THE election results in Azad Jammu and Kashmir have brought back memories of the late Mujahid-e-Awwal, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan. Sardar Sahib was a simple and unassuming man. Whenever he visited Karachi, instead of staying in expensive hotels, he would stay at Qasr-e-Naz, a modest government rest house. A suite would be reserved for him. He would meet party workers there, attend to his official engagements and meet journalists. On one such visit, I had the opportunity to meet him through Syyed Saud Sahir. My dear friend Irshad Mahmood, who was also with me.

It was an era of politics that we now remember as the politics of the 1990s—a politics marked by bitterness and confrontation between Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed and Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. It was precisely during those years that the freedom fighters in India-occupied Jammu & Kashmir were also challenging the might of the Indian state. There was a widespread feeling that the spell of this oppressive giant was finally about to be broken. Naturally, our conversation began there. Our questions started with India-occupied Kashmir and eventually reached Azad Kashmir. Just as Azad Kashmir and Pakistan are inseparable, like one soul in two bodies, our conversation too turned towards Pakistani politics.

At that time, two issues were widely debated in Pakistan. I do not remember the details precisely, but there were voices coming from the West, particularly the United........

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