ABSTRACT
This brief conclusion summarizes the overall contribution made, mistakes committed, and the legacies left behind by Sheikh Abdullah. It has been argued that Sheikh Abdullah, a product of the communal Dogra state, had remained deeply religious but staunchly secular throughout his political career, which had made his creed acceptable to a population that believed in religious syncretism and that manifested in keeping the Valley peaceful in late 1947, when the whole subcontinent was burning in the communal fire. It was also for this reason that he would prefer a secular India in 1947 over a Muslim Pakistan. However, it has also been argued that due to his many misjudgments and the unwillingness of the Indian state to accommodate his genuine fears at appropriate times, under the subsequent emergence of communal organizations in India, which forced him towards a secessionist endeavor, he created a strong separatist mentality in Kashmir which is at the root of the present turmoil in the state.
