A former BJP leader from western Uttar Pradesh’s Jat belt who started his political journey in socialist circles, Satya Pal Malik was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir when the Centre abrogated Article 370 and scrapped its special Constitutional status on August 5, 2019. Exactly six years since that day, Malik passed away in New Delhi on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. He was 79.
In the last few years, Malik had been publicly critical of the Narendra Modi government, making statements ranging from the allegation that the Centre had asked him to keep quiet on the lapses that led to the Pulwama attack in 2019 to corruption in Goa, where he was the Governor after his J&K stint. This May, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Malik in an alleged case of corruption in the Kiru hydel project in Kashmir. Ironically, it was the veteran leader himself who had publicly spoken of the alleged corruption in the project in 2021 while he was serving as Meghalaya Governor. The statement had left the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre red-faced as he alleged the involvement of an RSS leader. His critics had dismissed all these statements, claiming he wanted to resurrect his political career in Uttar Pradesh.
“Saddened by the passing away of Shri Satyapal Malik Ji. My thoughts are with his family and supporters in this hour of grief. Om Shanti,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X.
Born on July 24, 1946, in Hisawada village in UP’s Baghpat district, Malik started as a student union leader in Meerut in 1968-69. “In the late 1960s, he was president of the student union of Meerut College. This was the time of anti-Congressism and the ‘Angrezi Hatao (remove English)’ movement in UP. He started as a follower of (Ram Manohar) Lohia ji and joined the socialist youth organisation, Yuvjan Sabha,” JD (U) leader KC Tyagi, who knew Malik for 50 years, told The Indian Express. Tyagi recalled that Malik was always a straight talker and a good orator.
Malik won the Baghpat Assembly seat in 1974 as a nominee of Chaudhary Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal. He later joined the Bharatiya Lok Dal under Charan Singh and became its general secretary. During the Emergency, Tyagi recalled, Malik and he were in Meerut jail.
In 1980, Malik entered the Rajya Sabha on a Lok Dal ticket. By 1984, he had moved to the Congress, which sent him to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. The following year, in the wake of the Bofors scam, he resigned from the Congress. Malik joined V P Singh and two years later won the Lok Sabha election from Aligarh as a Janata Dal candidate. In 1990, he briefly served as the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism.
Malik briefly joined the Samajwadi Party before moving to the BJP in 2004. He unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections, losing to Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh from Baghpat. In its first term, the Modi government appointed Malik head of a parliamentary team that looked into the Land Acquisition Bill. After the panel gave its recommendations against the Bill, the government put it in cold storage.
Run as Governor
In October 2017, the government appointed Malik as the Bihar Governor, but transferred him to J&K just over a year later. With that, he became the first politician appointed to the post since militancy began in Kashmir.
His tenure was a controversial one. First came “faxgate”. In November 2018, when Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form the government with the support of the National Conference and the Congress and sent a fax to the Raj Bhavan, it went unacknowledged. A representation by People’s Conference leader Sajad Lone also went unanswered.
Malik dissolved the Assembly that evening, citing the “impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with competing ideologies”, the “fragile” security situation, and reports of horse-trading. Later, he said history would have remembered him as a “dishonest man” had he allowed Lone to form the government. “So, I ended the matter once and for all. Those who abuse me will continue to do so, but I am convinced I did the right thing,” he said.
Months after the Assembly’s dissolution, J&K’s special Constitutional status was revoked and it was made a Union Territory. Just two months after that, Malik was moved out to Goa. This is when his ties with the BJP started souring, and the sense of unhappiness only strengthened when he was shifted to Meghalaya.
In March 2020, at a public meeting in Baghpat, Malik said J&K Governors largely just drank and played golf. “The Governor has no work,” he said.
Outspoken by nature, he ruffled feathers in Goa, too, criticising the Pramod Sawant government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. In October 2021, he told the “India Today” news channel that the government had kept him in the dark about its outbreak. He also alleged large-scale corruption in the Sawant government, saying he had informed PM Modi about it, and was moved because he raised this matter.
Malik was in Meghalaya when he levelled the corruption allegations about the hydel project in Kashmir. “Two files came before me in Jammu and Kashmir. One of them pertained to Ambani and another to a senior RSS functionary. One of the secretaries told me these are fraud files, but he also said you can get Rs 150 crore each in the two deals. I rejected the offer, saying, ‘I have come with five kurtas and will go with them,’” he said.
The speech created an uproar, and J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha ordered a CBI enquiry into the matter. The CBI subsequently registered two FIRs, conducted multiple searches, and questioned several people, including Malik.
Malik was also openly critical of the way the Centre handled the farmers’ protests against three farm laws, which were subsequently repealed. He told The Indian Express in February 2021 that farmers should be engaged and not “sent back insulted”.
In January 2022, he targeted the PM in a speech in Dadri in western UP, saying he fought with Modi over the farmers’ demands during a meeting. “He was very arrogant. When I told him that 500 of our own (farmers) had died… he said, ‘Did they die for me?’” he was heard saying in a video clip from the function.