The silence that screams: How the NC is failing the very people it once claimed to represent

Time of India

5 hours ago

Mudasir Dar is a social and peace activist based in South Kashmir. He is a Rashtrapati Award recipient in world scouting and has contributed to many local and national publications on a diverse range of topics, including national security, politics, governance, peace, and conflict. LESS ... MORE
In the political history of Jammu and Kashmir, there have been many moments that demanded dignity over debate, empathy over ego, and leadership over opportunism. The aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack was one such moment — a moment where tragedy met humanity, and where the institution of governance was expected to rise above political calculations. It did. But what followed from the political opposition, particularly the National Conference (NC), was a masterclass in how to squander moral capital for the sake of momentary noise.
Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a young ponywallah from Hapatnar in South Kashmir, was not a figure of power or prestige. He was an ordinary man whose final act was one of extraordinary courage. When terrorists struck in Pahalgam this April, Adil tried to shield a group of tourists. In doing so, he lost his life. His death could have remained another statistic in a region too familiar with conflict. But something different happened.
On June 14, lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha made an uncommon visit to Adils family, stepping well outside routine protocol. He did not stop at offering hollow condolences or posing for cameras. Instead, he used his own discretionary authority to promise Adils widow, Gulnaz Akhter, a government job through the Jammu and Kashmir Rehabilitation Assistance Scheme. It was a generous move, since Gulnaz had yet to meet the formal educational rules for the position. However, the LG, moved by the magnitude of the familys sacrifice and the tragic context, placed human need far ahead of rigid paperwork.
It was a moment when governance showed it still had a heartbeat. Yet, rather than rallying behind the gesture or even nodding at its meaning, the National Conference chose to respond with jittery suspicion and cheap party jabs. NC spokesman Tanvir Sadiq fired off a tweet wondering whether the lieutenant governors off-the-cuff promise in south Kashmir was now being undermined by his own office. In both timing and tone, the tweet looked less like a search for clarity and more like a slick, if desperate, bid to grab back a political story that had already slipped through the partys fingers.
What the NC fails to realise is that such acts of pettiness are no longer viewed in isolation. They are read as part of a deeper crisis of relevance — a party that once symbolised regional aspiration is now seen as clinging to performative opposition, unable to digest that delivery and governance are now taking precedence over slogans and symbolism. Instead of standing with Adil's grieving family, the NC chose to question the integrity of an administrative act that they themselves failed to undertake when it was their responsibility to lead.
After the Pahalgam attack, the NC had issued elaborate statements, condemning the act of terror and pledging support to the victims. But those words vanished into the ether. There was no institutional outreach to the bereaved families, no efforts at rehabilitation, and no show of empathy beyond the camera flash. In the absence of state action from elected representatives, it was the Lieutenant Governor's office — often portrayed by NC as a distant authority — that responded with immediacy, compassion, and discretion.
That is the real reason the NC feels so uneasy. For decades, the party shaped almost all local stories about who suffered and what identity meant. Now that those stories are facing practical policies and a calmer, post-partisan kindness, the solid ground they assumed was theirs is cracking. Rather than ask why they've been out-manoeuvred politically and out-brightened morally, they fall back on the easiest move-questions, tweets, and quiet sabotage.
It is also not lost on the people of Jammu and Kashmir that the NC, since forming the government after the 2024 elections, has presided over a visible administrative breakdown. From power shortages to water scarcity, from dysfunctional municipal services to recurring protests in Jammu, the people are not seeing the delivery they were promised. These are not abstract policy gaps; these are lived, daily failures. While the NC leadership tweets in outrage, Jammu and Kashmir continues to reel under electricity cuts, Water shortage and unfulfilled promises.
The contrast becomes painfully evident when juxtaposed with LG's handling of the Adil Hussain case. While the ruling party was absent, the unelected executive did the work of a public representative. It wasn't political strategy; it was a sense of institutional duty. And that shift — from old-style rhetorical politics to a results-oriented administrative culture — is precisely what is unsettling parties like the NC.
Besides, the meaning behind the LG's visit is hard to overlook. A Hindu lieutenant governor from Uttar Pradesh stood in the small house of a Muslim ponywallah from south Kashmir, mourning his death and honouring his bravery. Whether planned or not, that gesture pushed back against long-standing accusations that the Indian state treats Kashmiris as less-than-human. The sight itself, simple yet forceful, mattered far more than a hundred official notes. It was governance using a word people understand: presence.
When the NC twists this into a mere party debate, it shrinks a serious moment into just another score-settling exercise. The matter at hand is far bigger than handing one person a government post. It tests our ability as a society to see real sacrifice and honour it without slapping on a political filter first. It asks whether a government can meet public sorrow not with cold distance, but with open arms and genuine inclusion.
Let it be recorded with clarity: when Adil Hussain Shah gave his life trying to save tourists in a place too often visited by death, it was not the elected government that stood by his family. It was not the political party that claims to speak for every Kashmiri. It was an act from the Raj Bhavan that affirmed dignity over delay, justice over jargon.
In history, what matters is not what is tweeted in frustration but what is done with conviction. And no matter how hard the NC tries to reclaim this moment, the truth remains: they watched. Others acted. And in that truth lies the starkest contrast of all.
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