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Omar defends Sadiq over ‘one trouser’ remark
Omar, while speaking to reporters, said people faced acute poverty in the past and that Sadiq’s remarks were based on historical evidence documented in books.
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After facing backlash over the ‘one trouser’ remark, J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday defended National Conference chief spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq, saying his remarks were historically correct and that he does not need to apologise.
Omar, while speaking to reporters, said people faced acute poverty in the past and that Sadiq’s remarks were based on historical evidence documented in books.
“Whatever Tanvir said is historically correct. He does not need to apologise or offer any clarification,” Omar said.
Sadiq’s remarks had triggered a row on Wednesday after he claimed that poverty in Kashmir was so severe before the party founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s movement that an entire village would share a single pair of trousers.
The chief minister said noted English historian Walter Lawrence, who wrote ‘The Valley of Kashmir’, among other historians, had written about conditions in J&K, especially the poverty of Kashmiris and hardships under the system of Zaildars, Chakdars and Jagirdars.
“At that time people in Kashmir had no money. Tanvir is not the first to talk about this. There may not be any senior NC leader, from the president to general secretary, who has not talked about this in the past,” he said, adding that there was a time when Kashmiris were so poor that they had to borrow pyjamas from the mosque to come to the city.
Defending Sadiq, the chief minister said the party legislator wanted to highlight the progress made by Kashmiris after emerging from those abject times, noting that today people are educating their children and producing doctors and engineers.
He blamed the BJP and PDP for playing politics over the issue.
On Congress’s objection to the full rendition of Vande Mataram, Omar said the government has to follow existing law. “We have to follow the law. If Congress comes to power, it can repeal the law, but as long as the law exists, we have to follow it,” he said.
