The spat between a Minister and a member in the legislative assembly was widely seen and disapproved as being a personal clash. Far from a random ad-hominem outburst, it was a thinly veiled exchange of unpleasantries over party positioning, control of patronage networks, and historical accountability. All this being a part of the struggle for relevance in a transformed Kashmir. The legislative theatrics were merely the medium; the real substance lay in the deeper fault lines that Kashmir’s democratic politics has yet to reconcile with, let alone transcend.

The troika of legitimacy, authority, and accountability — ideally aligned in a healthy democracy — has become dangerously decoupled in J&K’s hybrid democratic structure and political setup, actively subverting the democratic process. Indeed, it is now manifesting itself bordering on the obscene; optically and behaviourally.

In any functioning democracy, legitimacy (derived from electoral mandate), authority (the power to govern and legislate), and accountability (responsibility to deliver results and face scrutiny) should reinforce one another. Legitimacy grants the right to exercise authority, while accountability ensures that authority is not abused. When these three elements operate in harmony, they strengthen representative institutions.

In Kashmir today, however, they are fragmented and weaponised, creating a perverse incentive structure where electoral wins do not translate into effective governance, and power is exercised without corresponding responsibility. This misalignment perpetuates instability, prioritises patronage over policy, and keeps politics trapped in historical recriminations rather than forward-looking development.

National Conference entered the current assembly with unquestioned electoral legitimacy after decisively winning the 2024 elections. Yet its government operates with constrained governance authority, hemmed in by the post-2019 realities of Jammu and Kashmir’s status as a Union Territory with a legislature. This creates a legitimacy-authority gap: the........

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