From the promise of restoring Jammu and Kashmir’s political dignity to the everyday failures of governance, the National Conference (NC) government sits on a question, it keeps running away from: what was the mandate for if it was not meant to be used?Two years into the NC government, the burgeoning gap between the promises made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the politics pursued after a resounding mandate has become increasingly difficult to ignore. The popular government has often taken refuge in the limitations that the Union Territory (UT) framework offers as an excuse for its failures. Yet the question remains: if the absence of statehood is the principal obstacle to delivering on the manifesto, why has the government failed to utilise the political leverage of its mandate more forcefully to demand it?

The NC did not assume power in an ordinary political setting. The emergence of mandate was rooted in the political disenchantment following the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 and the subsequent loss of statehood. The vote of 2024 did not reflect endorsement of NC’s political legacy, rather for many, it was expression of anger against the BJP and the political will imposed on Jammu and Kashmir. That distinction matters. The mandate was an opportunity to articulate the political aspirations of the people and to negotiate from a position of relative strength. Instead, the government increasingly appears to have been co-opted into the larger project of disenfranchisement that ensued on 5th Aug 2019. It appears the govt of J&K and the one in Delhi have made peace with each other, and the latter being particularly happy the way it's unfolding. 

This is not to deny the constraints of the UT setup. But constitutional limitations cannot become an all-purpose explanation for political timidity, nor can the absence of statehood explain every failure in welfare delivery or the treatment of public dissent. Therefore, the moot point is not whether Omar Abdullah has all the powers of a state Chief Minister. He does not. It is whether he has used the political mandate he was given, to challenge the arrangement that limits him.Political promises reduced to statehoodThe NC manifesto promised the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A, alongside the implementation of the Autonomy Resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in June 2000. These were not incidental electoral commitments. They spoke to the political question at the heart of Jammu and Kashmir’s relationship with the Union.Yet, after coming to power, the NC’s public posture increasingly appears concomitant with the mere restoration of statehood. Statehood may be part of a larger pie, but it is not an entire pie itself and therefore cannot replace the commitments concerning special status, autonomy and the political consequences of August 2019. The danger is that a promise to challenge the post-2019 political settlement has been reduced to a demand for administrative restoration within that very settlement.

In principal the handling of the Assembly’s statehood resolution also raised questions about the government’s willingness to make its position unambiguous. Legislators sought amendments intended to strengthen the resolution, but those amendments were withdrawn. Whatever the procedural circumstances, the episode reinforced the impression that the government was unwilling to push its political demands to their logical conclusion.The subsequent September 2 march towards the BJP office in Srinagar, followed by a counter-protest by the BJP, did little to dispel the perception of political theatre. The later plan for a protest at Jantar Mantar, which shifted to the Constitution Club, similarly invited questions about whether these actions were designed to exert pressure or merely an exhibition that pressure was being exerted.

Omar Abdullah’s conduct towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi has further sharpened this contradiction. At the inauguration of the Z-Morh tunnel in Sonamarg on January 13, 2025, Omar praised Modi for visiting despite the harsh weather, saying that not a single cloud was in the sky, the sun was shining brightly and there was no lack of warmth in people’s hearts. Praise for a Prime Minister in itself, is not an evidence of surrender. Nor is engagement with New Delhi inherently objectionable. But political language acquires meaning from its context. The concern is not courtesy. It is the apparent absence of a corresponding assertion of political interests.

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