Two governments are on the streets shouting at each other. The young doctors outside the hospital gates only want to be paid.
ہنگامئہ ہستی سے الگ گوشۂ نشینو
بے سود ریاضت کا صلہ مانگ رہے ہو
دنیا تو گئی چاند ستاروں سے بھی آگے
تم بیٹھے مصلے پہ دعا مانگ رہے ہو
The world has moved beyond the moon and stars; you are still sitting on the prayer mat, asking for miracles.
Peerzada Masrat Shah:
Jammu and Kashmir has produced a political spectacle that would be comic if the stakes were not so high. The National Conference governs the Union Territory. The BJP governs the country and, through the Union government, holds the most consequential levers over J&K’s administration. Two governments, then, with real power between them. And what are they doing with it? Protesting against each other over how the other one governs.
One side says the Centre is responsible. The other says the elected government is. Slogans fly, accusations multiply, cameras roll, and the ordinary citizen is left to work out who actually has the authority to fix anything.
This is not to say the quarrel is empty. The National Conference is no accidental occupant of Kashmir’s political space; it has been the principal organised vehicle of Kashmiri electoral representation for decades, and whatever democratic space exists in J&K today is exercised largely through its elected government. Dismissing every NC protest as “drama” is intellectually lazy. If the elected government believes its authority is being hollowed out by decisions taken in New Delhi, it has every democratic right to say so. If the Centre believes the elected government is failing its responsibilities, it has every right to say that too.
Disagreement is legitimate. Confrontation is legitimate. What is not legitimate is letting confrontation stand in for governance.
The people who should be the story
Because while the NC and the BJP protest against one another, a different protest is under way in J&K, and it asks for something far more basic: a fair stipend for medical interns.
These are not political workers. They are not competing for airtime or angling for a party ticket. They are young doctors who have survived one of the most punishing educational journeys anyone can attempt: years of study and examinations, clinical training, ward duties, sleepless nights and enormous personal sacrifice. Hospitals run on their labour. Patients depend on their presence. And at the end of all that, they have been pushed onto the street to demand what should never have needed a demonstration: dignified pay for work already being done.
Set the two protests side by side and the priorities become impossible to defend. Parties with the entire machinery of government at their disposal are protesting against each other. Young doctors with nothing but their collective voice are protesting to be paid.
The interns have no lobby, no cadre, no capacity to threaten anyone at the ballot box. That is exactly why their grievance should come first, not last. The future of J&K does not rest on which party wins the next election. It rests on whether educated young people believe their training, labour and talent are worth anything here. When a doctor concludes, after years of sacrifice, that even basic professional dignity requires a street protest, the fault lies with the system, not the doctor.
Someone has to govern
The public does not need an eternal argument over who holds the moral high ground. It needs to know who holds the administrative authority, and whether it is being used.
If the Centre can resolve the interns’ stipend, it should. If the J&K government can, it should. If it takes both, then coordinate. That is what governments exist to do. Not every dispute needs a demonstration, not every administrative failure needs a counter-demonstration, and not every genuine grievance needs to become another chapter in the NC-BJP blame game.
The deeper danger is that when two establishments fight over responsibility, responsibility itself vanishes. Everyone has an explanation. Everyone has an opponent. Nobody has a solution. That is the real theatre of the absurd: a public taught to mistake political activity for governance. A protest is not a policy. A slogan is not an administrative order. A press conference is not a solution. Blaming your opponent is not the same as delivering.
The interns grasp this better than most politicians. They are not asking who controls Kashmir’s narrative; they are asking who will pay them. They are not playing constitutional chess; they want dignity at work.
Resist and govern at the same time
None of this requires either side to fall silent. The NC can resist the Centre politically while governing J&K administratively. The BJP can defend the Centre’s position while making sure the issues within its reach are actually addressed. The two are not mutually exclusive. That is what mature politics looks like. Instead, J&K has settled for the easier version: fight first, govern later.
So let the NC challenge the BJP. Let the BJP answer. Let the constitutional questions be argued as fiercely as they deserve. But governance is measured in outcomes, not decibels. The loudest slogan does not make a government effective. The most aggressive protest does not make a party right. And the most elaborate blame game does not put a rupee into an intern’s account.
The political class may enjoy the spectacle. The cameras certainly do. But the interns cannot pay rent with political theatre or build careers on promises. They need a fair stipend, recognition and dignity. And they need both governments to stop explaining why the other is responsible and start showing who is capable of taking responsibility.
When “Government vs Government” is the headline, the real question is painfully simple: who, then, is governing?
While the rulers settle that among themselves, spare a thought for the young doctors outside the hospital gates. They are not performing. They are asking to be paid.
