In the Congress camp where leaders were visibly growing weary and apologetic over Shivraj Patil’s role, there were already murmurs on how the “Jammu gambit” had failed.
The root of the trouble can be traced back to the tenure of then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad; though Azad’s arguments in his defence hold ground too. After all, there was no allotment of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) and the May 26 Cabinet decision only approved the “diversion” of 39.88 hectares of forestland for raising “pre-fabricated structures” for camping pilgrims and not building permanent structures.
“The propriety status of forest land shall remain unchanged,” said the Cabinet order, “…the forest land so diverted shall not be mortgaged, reassigned or sub-leased by user agency (the SASB)…The forest land so diverted shall be returned to the forest department free of any encumbrances when it is no longer required by the user agency.”

Since the land was never allotted, there is little merit in the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti’s demand for ‘giving the land back’ to the SASB. Similarly, Azad was also right in telling his party bosses that the July 1 Cabinet order that revoked the May 26 land transfer order offered much more to Hindu pilgrims. While only 10 per cent of the pilgrims took the Baltal-Domail route, the revised order provided for building facilities for pilgrims who took the main Jammu-Pahalgam route as well. The only difference was that instead of the SASB, the new order authorised the state tourism department to provide facilities to the pilgrims.
Azad argued that after the May 26 decision, a propaganda was unleashed in the Valley that pilgrims would be settled permanently in the State, changing its demography. People in the Valley reacted by taking to the streets in large numbers to protest, forcing the State government to revoke its earlier order. The BJP then engineered the crisis in Jammu, argued the former J&K CM.
But sources point to the many holes in the arguments offered by the ruling camp ever since the crisis reached its peak last month. There are many unanswered questions. For instance, was it a simple lack of foresight or actually a well-designed Jammu card in an election year that was behind Azad government’s decision on May 26? And why did the Centre watch the worsening situation in Jammu and Srinagar quietly until it reached almost a point of no-return? What was the Home Minister and the Prime Minister’s Office doing when Jammu was boiling?

There are no easy answers. Azad claims PDP ministers were part of the May 26 land transfer decision and it was the PDP’s betrayal for obvious political reasons that forced the crisis. Coming from someone who has the unique distinction of being AICC general secretary for 13 terms and who had been party in-charge of every single State and Union Territory in the country, his argument somehow ring hollow.
Congress sources believe that Azad was “favourably inclined” to playing the Jammu card in an election year, although he did not anticipate the issue would snowball into this. He was banking on differences in the PDP to carry him through. It was actually his calculation about “a split in the PDP” that kept him in office till the day of the vote of confidence in the Assembly, say sources. So confident was he that he is learnt to have asked Central leaders of the party to keep out of the state’s affairs.
Party sources say that since Azad’s experience as trouble-shooter far exceeded that of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s present set of political managers, they didn’t dare to interfere.

According to Government sources, if there was some propaganda in the Valley about diversion of land to the SASB, the then regime failed to counter it. For instance, then Governor S.K. Sinha’s Principal Secretary Arun Kumar, who was also the Chief Executive Officer of the SASB, had reportedly given an impression at a press conference that the proposed structures could be permanent. Kumar was also reported to have made a comparison between the Shrine Board and the J-K Muslim Waqf Board, saying that nobody interfered in the matters of the Waqf Board. While Kumar’s remarks caused much furore in the Valley, the State government failed to clear the air.
As for the government’s reaction, after May 26, there was a gap of at least 20 days before the Valley saw its first protests even though political leaders and separatist elements made inflammatory speeches.

During this period, the Intelligence Bureau sent a number of warnings to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National Security Advisor, warning them that the situation in the Valley was likely to deteriorate rapidly if the order to transfer land to the SASB was not withdrawn immediately. But these intelligence inputs failed to move them. A senior PMO official is learnt to have dismissed the advice.
Once the nation woke up to the seriousness of the protests in Kashmir, it was the Congress Core Group, sources say, that is learnt to have intervened and instructed Azad to revoke the May 26 order.

While Azad has been defending former Governor Sinha, the ex-officio Chairman of the SASB who was instrumental in the May 26 Cabinet decision, the Congress has been blaming the latter, pointing out that he was originally a “BJP appointee” in Assam and his “leanings” were clear with his controversial report to the Centre about Bangladeshi immigrants.
Azad, however, was in favour of Sinha continuing in J&K as it was generally believed that he did not share a great relationship with PDP leader Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Apparently on this issue, Azad found an ally in Shivraj Patil.
Sinha’s term was to expire on June 4 but the Centre was neither ready with an alternative nor had it decided whether to give him the extension that he had been requesting.

The uncertainty was allowed to persist for a week before N. N. Vohra was named as his successor. Even after that, Sinha took two weeks to vacate Raj Bhawan and hand over charge to Vohra.
Again when Jammu erupted, the Centre was engrossed in ensuring its own survival in the July 22 Trust Vote in the Lok Sabha. Despite the worsening situation, the Centre did not send any para-military reinforcements to Jammu. Patil was said to be in favour of deploying the Army even after he was told that sending in armed forces for law and order duties in Jammu would be a tactical blunder. Patil apparently took the stand that there was no additional para-military personnel to be spared for duties in Jammu and the armed forces must be pressed into service. It was only on the intervention of Defence Minister A.K. Antony, who briefed the Prime Minister about the strategic implications of sending the army to Jammu, that Patil was over-ruled.
As late as on August 2, when the agitation had become widespread and the state was already under President’s rule, a senior Home Ministry official told The Indian Express that the Centre was trying to keep a hands-off approach for the time being and wanted the problem to be tackled by the state administration. Just two days later, following a sharp deterioration in the situation, the Prime Minister had to call an all-party meeting to discuss the issue.

Even as the protests gained momentum, the state police did not take any pre-emptive measures. Some leaders who had been arrested were released after warnings. There were strict instructions to the police forces not to fire at the crowds, say sources. Despite days of violence, no curfew was imposed in Jammu till the second week of August.
As criticism of the PMO’s handling of the situation grows, National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan too is facing flak. His detractors say ever since Narayanan took over as NSA in 2005, he has been focussing on diplomacy, rather than internal security, even though the PM has appointed as many as three special envoys for diplomacy.
As criticism over the role of the Centre becomes shriller, it finds an echo in the rumbling discontent that has taken over Jammu and Kashmir.