has to not only break gender notions but also redefine the role of mainstream politics in the State, which has swung from subservience to development politics minus ideology over the past several decades.
It remains to be seen whether the architect of slogans such as ‘healing touch’ and ‘peace with dignity,’ along with her father Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, in 1999 — when the Peoples Democratic Party was formed to provide an alternative to the National Conference — can become a pro-resolution leader to address the larger political question of Kashmir.
After becoming a legislator from south Kashmir’s Bijbehara constituency at 39, Ms. Mufti visited militants’ homes and consoled their families, which alleged highhandedness by the security forces. The political capital earned through sympathy for the separatist constituency paid dividends in 2002 when the PDP won 16 seats to form a non-NC government in the State.
The PDP claims to have raised the bar of mainstream parties in Jammu and Kashmir by being vocal on a political solution to the Kashmir question, which includes dual currency and joint Grand Assembly across the Line of Control. As Ms. Mufti can’t afford to annoy either the separatists or coalition partner BJP, she has to find a way to balance them.
After taking over the reins of the PDP in 2008, Ms Mufti, born on May 22, 1959 at Akhran, Nowpora, in Anantnag district, steered it to emerge as the single-largest party in the 2014 Assembly polls. Her big challenge would be to keep her flock together to face the vagaries of politics.
