I. Ahmad Wani
Seven years ago, Article 370 was scrapped. This year, the Valley’s political parties promised a mighty protest to mark the day. They kept half the promise. The protest happened. The mighty part did not.
August 5, 2026, will be remembered for what did not happen. No strike. No shutdown. No angry crowds. Schools opened. Banks worked. Shopkeepers counted cash, not slogans. A police officer summed up the day in one line: no untoward incident anywhere. Once, that sentence would have been breaking news. Now it is just the weather report.
The parties marched. The people went to work. That, in short, was the story of the day.
The Ruling Party That Protests Against Itself
The National Conference has invented something new in world politics. A government that protests against its own rule. It is a bold experiment. Nobody else has dared to try it.
Scores of NC leaders gathered at the party office in Srinagar. Ministers came. MLAs came. Workers came. The public, sadly, had other plans. The march was stopped at the party gate. This was convenient. It saved the leaders a long walk to an audience that was not waiting.
The Chief Minister marked the day on social media. He quoted poetry. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, he wrote, and there are miles to go before he sleeps. The common Kashmiri read it by candlelight. The power was gone again. The people also have miles to go. Mostly to the tehsil office. And to the electricity department. And back.
Here lies the joke. The NC runs the government. The NC protests against the government’s problems. So who should the public complain to? The ruling party or the protesting party? They are the same people. Only the placards change.
The NC won a big mandate in 2024. It promised to guard the people’s rights. Two years later, it cannot guard the power supply. Summer came. The transformers gave up. Winter is coming. The darkness will simply change its season.
The PDP: Louder Voice, Smaller Crowd
The PDP watched the NC and decided to shout louder. The NC asked for statehood. The PDP asked for full restoration of Article 370. If the NC asks for the moon, the PDP will demand the sun. Neither controls the sky. But the bidding war continues.
The party’s grand march at Sonwar was a small family gathering. A few leaders. Some spokesmen. Many cameras. The cameras, in fact, outnumbered the enthusiasm. Commuters walked past without slowing down. Not one stopped to shake hands. The public treated the protest like a traffic signal. Wait, watch, move on.
Then came the star moment of the anniversary. The party chief was photographed holding the national flag upside down. Saffron at the bottom. Green on top. The party said it was an accident. The camera clicked too soon, they explained. Perhaps. But the message was complete. A party upside down, holding a flag upside down. The symbolism wrote itself.
Rivals pounced. Legal action was demanded. The Flag Code was suddenly the most read document in Jammu and Kashmir. The PDP came to talk about constitutional rights. It left explaining flag directions. That is quite a day’s work.
Meanwhile, the BJP Marched
The BJP does not do sit-ins. It does parades. In Jammu, a large Tiranga Yatra rolled through the streets. In Anantnag, workers marched with flags and slogans. Flags went up at every district and tehsil office. The party called it a festival.
One can argue with the BJP’s celebration. Many do. But one cannot argue with its attendance register. The party asked its workers to come. They came. The Valley parties asked the public to rise. The public pressed the snooze button.
The Real Protest Was Online
The streets were quiet. The internet was not. Leaders posted. Leaders quoted poets. Leaders reaffirmed their resolve, as leaders do every year.
But the sharpest line came from an ordinary user. NC is protesting, PDP is lighting candles, BJP is hoisting flags, the post said. Meanwhile, there has been no electricity for eight hours in August heat. We need power and water, not political theatre.
One post. No party office. No press conference. And yet it said more than every speech of the day.
Miles to Go, But in Which Direction?
The wise have warned about this before. A politician thinks of the next election, a statesman of the next generation. Ambedkar said political democracy means little without social and economic progress. Kashmir’s regional parties have found a third way. They think of the last election, quote the old speeches, and hope nobody checks the water supply.
To be fair, the empty streets are not a full verdict. Security was heavy. Roads to party offices were sealed. Marches were blocked. Silence can mean fear or fatigue, not just approval. The demand for statehood remains real and legitimate. Even the Supreme Court has asked for its return.
But the parties should read the deeper message. The public has done the maths. Seven years of protest speeches. Zero change in the power cut schedule. People will no longer lose a day’s wage for a day’s drama. They want electricity, water, roads and jobs. These words do not make stirring slogans. They only make life livable.
The party that learns this will rule the next decade. The parties that do not will keep marching. Bravely. Loudly. To their own gates. Where the police will politely stop them. And the public will politely walk past.
The stage was grand. The script was seven years old. The audience, as always in a flop show, quietly left before the interval.
