As the political fever goes up

These days J&K is a sort of one large carnival where political parties have their own stalls, selling their manifestoes, promises, and slogans. This election to the J&K assembly looks like a whirlwind of electoral democracy where we see columns of wind and dust filling the space.

Elsewhere it may sound as normal, but given the special circumstances and the consequent background, it is not an ordinary happening in J&K, especially Kashmir. What has added to the event, positively or negatively, is the numerical level of participation. But in all this there is one question that all the political parties need to wrestle with seriously.

How do they see the future generation of J&K? All the political rhetoric is good, the high voltage criticism of political adversaries is also a routine in elections campaigns, making sky high promises may also be explicable, but one thing is unforgivable. The established political parties cannot escape the responsibility of spelling out the details of their vision about saving the future generations from a state of despondency that has exhibited itself in terms of unemployment, drug addiction, and loss of purpose.

There was a time when a political party would be like a huge thinking engine, reflecting the societal mind at large. The 'new-age' politics seems to rely more on social media and the extravaganza that follows today's public rallies.

The proliferation of TV and Youtube channels creates a false image of things, and it looks like that political parties buy into such false imagery. For a society that is faced with million different problems, and that is internally bleeding, the task of recovery is not that easy.  Who forms the government, or how many partners share a government in J&K, as an aftermath of this election will be known before long.

But who is there to work in the deeper spaces of this society, and generate an image of future that is peaceful, humane, and filled with happiness at a general level? To this end, any meaningful party would require consistent internal discussions, and an organic connect with the society of which it is a part. As the political fever goes up, can someone give a serious thought to the serious assignment called the societal recovery.