Srinagar: From a detention centre to the harbinger of democracy, the Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar is set to witness another churn in J&K’s turbulent history on Wednesday (October 16), when the National Conference (NC)’s vice-president Omar Abdullah takes oath as the first chief minister of the Union territory.
Designed in the late 1970s by American architect Joseph Stein, the brain behind the national capital’s India International Centre and the India Habitat Centre, the SKICC, which is idyllically flanked by Srinagar’s iconic Dal Lake, describes itself on its website as being among the country’s “most modern convention centres”.
However, the centre turned into a theatre of bitter political rivalry when the BJP-led Union government moved to redefine J&K’s constitutional relationship with the Union of India on August 5, 2019.
As the erstwhile state was pushed into a communications black hole, the SKICC turned into a subsidiary jail for political detainees, including former J&K ministers and lawmakers who were seen as an obstacle to a bloodless transition of the state into two Union territories.
Among those detained in the aftermath of the 2019 political earthquake at the SKICC were former J&K minister and senior NC leader Ali Mohammad Sagar, his son Salman Sagar, Abdullah’s political advisor Tanvir Sadiq, Peoples Conference chief Sajad Lone, Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) youth leader Waheed Parra and the 2010 IAS topper Shah Faesal.
Abdullah was detained at Hari Niwas, some distance away from the SKICC, under the Public Safety Act.
With a new political reality dawning in J&K and back-breaking restrictions in place, the atmosphere at the SKICC started to turn grim in the autumn of 2019.
Anguished family members, some of whom will be in attendance at Abdullah’s oath-taking ceremony on Wednesday, remained in the dark amid fast-spreading rumours about the failing health of the detainees at the convention centre, who for many were paying a price for pledging allegiance to the Indian constitution.
Nizamuddin Bhat, a senior PDP leader who won the recent assembly election from the Bandipora assembly constituency on a Congress ticket, was allegedly bitten by a rat at night, triggering panic at the centre and rumours of a ‘rat epidemic’.
Also read: Despite Losing the J&K Elections, BJP Holds the Key to Restoring Peace in the Region
Some detainees spoke with journalists about their experiences, mentioning the fear of death among some of their co-inmates as the political uncertainty deepened and the leaders of yesteryears had, in a tragic change of fortune, turned into criminals for the BJP-led Union government.
Less than a year after the 2019 move, the lieutenant governor’s administration renamed the SKICC as the Kashmir International Conference Centre or KICC, dropping the honorific “Sher”, which is lovingly used by the NC for its founder Sheikh Abdullah, who was also incidentally the first chief minister of J&K state.
The decision triggered a political storm, with the Abdullahs and other party leaders terming it an attack on J&K’s political history.
But push came to shove only in the months after the 2019 changes, when the SKICC became a platform for the J&K administration led by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha as well as the BJP-led Union government to attack the NC, the Congress and the PDP for corruption, governance failure and terrorism in J&K.
In a bid to weave an alternate political reality in the Union territory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the SKICC earlier this year to lead the 10th International Yoga Day celebrations.
Union home minister Amit Shah visited the centre on at least three occasions since 2019, while defence minister Rajnath Singh presided over government and political ceremonies at the SKICC on at least two occasions in this time period, according to an official source.
In each of these visits, the BJP and its central leaders attempted to reach out to the people of Kashmir while raking up the issue of how the ‘three families’ of the NC, Congress and PDP were allegedly responsible for all their problems, all while unemployment and inflation – to cite a few things – remained burning issues in J&K.
As the election result has shown, the saffron party’s narrative has found few buyers.
Even though the BJP managed to fractionally increase its vote share in the constituencies of the Kashmir valley where it fielded candidates this election, its politics has remained largely confined to the margins, while those detained at the SKICC who were branded as traitors and troublemakers have made political comebacks.
Some of them have been elected as MLAs who will be in attendance when the J&K lieutenant governor administers the oath of office to Abdullah.
“The BJP leaders used to tell the people that the era of the Abdullahs and the Muftis is gone. But given the outcome of the assembly election, it seems that only the BJP’s era is over in J&K. The party targeted dynastic politics, but it is clear from the election results that only the dynasts have got a resounding mandate,” said a Srinagar-based political commentator who didn’t want to be named.
Nothing perhaps exemplifies the irony and the failure of the BJP’s Kashmir policy more aptly than the official invitation sent out by the lieutenant governor through his principal secretary to Abdullah, inviting him to form the government.
“As separately settled, I shall administer Oath of Office and Secrecy to you, and to those recommended by you for induction as members of your Council of Ministers, at SKICC, Srinagar on 16th October, 2024 at 11:30 am,” the letter stated.
Is the return of the ‘S’ or ‘Sher’ to the KICC an unwitting error by an indifferent bureaucrat who drafted the letter, or is it a sombre realisation of J&K’s contentious history in the Raj Bhawan? Could it be a symbolic gesture to ‘normalise’ ties with the chief minister’s office? Or is there more to it than meets the eye?
A senior PDP leader, who was also detained at the SKICC, said: “The immense weight and mountain of aspirations and expectations brought by the election mandate should have been a sobering event for the NC to put up a fight against the events of 2019, but it seems to be moving in the direction of collaboration”.
Whatever the case, the mention of the SKICC in an official letter, even though the ‘S’ and ‘Sher’ were removed from signboards at the convention centre following the 2020 decision, does speak a lot about how far the Modi government has been successful in changing J&K’s political narrative.
That Omar Abdullah, a ‘traitor’ who was “using politics as a cover for his radical ideology”, according to a Public Safety Act dossier, was returning with a healthy public mandate to reclaim his place in J&K following the turbulence of the 2019 earthquake is not going to be a pleasing sight either for Sinha’s administration or the Union government.
That the NC vice-president is on the path to become arguably the weakest chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir would not be gratifying for him either.
