The fifth Halla Bol Conclave assembled some of Jammu and Kashmir’s most recognisable political voices. What it too often failed to assemble was the sustained, evidence-based questioning needed to turn speeches into public accountability.
SUNDAY SPECIAL
When Jammu and Kashmir’s political heavyweights gathered beneath the chandeliers of Srinagar’s Radisson on October 4, the setting promised something unusual.
Here was a political space where ideological rivals could sit within speaking distance of one another. National Conference veterans, PDP leadership, Congress figures, BJP representatives, former separatist voices, journalists and commentators were all part of a conversation that purported to examine perhaps the most consequential period in Kashmir’s contemporary history.
Thirty-five years of violence, political upheaval, broken promises, lost lives, militant insurgency, counter-insurgency, elections, boycotts, dialogue processes, failed dialogue processes, Article 370, Article 35A, August 5, 2019, statehood, unemployment, incarceration and the uncertain political future of an entire generation.
There was certainly no shortage of subjects.
There was, however, a shortage of interrogation.
The fifth edition of the Halla Bol Conclave succeeded in assembling political personalities who ordinarily speak from separate platforms and often speak against one another. That is no insignificant achievement.
But bringing politicians into the same ballroom is not the same thing as bringing them to account.
For much of the event, leaders appeared to arrive carrying familiar political narratives, deliver them before a receptive audience, produce a few quotable lines for television and social media, and then move on before those narratives could be subjected to the kind of sustained questioning that might have exposed contradictions.
The hall had microphones. It had politicians. It had journalists. It had history.
What it too often lacked was the second question.
Thirty-Five Years Reduced to Talking Points
The central theme itself demanded much more seriousness.
If Kashmir is going to publicly discuss the last three-and-a-half decades, then the purpose cannot simply be to reproduce competing versions of history.
Those decades are not merely material for political speeches.
They contain graveyards. They contain displaced families. They contain widows, orphans and parents who waited for sons who never returned. They contain Kashmiri Pandit displacement, militant violence, civilian killings, allegations of security-force excesses across different periods, political assassinations, custodial controversies, radicalisation, fear, migration, unemployment, electoral trust deficits, broken negotiations and generations raised under extraordinary political circumstances.
A conversation about such a history requires intellectual humility. More importantly, it requires difficult questions for everyone.
Mainstream parties should be asked what they did when they exercised power. Former separatists should be asked what their politics ultimately delivered. The BJP should be asked to demonstrate how the constitutional changes of August 2019 have translated into political empowerment rather than merely administrative control. The National Conference should be asked what exactly it intends to do with the enormous electoral mandate it received. The PDP should be asked to reconcile its present political language with decisions made when it shared power. Congress should be questioned about its own long historical role in shaping Jammu and Kashmir’s political trajectory.
No party should be allowed to enter such a forum carrying only the convenient chapters of its own history.
Yet too often Halla Bol became precisely that — parallel autobiographies of political innocence.
Everybody could explain Kashmir. Few were made to explain themselves.
Farooq Abdullah: History Was Sitting on the Stage — Why Was It Not Questioned?
Perhaps no participant symbolised this missed opportunity more than Dr Farooq Abdullah.
Whatever one thinks of his politics, Abdullah is not simply another speaker. At 88, he remains a living witness to several defining phases of Jammu and Kashmir’s modern political history. His political career stretches across elections, dismissals of governments, Centre-state confrontations, militancy, the turbulent 1990s, the restoration of electoral politics, coalition eras, the decline of Kashmir’s special constitutional position and finally the post-2019 order.
That extraordinary political longevity should have made his appearance one of the most important interrogative opportunities of the conclave.
Instead, the veteran leader often seemed comfortable, conversational and characteristically casual even while the discussion dealt with questions carrying enormous historical weight.
That style is undoubtedly part of Farooq Abdullah’s political personality. But personality cannot become a substitute for accountability.
When someone has occupied the highest offices of Jammu and Kashmir and remained central to its politics for decades, the questions should not merely be about what Delhi did wrong.
They should also ask: What did Kashmir’s own political establishment get wrong? Could mainstream leadership have acted differently during crucial historical moments? Did dynastic politics weaken democratic institutions? Why did alienation continue even during periods when elected governments possessed considerable authority? Why did successive governments fail to create political institutions strong enough to survive individual leaders and families? What responsibility does the National Conference itself accept for the erosion of public trust over different periods? And today, what exactly is its political roadmap beyond demanding statehood?
