A democracy reveals its true strength at the grassroots. 

Citizens experience government most directly through village panchayats, municipal councils and local representatives who live among them, hear their concerns and answer for their decisions. 

That is precisely why the prolonged absence of elected local bodies in Jammu and Kashmir has become one of the most troubling governance failures in recent years.

More than two and a half years have passed without elected panchayats or urban local bodies in Jammu and Kashmir. 

The five-year term of urban local bodies ended in November 2023. The term of 4,291 panchayats, representing 33,597 wards, concluded on January 9, 2024. District Development Councils, which completed the three-tier Panchayati Raj framework introduced with considerable fanfare, also completed their tenure earlier this year.

Today, citizens find themselves without elected representatives at the village, municipal and district levels. 

Such a prolonged vacuum would trigger intense political debate anywhere else in the country. Jammu and Kashmir, however, has witnessed a puzzling silence.

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That silence stands in striking contrast to the enthusiasm that surrounded local elections in 2018 and the District Development Council elections in 2020. 

At that time, the central government highlighted those polls as proof that democracy had reached the grassroots despite difficult security conditions. Senior BJP leaders repeatedly celebrated the elections as a major democratic achievement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other national leaders spoke extensively about empowering local........

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