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YI: And what is it that you promise the people in your constituency?

Abdullah: Honesty, more than anything else. I've tried my best not to promise more than I can deliver. It has cost me in terms of the elections, particularly in 2002 when we were fighting the state assembly elections. I was up against a party that was promising two government jobs for every household in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. And there's no way I could match that because I knew that was impossible. But, unfortunately, it seems elections are based on promises such as these, which I wasn't willing to make. Along with that, I carry no baggage in terms of whether it be baggage about one region or another, one community or another, one caste or another. For me, my job is to develop my constituency regardless of whether that household voted for me or not. And I've tried, I spent three years as a minister in the government of India. I tried using that time to get some large projects approved for my constituency as well. So far, my electorate has voted me back into parliament and I hope that trend continues.

YI: Kashmir is a kind of a special place. It suffers from security problems, now and then. What are the specific problems that you are solving for your constituency.

Abdullah: I think to say 'now and then' would be to be really kind about the situation. We have had that 'now and then' that's going on for almost 17 years of actual violence on the ground. The fact is that this has been going on since 1947. Again, the only thing you can do is to try and tell people exactly the way you see it. I could have promised independence for Jammu and Kashmir as well. I could have promised that Jammu and Kashmir could become a part of Pakistan. And perhaps in Kashmir, less of my party colleagues would have died if I had done that. I wouldn't have faced the sort of threats in my life that I do, if I had taken that line. But I know that to be incorrect. I know that will not happen. I know that Jammu and Kashmir will neither be independent, nor will it be a part of Pakistan. What Jamu and Kashmir will get--or this part of Jammu and Kashmir--will be within the constitutional India, will be a greater devolution of power, will be a greater say in the utilization of its own resources. But not more than that. That's what I've been trying to tell people ever since I've come into politics that look, I know that it's easy to get swept up on emotional slogans. But Jammu and Kashmir is not going to be solved just because somebody has got an emotional slogan. It's going to be solved based on hard realities. And that truth is beginning to show now, when you have (Pakistan president) General Pervez Musharaf coming out and saying that Pakistan will give up its claim to Kashmir, that Pakistan will never accept an independent Kashmir as long as India accepts certain conditions. I begin to realize, that yes, perhaps I was right in telling people this 16 years ago as opposed to trying to tell them today.

YI: So, you're optimistic then that tourism will come back to Kashmir?

Abdullah: I am cautiously optimistic, because tourism is a very fickle industry. It takes one grenade blast for tourists to leave and you cannot blame them. Nobody goes to a place to get themselves injured or killed. They go there for their holidays. And as much as I would like it to be the safest place in the world right now, it's not. Therefore, as the situation improves, further tourists will return. But as this last tourist season, this summer showed us, unfortunately, somebody decided that tourists were legitimate targets and actually went out and attacked them. That has caused us a great deal of problem.

YI: It must not be easy for you to be an Indian nationalist Muslim, particularly when fundamentalist Muslims seem to be trying to make their presence known in India with their violent acts. How do you keep a balanced political stance?

Abdullah: Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the Kashmir Valley have never really taken to fundamentalist Islam. The Islam in Jammu and Kashmir has been modeled very much on the Islam that came from Central Asia. We respect science, we revere our saints, we have never been great followers of the burqah (veil), which is not to say that it is not used. But it's very much a personal choice, it is not enforced, and every time somebody tries to enforce the burqah code, they fail, because the people will not have their beliefs dictated to them. They will take whatever beliefs they want. There has been some effort made in the last 17 years to alter this character of Jammu and Kashmir and to make Kashmiri Islam more fundamentalist. But so far, the majority people has resisted. Kashmiris live large in the villages. And I don't think there is much place in rural Kashmir for fundamentalist Islam.

YI: Do you think this is due to a strong tradition of democracy in India?

Abdullah: I think so. If you compare India to her immediate neighbors, nobody has this sort of record in terms of commitment to democracy that we do, north, south, east or west. When you have a legitimate voice for your grievances, when you can express that voice, in a few years when elections come about those are two things your representative, whether its local government, the state or even the parliament. It does help keep temperatures and pressures under control. It's when you don't have a legitimate voice for your grievances that things tend to boil over.

YI: Sectarian problems in India are similar to those in countries like Indonesia. How do you make this unity in diversity philosophy work on a national basis?

Abdullah: By and large it has worked. And when it hasn't worked it's been less to do with the people involved than with the government of the day. Take the most recent aberration, the Gujarat riots of 2002. Those were largely state-sponsored. If the state government of Gujarat had not actively encouraged it and if the central government in Delhi had not turned a complete blind eye towards what was happening, there would have been no riots in Gujarat. There would have been a flare-up which would have lasted perhaps a day or so. But the army would have been called in immediately and the situation would have brought under control. Unfortunately, it suited the state government and I guess, to a certain extent, perhaps it suited the central government as well, not to control the situation. If you look, since that time till today, there have been other situations where temperatures have flared and temperatures have flared and it looked as if we were heading towards some sort of sectarian violence. But because the government clamped down quickly and called in the leaders, defused the tempers. Things have been more stable. A country as large as India and as diverse as India, will always have problems. I think the silver lining in this is that they're largely localized. It very rarely sweeps across the length and breadth of the country.

YI: Kashmir is an autonomous region...

Abdullah: It has a greater degree of autonomy than other parts of India. But if you compare the autonomy that it received in 1947 to what it has now, it's been seriously eroded.

YI: Meaning it's much less of an autonomy?

Abdullah: Much less. When the state of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India, the union of India was responsible only for three or four things: currency, communications, defense and foreign affairs. Everything else was the domain of the state government. Jammu and Kashmir had its own prime minister, had its own elected sagrediyasha (literal translation would be president of the state-Ed.) as opposed to president of the union. The Supreme Court of India had no jurisdiction, the elections commission had no jurisdiction. Things like that. But over time, this autonomous position has been eroded to the state that we're in today.

YI: That is indeed very similar to the situation in countries like Indonesia, southern Thailand and southern Philippines in ASEAN. There they are pushing for full autonomy.

Abdullah: That's what we're doing. As I have been saying time and again to colleagues in my party as well as to the people in the state. If you look into the solution that is being propounded, whether it's independence or accession to the government of Pakistan is not possible. What will happen is that a resolution will emerge after the constitution. Now, the constitution of India allows for a situation in Jammu and Kashmir where had this sort of autonomy that it did, between 1947 and 1953. What they're saying is, restore that position as much as possible. We do appreciate that a full turning back of the clocks to 1947 would not be possible. But, there has to be some common meeting ground between the situation as it existed between 1947 to 1953 and now. And the more autonomy you restore to Jammu and Kashmir, the less likely you are to have this sort of problem that you have over the last 17 years.