These are not anti-National Conference questions. They are democratic questions.
A region cannot mature politically if every leader is permitted to narrate history exclusively from the position of the victim while avoiding the periods in which they themselves possessed power.
Statehood: The Promise That Never Reaches a Calendar
Statehood predictably occupied a central place in the discussion.
Congress veteran Ghulam Ahmad Mir criticised the present Union Territory structure and argued that divided centres of authority have weakened effective governance. BJP leader Ravinder Raina defended the broader arrangement while reiterating the familiar position that statehood will eventually be restored.
And thus Kashmir once again encountered perhaps the most elastic phrase in contemporary politics: ‘at the appropriate time.’
The problem is not that political transitions require time. The problem is that indefinitely postponing a commitment eventually transforms a promise into political management.
If statehood is unquestionably going to be restored, what conditions remain to be fulfilled? What is the measurable benchmark? What constitutional or security obstacle prevents a timeline? What exactly constitutes the ‘appropriate time’ — six months, two years, five years, after another election?
These questions matter because an assurance without a calendar allows every side to remain politically comfortable.
The Centre can continue promising restoration. Regional parties can continue demanding it. And the public can continue waiting.
Everyone retains an issue. Nobody acquires an obligation.
And What Happens the Day After Statehood?
There is another question that received far less attention.
Suppose statehood were restored tomorrow. Then what?
Would unemployment disappear? Would recruitment processes become transparent overnight? Would municipal institutions suddenly function efficiently? Would corruption vanish? Would rural infrastructure improve? Would schools become stronger? Would hospitals become more accessible? Would young entrepreneurs suddenly receive easier access to capital? Would drug addiction decline? Would bureaucratic indifference disappear? Would panchayat and urban local body democracy automatically become vibrant?
Statehood is politically and constitutionally significant. For many people in Jammu and Kashmir, it is tied to dignity and democratic representation.
But statehood cannot become an alibi for governance failure.
If every administrative deficiency is explained through the limitations of the Union Territory structure, citizens are entitled to ask which problems actually require statehood and which require simple administrative competence.
That distinction should have been extracted from every politician on stage. It was not.
Aga Ruhullah and the Question the Establishment Would Rather Avoid
Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi brought an important internal contradiction into the room.
His criticism of his own political formation has increasingly revolved around the argument that the mandate obtained by the National Conference cannot simply be interpreted as a vote for restoration of statehood.
That criticism matters because it asks a deeper question: What exactly did Kashmir vote for?
Was the mandate merely administrative? Was it primarily a demand for statehood? Was it a political response to August 5, 2019? Was it a demand for the restoration of constitutional guarantees? Was it rejection of direct bureaucratic rule? Or was it simply an electoral verdict against particular political forces?
These distinctions are crucial. A political party cannot invoke the emotional meaning of a mandate while campaigning and then narrow its interpretation once elected.
Ruhullah’s intervention therefore deserved much deeper exploration. If he believes his own party is under-reading the mandate, what concrete course does he propose? What should the government do differently? Where does political symbolism end and achievable policy begin? How far should an elected government confront New Delhi? What happens if confrontation produces administrative paralysis rather than political progress?
Those are the questions that convert dissent into a political programme.
Instead, the moment produced headlines and clips before the larger conversation moved onward. Kashmir received another political disagreement. It did not necessarily receive greater political clarity.
Mehbooba Mufti and the Ritual Call for Unity
Mehbooba Mufti’s appeal for political parties to unite and collectively carry Jammu and Kashmir’s demands to New Delhi sounded powerful.
It also sounded deeply familiar.
Kashmir has repeatedly heard appeals for unity: unity before elections, unity after constitutional changes, unity against Delhi, unity for statehood, unity for Article 370, unity for prisoners and unity for regional interests.
And yet when electoral calculations arrive, political unity often becomes remarkably negotiable.
That contradiction deserved immediate interrogation.
If political parties genuinely believe Jammu and Kashmir is facing questions larger than party competition, why has a structured all-party mechanism not already been institutionalised? Why is there no permanent inter-party council on constitutional and political issues? Why are common minimum demands not placed publicly before citizens? Why does unity repeatedly emerge as a speech before disappearing as a strategy?
