People of Jammu and Kashmir have suffered a lot. From early nineties to 2018 they suffered due to unabated violence and law and order situation. From 2018 onwards, though the law and order situation witnessed visible improvement, the people and their voice vanished from the scene. There was no public participation in the business of governance and people felt rudderless. Though several steps were taken by the administration to better peoples’ lives but because all these steps were taken without having public input, these hardly could impress the citizenry. Fact of the matter is that people love democracy because this system of governance makes one feel important and also a stake holder in the affairs of the place. However, that was missing from all these years that is why the new government has to be extra conscious to convey to the people, in unequivocal terms, that yes, they matter.
The present Omar Abdullah government may not have much powers but it has some and until statehood is restored, this government has to use ‘these some powers’ to address peoples’ basic issues including power supply, drinking water, health and education. The government must take all necessary steps to ensure that drinking water reaches ever household regularly. Reports pouring in from different areas of Valley suggest that people are facing acute water shortage.
The concerned elected members, be those from the coalition parties or opposition, should be all time available to their electorate and listen to their grievances and try to address the same. As earlier mentioned, elections are over so they have to rise above politics and serve every individual of their respective constituencies irrespective of the individual’s political affiliation. They have to understand that though they have been elected by few, they represent all.
Of the many problems facing Jammu and Kashmir, joblessness or lack of meaningful employment is certainly one of the major crises. However, thus far not much is actually being done to tackle it. While a good chunk of jobless people could be engaged in government service, it is also true that no government, how-much-so-ever it wants to, could provide government jobs to all unemployed people. But it is certainly the responsibility of the government to explore ways and means and then also facilitate meaningful and profitable engagement to not only the educated but even uneducated jobless people. As an alternative, the jobless people could and should be encouraged to think of starting their own business ventures so that not only they themselves but other jobless people too get jobs. For this governments have time and again pledged all sorts of support including seed money and soft loans from the banks besides other incentives that appear quite an attractive offer, at least on the paper. Unfortunately, all these sops do not materialize as easily on the ground as they seem in political and official assertions.
