Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami

Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami (born 17 July 1949) is an Indian politician from Jammu and Kashmir. He belongs to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) and is a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, 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.

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.

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 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 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. 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 5 September 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. 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 (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 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 30 December inside a house in Hokersar on the outskirts of Srinagar by the security forces in an encounter.

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 was 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. He was also the only elected communist politician in Jammu and Kashmir Legislative assembly during these times.