If regional rights truly transcend party lines, Kashmiri politics needs more than symbolic photographs of leaders occupying the same stage. It needs agreements, documents, timelines, joint delegations, shared resolutions, sustained campaigns, perhaps even the willingness to sacrifice short-term electoral advantage for a common political objective.
Otherwise ‘unity’ remains one of Kashmir politics’ most renewable rhetorical resources.
Bilal Lone, Shahid Imran and When Interrogation Becomes Performance
One of the more revealing episodes of the conclave came during the interaction with Bilal Ahmad Lone, the former separatist leader now signalling a movement towards mainstream electoral politics.
Lone was confronted with the question of accountability for the enormous human cost Jammu and Kashmir has endured during more than three decades of conflict. He responded by arguing that the political conversation should now focus more seriously on the future of the younger generation rather than continuously politicising the dead and remaining imprisoned by the past.
The subject itself was entirely legitimate.
Former separatist leaders must be questioned. Their decisions, strategies, political calculations, missed opportunities and influence upon generations of young Kashmiris deserve rigorous examination. No political actor — mainstream, separatist, governmental or otherwise — should receive immunity from historical scrutiny.
But legitimate questions can be weakened by the manner in which they are asked.
The intervention by Kashmir Crown journalist Shahid Imran appeared, from the tone and style of the exchange, less like a patient attempt to extract an answer and more like an interrogation in which the questioner seemed determined to establish his own moral position before allowing the participant to fully explain his.
At moments, the style risked appearing unnecessarily confrontational, ego-driven and professionally overbearing.
That distinction matters. Journalistic toughness is essential. Journalistic ego is not.
A journalist is not weakened by allowing a guest to complete an answer. Nor does professionalism require softness. Some of the most effective political interviews are devastating precisely because the interviewer remains calm, informed and persistent while allowing contradictions to expose themselves.
The strongest interviewer does not need to dominate the room. The facts do that for him.
In the Bilal Lone exchange, however, the manner of questioning risked shifting attention away from the profoundly important issue of separatist accountability and towards a personality contest between the questioner and the respondent.
That was unfortunate because there were far more consequential questions waiting to be asked.
Instead of reducing decades of political conflict to a demand that Lone effectively seek pardon from Kashmiris, the interrogation could have gone much deeper: Which decisions of the separatist leadership does he now consider mistakes? Were opportunities for dialogue rejected that, in hindsight, should have been explored? Did separatist politics sometimes raise expectations among young Kashmiris without possessing a realistic political mechanism for achieving them? Does Lone believe young people were ever encouraged towards sacrifices whose consequences political leaders themselves did not equally bear? What responsibility does he assign to Pakistan? What responsibility to militant organisations? What responsibility to successive governments in New Delhi? What responsibility does he personally accept?
And perhaps most importantly: if Bilal Lone now believes democratic politics offers a better way forward, why should the generation that witnessed the consequences of the previous political strategy trust the new one?
Those questions would have tested him far more severely than an argumentative exchange. They might also have produced something Kashmir desperately needs: reflection.
There is another uncomfortable lesson here for journalism itself.
An interviewer should interrogate the participant, not compete with him.
The moment the journalist appears more interested in demonstrating his own righteousness, authority or command over the stage, journalism begins drifting towards performance.
A public forum is not a courtroom in which the journalist has already written the verdict. Nor should the microphone become an instrument for personal assertion.
The journalist’s responsibility is more demanding: know the history, establish the facts, expose contradictions, interrupt evasions when necessary, and relentlessly pursue the unanswered question — while still allowing the audience to judge the answer for itself.
Professional interrogation is not measured by aggression. It is measured by what the questioning succeeds in revealing.
In that sense, the Bilal Lone episode became almost symbolic of the larger weakness of Halla Bol. There was confrontation. There was heat. There was a moment tailor-made for social media. But did Kashmir learn significantly more about the mistakes of separatist politics after the exchange than it knew before it?
That should be the real test.
Otherwise, the journalist and politician merely exchange sharp words, the clip travels across social media, supporters applaud their preferred side — and another opportunity for serious public understanding is lost.
Kashmir certainly needs journalists willing to confront powerful people. But it needs something even more urgently: journalists whose questions are bigger than their egos.
