Kashmir and the Illusion of Politics
The idea of politics is slowly but surely changing in the transformed political landscape of Jammu & Kashmir, now a union territory. The notion of politics is undergoing a slow but seismic shift. The absence of an elected government, far from bringing governance to a standstill, has exposed something few expected; that silent, administrative efficiency can often outperform decades of political drumbeating.
This is not a celebration of bureaucratic rule, but a moment of sober reflection. It forces us to ask, what has representative politics truly delivered for Kashmir? After decades of legacy politics, the state continues to struggle with the most basic of services, potholed roads, erratic electricity, unmanaged waste, and chronic unemployment. Governance, we were told, was the prize of political struggle and yet, those elected in our name have often used power for personal gain, their legacies littered with inefficiency, corruption, and missed opportunities. The time has come for a fundamental reassessment of our political expectations and societal narratives.
For too long, Kashmir’s political imagination has been captive to a rhetoric of grievance and symbolism. The politics of identity, victimhood, and historical injustice have been used to justify an enduring status quo. We have clung to a narrative of betrayal, but each time we’ve been let down, we’ve simply changed the lens rather than the landscape. Instead of recalibrating, we repeated mistakes, and expected different outcomes.
This delusion has bred a kind of comfort in mediocrity. A few good educational institutions have been mistaken for systemic reform. A handful of upright civil servants are taken as evidence of good governance. A limited public discourse gives the illusion of an intellectually active society. But we are not a society deeply engaged with data, strategy, or reform, we are a society deeply engaged with opinion and opinion, however loud, is the weakest form of knowledge.
Kashmir must now wake up to a new political consciousness — one anchored in outcomes, not oratory. Our aspirations must rise above tokenism and touch the ground realities of ordinary life. Good roads, clean drinking water, functional schools, dignified jobs — these are not fringe concerns, they are the very foundation of meaningful citizenship. If these can be delivered by a non-political administrative setup, then what does it say about the kind of politics we’ve nurtured so far?
We must also rethink our relationship with the rest of the country — not from a place of historical grievance, but from a place of strategic clarity. It is time to base decisions not on inherited assumptions, but on hard data and hard truths. Politics must move from emotion to evidence, from slogans to systems from personality cults to institutional resilience.
Real empowerment cannot be achieved through subsidies, symbolic gestures, or manipulated narratives. It must come through self-reliance, honest governance, and a deep societal commitment to reform.
What Kashmir needs now is not a revival of old political orders or recycled ideologies. It needs a quiet revolution, led not by saviours but by systems, not by declarations but by data, not by sermons but by service. The future demands that we reflect, reimagine, and rebuild; free from the illusions that have long clouded our political vision. When this new clarity dawns, we may finally begin to see not just what went wrong, but what can be made right.
We are living on the brink of a ticking time bomb, with climate catastrophe and environmental degradation threatening the very ecosystems that sustain our lives and livelihoods. Yet, as a society, we have excelled in exhibitionism—flaunting excess through sprawling homes, lavish feasts, and unsustainable consumption, indifferent to the scale or occasion.
Driven by a culture of living beyond our means, we remain unconscious of our surroundings, wilfully negligent in our civic duties, and masters of selective amnesia—conveniently forgetting that resources are finite. Our pursuit of short-term gratification has blinded us to the fragility of our environment, where every depleted forest, polluted river, and warming degree pushes us closer to irreversible collapse. The time for delusion is over; the crisis is here, demanding immediate accountability and collective action before our indifference becomes our epitaph.
Dr. Farooq Wasil, a published author, and an educationist, currently CAO of Vasal education group and Founding Director of Thinksite. He has over four decades of experience in the field of Education Management—setting up, operating and managing Schools.
