Kashmir's Political Drift

Once rooted in ideals and integrity, politics in Jammu & Kashmir has turned into a theatre of tactics, where emotion overshadows reason, and survival takes precedence over service.

- Ahmad Ayaz

Power is a gift in any democracy, meant to be wielded with care. In Jammu & Kashmir, the gift has been reshaped. Political survival now hinges less on principle and more on showmanship and maneuvering.

The political stage, once reserved for conviction, has turned into an arena of calculation. What was once the art of persuasion through ideas has been reduced to a competition of emotional theatrics. Leaders today are not admired for courage or clarity but for their ability to flatter and bargain.

To beg for votes is to betray the essence of democracy. It transforms governance into a marketplace where loyalty is bought, promises are borrowed, and power is sought not as a moral duty but as personal refuge. Politics, which once demanded persuasion through intellect and integrity, now trades in emotional manipulation, where sympathy replaces substance and spectacle replaces sincerity.

This erosion of dignity did not happen overnight. It has grown silently, year after year, in the cracks between ambition and principle, until what remains of leadership is more spectacle than service.

Politics in Jammu & Kashmir has always been deeply emotional, built on identity, history, and grievance. These emotions are real and rooted in pain, but over time they have been transformed from instruments of awareness into tools of manipulation.

Leaders discovered that appealing to sentiment was easier than presenting solutions. Emotional connection, once genuine, became political strategy.

When a leader stands before a crowd not to inspire but to plead for sympathy, democracy begins to decay. Governance becomes a contest of desperation, not direction, a space where survival overshadows service.