Democracy is strengthened by debate. But it is strengthened even more when that debate is honest. Iltija Mufti’s recent remarks about Omar Abdullah being a “weak” and “timid” Chief Minister deserve to be taken seriously, not because the charge is necessarily convincing, but because political criticism is one of the few spaces in which a democracy can examine itself. A Chief Minister should be questioned. Governments should be challenged. Political leaders should be held accountable. 

But accountability cannot become a performance in which history is selectively remembered and conveniently forgotten. There is something deeply revealing about calling a Chief Minister weak because he does not announce his confrontation loudly enough. Strength in politics is not measured by the volume of a leader’s rhetoric, nor by how dramatically he enters a room. It is measured by what institutions he builds, whom he listens to, what he delivers and whether he possesses the political courage to remain engaged when engagement is difficult. The real question, therefore, is not whether Omar Abdullah is sufficiently combative for his critics. The question is whether Jammu and Kashmir is being governed through democratic engagement or through political theatre. 

his distinction matters particularly in a place where an entire generation is struggling with unemployment, despair and a profound sense of uncertainty about its future. Young people are........

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