Ugly but unsurprising |
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 party has the mandate but limited tools to deliver on big promises, particularly on existential issues like full statehood restoration. In the absence of tangible victories, National Conference falls back on its tried-and-tested playbook—narrative control through historical blame. This strategy consolidates NC’s core base and keeps rivals on the defensive, but it does little to build accountable governance.
Meanwhile, the BJP benches have a ringside seat to the spectacle. Their MLAs leaned back, arms folded, exchanging sly grins and the occasional smile. It is the two-cats-and-the-monkey syndrome at its absolute best — Kashmir edition. As NC and PDP claw each other raw over the remnants of past grievances – accession, Article 370, the alliance — the BJP not only observes with smug satisfaction but also defines the new normal.
Bhartiya Janata Party, with 28 seats, holds legitimacy as the principal opposition but wields overriding legislative and administrative influence through the Union government and its appointees. It enjoys de facto authority without direct accountability to the Valley’s electorate on day-to-day governance failures. This creates another distortion: power without the full burden of local legitimacy or scrutiny.
Every minute of this feud between the ideologically similar valley-centric parties keeps substantive governance questions off the table and old wounds open, benefiting the party that holds the real levers of power at the national level. Contrary to what the ideologues of these parties believe, it is BJP’s playbook that is keeping politics of Kashmir on the edge.
It is now getting manifested in the style and conduct of politics. Indeed, it is threatening to change the very DNA of political parties. Take the case of PDP, an alternative to NC, not only as a political organisation but one with a completely different political grammar. A much-diminished force now—reduced in numbers, influence, and organisational muscle – its core was its political conduct and strategic maturity. It once ruled the state with just 16 MLAs in coalition where the partner had a greater number of seats! Today its aggressive, headline-seeking style represents a sharp departure from the calibrated, outcome-oriented politics practised by its founder.
In a telling incident in 2004, when as the Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was informed of an anti-government protest on a power tariff hike, he did not order police action. Instead, he asked his party’s district president to mobilise workers to join the opposition National Conference-led procession. “They are demanding lower power charges, not Azadi. Even our party should support it,” he reasoned. This was a masterclass in pragmatic politics brining to fore the profound distinction between party and government resulting in balanced outreach, reconciliation, and hard bargaining.
By contrast, today every issue becomes an opportunity not for mobilisation but for provocation and confrontation. The old Mufti style — pragmatic, reconciliatory, outcome-driven — has given way to a more performative politics. The tragedy is not just the loss of that gravitas and vision; it is that the new style, while keeping the party in the headlines, does little to address the real challenges of governance in a post-370 Kashmir. This performative style generates viral social media clips but lacks strategic depth and delivers little for constituents.
The troika’s subversion is most evident in how patronage has become the glue holding the system together. In the interplay of party, power, and patronage, ideology has become flexible and secondary. Politics in the Valley is no longer about competing visions for Kashmir’s future; it is about access to resources and control of patronage networks. The suspicions of “external scripting” suggest that old central patronage networks have not dissolved but have been repurposed in the new reality of the old parties. Lessons have not been learnt. Party-familial rivalries bleed into legislative debates, turning the House into a venue for settling scores rather than crafting policy.
This patronage-driven politics exacerbates the legitimacy-authority-accountability imbalance. National Conference’s electoral legitimacy is real, yet without full authority or a strong governance record after 18 months in power, it cannot demonstrate accountability through deliverables. BJP exercises authority via central oversight but faces limited local accountability. PDP, stripped of significant authority, uses its residual legitimacy to amplify drama and highlight failures, hoping to regain relevance through confrontation rather than constructive opposition. The democratic process suffers because voters see mandates disconnected from outcomes. Elections legitimise players, but the fragmented troika prevents genuine accountability, leading citizens to disengage or revert to cynicism.
Social media has worsened this distortion. Legislative conduct, once contained within the House, now prioritises instant political capital. A sharp soundbite or viral clash generates more traction than hours of debate, shifting incentives from deliberation to performance. In a freshly elected House still finding its feet after years of central rule, this performative politics carries extra risk. Every debate on identity issues reopens the psychological scar left by Article 370’s abrogation—an identity marker far beyond its constitutional status. The emotional weight makes backward-looking recriminations tempting but it will prevent the legislature from maturing into a functional body. The real problem is that even as democratic politics has resumed, yet the default mode is settling historical scores instead of addressing a post-370 Kashmir.
Ultimately, the people will distinguish performance from delivery. But for Kashmir’s democracy to strengthen, the troika must realign, legitimacy must confer meaningful authority, and authority must be matched by accountability. Until patronage yields to ideology and historical blame gives way to forward-looking agendas, the democratic process will remain subverted—ugly, unsurprising.
The author is a Contributing Editor of Greater Kashmir.