Accountability Cannot Be Selective
There is also a deeper problem with demanding a unilateral apology for Kashmir’s last 35 years.
Who exactly is supposed to apologise? Only separatists?
What about militant organisations for civilian killings? What about those responsible for the forced displacement and killings of Kashmiri Pandits? What about excesses committed by state actors wherever courts, commissions or credible investigations have established wrongdoing? What about governments that weakened democratic processes or political institutions in earlier decades? What about political parties that made promises they later abandoned? What about Pakistan and the consequences of its intervention in Kashmir? What about Delhi’s repeated failures to convert periods of relative calm into credible political outreach? What about local political elites who benefited from the very system they publicly criticised?
If accountability is desirable — and it should be — then it cannot be a weapon selectively pointed at whichever political camp happens to be sitting opposite the microphone.
Kashmir needs accountability without tribalism.
Otherwise even truth becomes another partisan instrument.
Article 370: Memory Is Not a Roadmap
Article 370 and Article 35A understandably remain emotionally and politically central.
August 5, 2019 fundamentally altered Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional relationship with the Union and continues to define regional political discourse.
But another uncomfortable question remains unanswered: What is the operational political strategy now?
Regional parties repeatedly affirm that they oppose what happened. But beyond resolutions, litigation, speeches and symbolic declarations, what is the realistic route they propose?
If restoration is the objective, explain the constitutional mechanism. If national political change is required, say so. If a parliamentary majority is necessary, explain how it will be built. If the judicial route has substantially narrowed, explain the remaining legal options. If the struggle is primarily political rather than legal, explain the strategy.
Citizens deserve something more sophisticated than perpetual remembrance.
A wound may explain politics. It cannot indefinitely substitute for a programme.
The Missing Kashmir: Jobs, Schools, Hospitals and Daily Humiliation
Perhaps the greatest weakness of elite political forums is that ‘Kashmir’ gradually becomes an abstraction.
Kashmir becomes Article 370. Kashmir becomes India-Pakistan. Kashmir becomes militancy. Kashmir becomes accession. Kashmir becomes Hurriyat. Kashmir becomes statehood.
Meanwhile, an unemployed postgraduate fills another recruitment form. A family waits for a delayed selection list. A patient travels long distances for specialised treatment. A teacher works inside an understaffed school. A small entrepreneur struggles with finance. A farmer worries about shrinking returns. A young person considers leaving the Valley because ambition appears easier elsewhere. A parent watches drug addiction enter neighbourhoods that once believed themselves immune.
These are not ‘lesser’ Kashmiri issues. They are increasingly the issues through which younger Kashmiris experience politics.
This generation cannot be expected to survive permanently on inherited political vocabulary.
It wants dignity, certainly. It also wants work. It wants rights. It also wants reliable institutions. It wants historical justice. It also wants functional hospitals, good universities, transparent recruitment and freedom from petty administrative harassment.
A serious conclave should have forced every leader to answer one simple question: What will you concretely do over the next twelve months to make the life of an ordinary resident better?
Not ideology. Not history. Not Delhi. Not Pakistan. Not another committee.
What will you do?
Where Was the Governance Scorecard?
This is where the conclave could have become genuinely historic.
Put a factual scorecard on the screen: number of government vacancies advertised; number filled; recruitment examinations cancelled or delayed; panchayat and municipal elections pending; youth unemployment indicators; new enterprises established; tourism revenue versus household-level benefit; drug rehabilitation capacity; district hospital vacancies; school infrastructure gaps; power-sector liabilities; agricultural income; public grievance disposal.
Then ask politicians to respond to numbers rather than one another.
Politics becomes far less theatrical when confronted by a spreadsheet.
Instead, much of Kashmir’s political discourse remains trapped between competing historical narratives because history offers politicians one enormous advantage: it cannot demand delivery by next Monday.
Governance can.
Dialogue With Pakistan: Again, But Under What Conditions?
Mani Shankar Aiyar once again advocated engagement between India and Pakistan.
Dialogue is neither inherently foolish nor automatically courageous. Nations eventually communicate even after severe conflict.
But ‘dialogue’ itself cannot remain a magical word.
What is the agenda? Who participates? What conditions are necessary? How are terrorism and cross-border violence addressed? Where do Kashmiris enter the process? Would dialogue concern only bilateral relations or also the political aspirations of people within Jammu and Kashmir? What lessons should be learned from earlier rounds that eventually collapsed?
