Step into a government office in Kashmir on a Friday afternoon and you will witness a scene that has become depressingly predictable. Before noon, files are stacked, visitors line up, clerks shuffle papers, and officials occasionally appear on their chairs. But the moment the clock nudges towards Friday prayers, the entire atmosphere collapses into an eerie silence. Chairs turn empty, counters remain unattended, and corridors echo only with the sound of disappointed citizens leaving with half-finished work.
The tragedy is not the prayer – it is the disappearance. The overwhelming majority of officials do not return after prayers. What should be a break of an hour morphs into an unofficial half-day holiday. The citizen who walked in with hope at 2 p.m. finds nothing but vacant desks and excuses.
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This is not faith. This is dereliction.
And yet, every month, the salaries are paid in full. Every allowance is claimed. Every benefit is enjoyed. The system pretends that work is happening, while in reality, Friday afternoons are simply written off as a loss.
The Cost of a Culture of Absenteeism
The victims of this “Friday Syndrome” are not faceless numbers – they are ordinary citizens. Someone from someplace who has travelled from a village for a small task, spending money on transport, returns home empty-handed because the official he needed to meet never came back after prayers. The contractor whose bills are pending faces another week of delay. The farmer who needed a certificate for seeds must make a second trip. The sick patient waiting for an official recommendation letter loses precious time.
This is not just inconvenience – it is theft. Theft of time, theft of public trust, and theft of accountability. When governance takes a weekly half-day off under the garb of prayers, it robs the common man of his right to service.
Faith vs. Duty
Let us be very clear: nobody questions the sanctity of Friday prayers. Faith is personal, sacred, and deserves full respect. But faith does not permit negligence of duty. Religion does not demand that after prayers one must abandon responsibility altogether. That is not devotion – it is a convenient misinterpretation.
Governance is a public trust. When an official accepts a government job, he accepts that his time, during office hours, belongs to the people. To walk away from that responsibility, week after week, is a breach of contract with society itself.
The Double Standards
The irony is brutal. In Kashmir, we lament poor governance, endless delays, and mountains of red tape. We curse corruption, inefficiency, and neglect. Yet, at the same time, we normalize the fact that every Friday afternoon, governance shuts down. Nobody asks the question: How much cumulative time is lost in a year? How many thousands of working hours vanish in this ritual of avoidance? How many crores worth of productivity are simply thrown away because offices choose to nap after prayers?
If private businesses ran this way, they would collapse in weeks. If doctors in hospitals did this, patients would die. If schools followed this pattern, entire generations would be illiterate. Yet, because it is government, the culture survives unchecked.
The Way Forward: Make Sundays Count
If half of Friday is unofficially declared as a holiday, then logic demands that the government must recover those hours elsewhere. The simplest way is to make Sundays compulsory working days. At least half-day offices could function on Sunday to compensate for the time lost.
This is not a punishment. It is a correction. It sends a message that while faith is respected, duty will not be compromised. Citizens have a right to service throughout the week, and government cannot function on a self-designed four-and-a-half day week at the expense of taxpayers.
Imagine the impact: Sunday half-days could clear backlogs, reduce delays, and ensure that citizens who are otherwise busy during the week can also access services. It would create a sense of seriousness in governance and eliminate the culture of “vanishing Fridays.”
Accountability Must Be Visible
Of course, rules alone won’t change culture unless there is accountability. Departments must record attendance after Friday prayers. Surprise inspections must be conducted. Non-attendance should reflect in salaries. If a clerk or officer chooses to vanish, he must be answerable. Citizens should be able to lodge simple complaints about officials not being available, and those complaints must trigger consequences.
Unless accountability becomes visible, reforms will remain cosmetic. But if government truly wants to set an example, making Sunday mandatory work days is the bold step needed. It would compensate for lost hours, shake up the complacency, and remind officials that governance is not an optional chore – it is a sacred duty.
A Citizen’s Right, Not a Favour
The people of Kashmir do not ask for charity when they demand services from government offices. They are not begging for favours. They are exercising their right as citizens of a democracy, funded by their taxes. They deserve offices that function fully, every day of the week, not ones that vanish mysteriously on Friday afternoons.
The government must not tolerate this disappearing act any longer. Either Fridays must be monitored strictly, or Sundays must be opened up to compensate. Anything less is injustice.
Faith is sacred, but so is public duty. And duty delayed is duty denied.
