Arshad Khan & Peerzada Masrat
Politics has a peculiar habit of presenting departures as revolutions, disagreements as historic struggles and emotional speeches as evidence that a new dawn has arrived. Kashmir’s citizens have good reason to examine such claims carefully. A crowded gathering can express genuine frustration without establishing a credible political alternative. A resignation can demonstrate conviction without answering the difficult question of what comes next.
Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi’s November 3, 2026 announcement of his departure from the National Conference, alongside the submission of his LokSabha resignation, has opened a significant political conversation. He chose a gathering in Budgam on his father’s death anniversary to make the announcement. Reporting distinguishes the submission of his parliamentary resignation from its acceptance by the Speaker—a distinction that should remain clear amid the political excitement.
The occasion carried unmistakable emotional weight. But the public must be allowed to examine the politics without being accused of disrespecting the emotion.
Ruhullah has every democratic right to challenge his former party. Citizens have an equal right to challenge the alternative he offers. Neither an established government nor a newly rebellious leader should enjoy exemption from scrutiny.
The central question is straightforward: what will change for ordinary people because he has walked away?
For the unemployed graduate, the struggling shopkeeper, the parent paying for education and the family searching for affordable treatment, a political departure matters when it opens a credible route towards a better life. Their difficulties do not disappear because a leader has declared himself free.
A politician’s freedom from his party and the public’s freedom from hardship are different achievements.
Faith, dignity and collective identity can give political language depth. Religious conviction may inspire honesty, compassion and resistance to injustice. It would be unfair to assume that every spiritual reference is a calculated attempt to manipulate an audience.
Yet faith cannot serve as a certificate of political correctness.
A leader’s sincerity must remain open to examination, however moving his language or respected his religious standing. Citizens should never have to choose between respecting someone’s faith and questioning his political programme. The moment disagreement is treated as disloyalty to religion or community, democratic space begins to shrink.
Kashmir needs political platforms broad enough to accommodate different beliefs, regions, communities and opinions. If Ruhullah intends to build such a platform, its inclusiveness must appear in its leadership, decision-making and everyday conduct.
A movement becomes representative when people can help shape it, including when they disagree with its founder.
The same principle applies to political inheritance. A respected family history may explain why people listen to a leader. It cannot determine why they must continue to follow him. Public trust requires renewal through conduct.
Any challenge to dynastic politics will remain incomplete if it reproduces the assumption that leadership naturally belongs to another prominent household. The test is whether an ordinary young person, without a famous surname or influential connections, can rise within the proposed movement and question its leadership without fear.
Otherwise, the names change while the political culture survives.
Ruhullah’s criticism of the National Conference also requires an honest account of his own journey within it. His association with the party was substantial, and he served as a minister during the government in office when TufailMattoo was killed in 2010. At the resignation gathering, he handed his party resignation to Mattoo’s father for delivery to Farooq Abdullah. These circumstances make questions about consistency legitimate.
Membership of a government does not establish personal responsibility for every action taken during its tenure. Accountability demands fairness as well as firmness. But someone presenting a moral break with former colleagues should explain what he supported, what he opposed, what he attempted to change and what he now believes he got wrong.
People are entitled to evolve. Indeed, acknowledging past mistakes can strengthen political credibility. What weakens it is the suggestion that all responsibility belongs to former colleagues while all moral clarity belongs to the departing leader.
The grief of bereaved families deserves particular care. Their right to participate in public life must be respected, and their choices should not be dismissed. At the same time, their suffering must never become a substitute for sustained work towards truth, justice and support.
Accountability should continue after the cameras leave.
There is another familiar problem in our politics: promises sound absolute before elections and conditional afterwards. Voters are invited to believe that determination can overcome every obstacle. Once power is secured, the same voters receive lectures about institutional limitations and political realities.
Those limitations may be real. Precisely for that reason, leaders must explain them before seeking a mandate.
Ruhullah is justified in asking whether electoral commitments have been pursued honestly. But the standard he applies to the National Conference must also govern his own promises. If he proposes a struggle for constitutional rights, he should explain its democratic methods, institutional avenues, likely obstacles and means of reporting progress.
Public dignity requires truthful expectations. Repeating a demand more forcefully does not, by itself, establish a more effective strategy.
The distinction between protest and policy matters equally in everyday governance. An unemployed young person needs to know how recruitment will become fairer and more predictable. Students need functioning institutions and access to support. Families need reliable healthcare. Businesses need conditions in which they can survive.
On reservations, leadership must offer a reasoned approach that addresses competing concerns without turning young people against one another. On education, it must discuss learning, staffing, infrastructure and opportunity. On healthcare, it must move beyond buildings to staffing, medicines, referrals and affordability.
Tourism also demands a serious discussion. Concerns about environmental damage, cultural pressures and the distribution of economic benefits deserve attention. So do the livelihoods of people who depend on visitors.
A responsible programme should explain how tourism can support local employment, protect fragile landscapes, improve working conditions and respect communities. Broad denunciations and promotional slogans are equally inadequate when families need practical answers.
The same seriousness must extend to horticulture, handicrafts, small enterprises and other sources of livelihood. Political dignity and economic security belong in the same conversation.
As an educator, I am particularly concerned about what repeated cycles of promise and disappointment teach our young people. When every political season announces a saviour, young citizens can begin to confuse loyalty with participation and anger with agency.
They deserve opportunities to organise, deliberate, question and lead. They need institutions that take their concerns seriously, including their anxiety about employment, education and the future.
A movement that summons young people to fill a ground but gives them no meaningful role afterwards has mobilised an audience. It has yet to build democratic participation.
Ruhullah can distinguish his initiative through choices that are concrete and open to scrutiny: transparent funding, clear membership rules, accountable local leadership, space for internal disagreement and a public programme against which progress can be judged.
These commitments may attract less attention than a dramatic speech. They provide stronger evidence that a different political culture is possible.
His relationship with the Centre will also face scrutiny. Citizens should assess it through documented positions and conduct. Political benefit to another party does not, by itself, prove a secret arrangement. Equally, allegations of betrayal should never become a convenient way to avoid explaining one’s decisions.
Engagement should have a stated purpose. Opposition should have a coherent strategy. Both should remain answerable to the public.
None of this absolves the National Conference. Ruhullah’s departure does not answer the questions facing its leadership about its promises and performance. The government must explain its record without relying on attacks against the person raising those questions.
Citizens owe unconditional loyalty to neither side.
Too often, political debate asks people to choose whose personality they trust when they should be examining whose proposals can withstand scrutiny. Kashmir needs a public culture in which supporters can question their own leaders as firmly as their opponents.
The chair is not a crown. Leaving it does not confer sainthood. Holding it does not confer ownership of the people.
Public office is a responsibility, and political rebellion creates responsibilities of its own.
Ruhullah’s resignation therefore deserves neither automatic dismissal as theatre nor premature celebration as a revolution. It deserves an opportunity to demonstrate substance—and sustained scrutiny while it does so.
He has announced a break. Now he must explain the beginning.
Who will participate? How will decisions be made? What will the programme contain? How will promises be tested? What happens when public expectations exceed what his movement can deliver?
Kashmir’s people should not have to surrender their judgement to keep their hope alive. They can welcome courage, recognise sacrifice and still demand competence.
A resignation may create a headline. Credibility grows through what follows: patient organisation, honest commitments, democratic conduct and work that improves people’s lives.
