MUSHTAQ BALA
Jammu and Kashmir is once again witnessing intense political debate. The Legislative Assembly has become the centre of competing positions on history, identity, holidays, statehood, reservations, employment and a range of other issues. Political disagreements are natural in a democracy. Indeed, a functioning Assembly must provide space for disagreement, scrutiny and dissent.
But there is a larger question that deserves equal attention: how much of this political energy is ultimately reaching the lives of ordinary people?
For the common citizen, governance is rarely experienced through political speeches or Assembly disruptions. It is experienced at the electricity office, the hospital, the school, the police station, the tehsil office and the employment exchange. It is experienced by the young person waiting for a job, the daily wager waiting for regularisation, the family struggling with rising household expenses, the farmer seeking a viable market and the small entrepreneur trying to keep a business alive.
These concerns may appear less dramatic than political confrontations, but they are the foundation upon which public confidence in institutions is built.
Jammu and Kashmir has travelled through an extraordinary political and administrative journey. Expectations from the present political dispensation are therefore naturally high. People expect their elected representatives to debate issues vigorously, but they also expect those debates to produce solutions.
This does not mean that questions of history and identity are unimportant. They matter deeply to societies, and public institutions must be sensitive to the memories and sentiments associated with them. But such debates should ideally be conducted within a transparent and consistent framework, rather than becoming recurring occasions for political confrontation.
The same principle applies to the larger demand for restoration of statehood. It remains an important political issue, but governance cannot wait for the resolution of every larger constitutional question. Roads have to be maintained, schools have to function, hospitals have to deliver, recruitment processes have to move, businesses need an enabling environment and administrative grievances require timely decisions.
There is also a need to rebuild faith in the ordinary functioning of government.
When a qualified candidate waits for years for a legitimate appointment, when workers remain in temporary employment for prolonged periods, when recruitment processes face uncertainty or when citizens repeatedly have to approach authorities for matters that should ordinarily be resolved at the administrative level, the problem is bigger than an individual grievance. It becomes a question of institutional credibility.
The government therefore needs a culture of time-bound delivery.
Political parties, too, have a responsibility. Opposition is an essential part of democracy, and the government must be held accountable. But accountability becomes more meaningful when criticism is accompanied by facts, alternatives and sustained legislative scrutiny. Equally, the treasury benches must be willing to listen when genuine public concerns are raised, even when they come from across the aisle.
Jammu and Kashmir does not need less politics. It needs politics that produces more public value.
The Assembly can be a place where history is debated, but it must also be the place where the future is planned. It can discuss political symbolism, but it must give equal urgency to employment, investment, education, healthcare, infrastructure, social welfare and administrative reform.
The people of J&K have heard enough promises over the decades. What they increasingly seek is evidence of implementation.
The measure of a government is ultimately not the volume of its announcements but the difference those decisions make in people’s lives.
As political parties debate competing visions of Jammu and Kashmir, perhaps the most important question before all of them is a simple one:
What will change for the ordinary citizen tomorrow morning?
That is where politics must eventually return.
Mushtaq Bala is Editor-in-Chief of Kashmir Pen, an award-winning filmmaker, cultural commentator, and advocate for peace through narrative media.
