Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami
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Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami (born 17 July 1949) is an
Indian politician The Politics and Government of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution, which was adopted in 1950. India is a parliamentary secular democratic republic, described as a “sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republ ...
from
Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory since 2019 * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered by India as a state from 1952 to 2019 * Jammu and Kashmir (prin ...
. He belongs to the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a Communism in India, communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electora ...
(CPI(M)) and is a member of the
Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, also known as the Jammu and Kashmir Vidhan Sabha, is the legislature of Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Prior to 2019, the State of Jammu and Kashmir had a bicameral legislature with a ...
, to which he has been elected five times consecutively since 1996, representing the Kulgam Assembly Constituency. He is the Central Committee member of CPI(M) and the former state secretary of the party in Jammu and Kashmir. He was the convenor and spokesperson of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration.


Early life

Tarigami was born into a farmer family in Tarigam village of Kulgam. Named Mohammed Yousuf Rather, he took on the last name 'Tarigami' later in life. His late father was Gulam Rasool Rather. He could not appear for the B.A. final year examination due to the political turbulence in Kashmir. He lost his wife during childbirth in 1975, during which he was a political prisoner. He came to be known as Tarigami after
Press Trust of India The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 450 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...
journalist P.N. Jalali asked
Sheikh Abdullah Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (5 December 1905 – 8 September 1982) was an Indian politician who played a central role in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir. Abdullah was the founding leader and President of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Confer ...
, the then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir about his arrest during a press briefing. Abdullah responded, 'Woh Jo Tarigam Wala', referring to his village. From then on, the media, especially newspapers, wrote his name as Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami.


Political life

Yousuf Tarigami was shaped as a communist under the influence of Abdul Kabir Wani of Chawalgam. In 1967, when he was 18, Tarigami and his friend Ghulam Nabi Malik, now the J&K secretary of the CPI(M), organised a protest to demand an increase in intake capacity at Anantnag Degree College. The two were then part of a local communist group called the Revolutionary Students and Youth Federation. They did a hunger strike for 36 hours at the deputy commissioner’s office and the authorities were forced to raise the total intake of the college. After the successful campaign, Tarigami took part in various farmer movements in J&K under farmer leader Abdul Qadir, but their political activism took a more solid shape when they joined the Democratic Conference, which was part of the CPI(M), in 1967. Tarigami grew close to communist leader Ram Pyaare Saraf and served as his understudy. When Saraf split from the CPI(M) to lend support to the Naxalite movement and joined the CPI (Marxist-Leninist), so did Tarigami. In 1967, he was imprisoned for taking up the cause of farmers against the forcible procurement of rice. After the 1975 Indira-Sheikh Accord, under which Jammu and Kashmir was made a constituent unit of the Union of India, Tarigami demanded the right to self-determination, and his activism landed him in jail. While he was in prison, his wife died. The government released him on parole for a month but rearrested him after three days. In 1979, when the execution of former Pakistan PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto led to riots in Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, confronted Marxists and Tarigami became among the first people to be booked under the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA). In the aftermath of the Bhutto episode, both Malik and Tarigami rejoined the CPI(M) and restarted their journey in Kulgam as mainstream politicians. In his political journey, he has been imprisoned in various jails like the Sub-Jail Reasi, the very dangerous torture centres of Red-16 and Papa II. In 2005, militants entered the heavily guarded Tulsibagh colony in Srinagar and attacked the homes of Tarigami and the Minister for Education Ghulam Nabi Lone. Lone was killed. (In 2015, ten years after Ghulam Nabi Lone's death, there was another minister in Kashmir with the same name belonging to People's Democratic Party PDP) In the attack in 2005, Tarigami's guards fought off the attackers, although one of his guards was killed. He is a Z category protectee by Government of India. In 2016, he slammed the former MP Tariq Hameed Karra for resigning from Lok Sabha membership and said he should have raised the Kashmir issue in Indian Parliament. He added that the dialogue with Kashmir should not be through interlocutors but with the involvement of the Parliament by constituting a committee of senior Parliamentarians. He views the tradition of Kashmir as built on the sacrifices of the working class. He said that the Zaldagar martyrs of 1865 laid the foundation of a struggle against the exploitation and atrocities on the artisans and the Shawlbaff protest launched at Zaldagar against the ruling class has given vent to numerous movements of the working class which are awaiting successful culmination. He saw the BJP’s policy ''vis-a-vis'' Kashmir as successful in distracting people from pressing issues such as unemployment and economic stagnation by centring its campaign around Kashmir as a vehicle to further its bellicose nationalism. He views BJP's approach on Articles 370 and 35A as a great disservice to the nation’s unity as it will lead to disintegration of the State of J&K from India, also by eroding the Kashmiris’ sense of unity with the nation.