Without those questions, ‘talk to Pakistan’ becomes as rhetorically comfortable as ‘Pakistan must stop terrorism.’
Both statements can be repeated indefinitely. Neither by itself constitutes policy.
From Political Journalism to Political Content
There is a larger media lesson in the Halla Bol experience.
Journalism today exists inside an attention economy.
A calm ten-minute interrogation is less viral than a twenty-second confrontation. A carefully researched follow-up generates fewer instant clicks than an aggressive interruption. A politician visibly angered by a journalist creates a marketable clip.
This creates a dangerous temptation.
Questions begin to be designed not primarily to reveal information but to produce moments. Journalists then become performers inside the political theatre they are supposed to examine.
That does not mean journalism should become polite or timid. Quite the opposite. Kashmir needs tougher journalism.
But toughness is not measured by volume.
The most dangerous question to a politician is often delivered quietly: ‘You said this three years ago. Here is the record. You did the opposite. Why?’
That is interrogation.
Everything else may simply be content.
Halla Bol Needed More ‘Bol’ From the Public
The greatest missing participant was not another politician. It was the citizen.
Imagine if the front row had included an unemployed graduate, a mother whose son is imprisoned outside J&K, a Kashmiri Pandit family that left the Valley, a family that lost somebody to militancy, a family alleging an unresolved human-rights abuse, a young entrepreneur, an apple grower, a government-school teacher, a drug-rehabilitation worker, a student, a widow surviving on a small pension.
Let them ask the questions.
Political language changes dramatically when leaders are no longer debating other professional politicians.
A politician can answer another politician with ideology. It is considerably harder to answer a mother with a slogan.
What Halla Bol Still Got Right
None of this means the conclave was meaningless.
Bringing political adversaries into one civil space matters, particularly in a region where politics has historically carried extraordinary emotional and security consequences.
Allowing a BJP leader, separatist-turned-mainstream politician, National Conference figure, PDP leader and Congress veteran to put conflicting positions before the public has democratic value.
Aga Ruhullah’s internal criticism matters. Bilal Lone publicly revisiting separatist politics matters. Debates over statehood matter. Questions about August 2019 matter. Arguments about India-Pakistan engagement matter. Farooq Abdullah’s reflections matter.
But access should be the beginning of journalism, not its achievement.
The organisers successfully assembled power.
The next edition should interrogate it.
Kashmir Does Not Need Another Echo Chamber
For decades, different institutions have claimed to speak for Kashmir.
Governments have spoken for Kashmir. Separatists have spoken for Kashmir. Political parties have spoken for Kashmir. Security establishments have spoken for Kashmir. Delhi has spoken for Kashmir. Islamabad has spoken for Kashmir. Television studios have spoken endlessly about Kashmir.
Perhaps the next stage of political maturity is simpler: make those who speak for Kashmir answer Kashmir.
Ask every political formation what it promised. Ask what it delivered. Ask what it failed to deliver. Ask what mistakes it accepts. Ask what compromises it made. Ask what its roadmap is. Ask for dates. Ask for numbers. Ask the second question. Then ask the third.
The fifth Halla Bol Conclave demonstrated that Kashmir does not lack political voices. If anything, it has an abundance of them.
What it lacks are enough spaces where those voices cannot escape their own contradictions.
The Radisson ballroom produced speeches, ideological clashes, historical recollections, viral lines and predictable political positioning.
What it did not consistently produce was consequence.
And that is the fundamental distinction between a political event and a public-interest forum.
A political event asks: What do our leaders have to say?
A serious democratic forum asks: Is what they are saying true? What did they do when they had power? What exactly will they do now? And when can the public judge whether they succeeded?
Until Kashmir’s high-profile conclaves begin asking those questions relentlessly, we will continue witnessing the same familiar cycle.
Politicians will arrive. History will be invoked. Delhi will be blamed. Regional rivals will blame one another. Old wounds will be reopened. Promises will be renewed. Cameras will record the sharpest exchanges. Social media will announce winners and losers.
And outside the hotel, the ordinary Kashmiri will return home carrying almost exactly the same questions with which he arrived.
Kashmir does not need more microphones.
It needs answers.