After abrogation of Article 370

Immediately after the abrogation of Article 370, Tarigami was placed in house arrest at Srinagar for 35 days. In August 2019, CPI(M) General Secretary
Sitaram Yechury Sitaram Yechury (12 August 1952 – 12 September 2024) was an Indian Marxist politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who was a member of the Politburo of the CPI(M) since 1992. Previously, he was a Memb ...
filed a Habeas corpus petition in Supreme Court to find Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami, who was targeted by Jammu & Kashmir authority. Sitaram Yechury was allowed by the court to visit Jammu and Kashmir only to meet his party colleague. Yousuf Tarigami, was kept under detention in Srinagar since Jammu and Kashmir lost its special status, and he was shifted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for medical care, following a Supreme Court order on September 5, 2019. Supreme Court later allowed him to return freely to Kashmir. Tarigami was the first political leader from the state to address a press conference after the abrogation of Article 370. He slammed the modi Government for detaining former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah under the Public Safety Act. He said, “We, Abdullah and others are not terrorists,... We also want to live, a Kashmiri, is saying this,”..This is my appeal, please listen to us too. The average Kashmiri doesn’t ask for heavens, we just ask for a chance to march with you.” Tarigami approached the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs that allowed people from across the country to buy land in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, including agricultural land. In the aftermath of repealing Article 370, he said, "Kashmiris have been humiliated, feel betrayed." He refuted the government claim that there is normalcy in Kashmir, and pointed out that Modi Government made Kashmir into graveyards. On 24 October 2020 he was elected as the convenor of the
People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration The People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) is a political alliance between several political parties in Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir campaigning for autonomy for the region by restoring Article 370 of the Consti ...
(PAGD). The seven-party PAGD swept the maiden District Development Council (DDC) polls by winning 110 seats out of 276 seats, and Tarigami said that the results was a clear indication that the people of Jammu and Kashmir want "restoration of their rights". He said that, for the PAGD, the dignity of the people of J&K matters the most. He called on Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor
Manoj Sinha Manoj Sinha (born 1 July 1959) is an Indian politician serving as the 2nd and the current lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He served as the minister of state for Communications (independent charge) and minister of state for Railways i ...
and raised the issue of the encounter in Srinagar’s Hokersar-Lawaypora. He demanded an impartial and time-bound probe into the incident in which three youths including a 17-year-old from South Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts were killed on December 30 inside a house in Hokersar on the outskirts of Srinagar by the security forces in an encounter. He slammed New Delhi and the UT administration for utilising the pandemic and security induced lockdown to pass contentious laws without consultation, confident that there would be no resistance. Tarigami argued that there was no need for the J&K administration to constitute a special task force (STF) to deal with government employees allegedly involved in “anti-national activities” as there were already enough provisions in the law to act against such people. He also demanded the release of Kashmiri “political detainees” lodged in various jails within the Valley in view of the surge in Covid-19 cases. Further, he urged the government to provide adequate incentives and wages to ASHA workers on the pattern of COVID-19 warriors of the Health and Medical Education Department.


People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration

Tarigami is the Convenor and Spokesperson of People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, an alliance of regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir committed for the restoration of Article 370. The alliance is headed by headed by National Conference chief Dr Farooq Abdullah and it includes
Jammu & Kashmir National Conference The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) is a regional political party in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir union territory and Ladakh. Founded as the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference by ...
,
Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a state political party in Jammu and Kashmir, India. The PDP was headed and founded by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. His daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, succeeded him as party leader and as chief ...
,
Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a Communism in India, communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electora ...
,
Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference The Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference was founded by former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Mohammad Shah after his split with the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. It is currently headed by his wife Khalida Begum, wit ...
and Jammu & Kashmir People's Movement.


Electoral Politics

Tarigami was repeatedly successful in electoral polls from the Kulgam constituency. He became the Member of Legislative Assembly from Kulgam (Vidhan Sabha constituency) in 1996, 2002, 2008 and 2014 assembly polls. In 1996 assembly polls, his winning margin was 51.56 percentage. He sustained the constituency in 2002, 2008 and 2014 by a winning margin of 30.27, 0.47 and 0.63 percentage respectively. He was also the only elected communist politician in Jammu and Kashmir Legislative assembly during these times.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarigami, Mohammed Yousuf Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians from Jammu and Kashmir Living people Jammu and Kashmir MLAs 2014–2018 People from Kulgam district 1949 births Jammu and Kashmir MLAs 1996–2002 Jammu and Kashmir MLAs 2002–2008 Jammu and Kashmir MLAs 2008–2014 Jammu and Kashmir MLAs 2024–2029