An MP is not elected merely to comment on events. He is elected to shape outcomes. That requires drafting legislation, pushing policy amendments, building alliances across parties, demanding institutional reforms, monitoring implementation, and ensuring follow-through. None of these generate viral clips – but they are the real instruments of power. If viral clips of the last year are anything to go by, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi seems to be least interested in outcomes.
There is a curious new standard being normalised in Kashmir’s politics: doing exactly what an elected Member of Parliament is constitutionally expected to do – and presenting it as an act of extraordinary courage. For example:
Raise an issue in Parliament? Applause. Write a letter? Celebration. Speak to the media? Declared resistance. Ask a question? Projected as rebellion. Ask ground zero impact. No, you must not. Gullible Kashmiris are so naïve that they get carried away by the slightest of emotional rants.
And this is where the public is being quietly short-changed. So much so that they don’t even have the faintest idea that they are being swept by a wind they had not asked for.
Well, Ruhullah Mehdi! Much of what is today projected as political daring is, in fact, the routine job description of an MP. Parliamentary questions, public statements, expressions of concern, and media engagement are not acts of defiance – they are duties funded by the taxpayer. There are many more duties that an MP is supposed to fulfil, but that is what most Kashmir MPs and MLAs are not habitual of bothering about.
Yet a narrative has been carefully cultivated where routine parliamentary conduct is packaged as heroic confrontation. Kashmiris love confrontation. For many, it is the morning bread – if you get it fresh from the kandur the tastier it would seem with noon chai.
This sleight of hand is not accidental. It is earned through the dubious behavior of the last seven decades and a half.
So much so that now politics in Kashmir has gradually shifted from delivery to display. The optics of speaking out have overtaken the substance of governing. As long as a leader appears angry, vocal, and confrontational, performance substitutes performance metrics. The bar is set so low that compliance with constitutional responsibility is projected as rebellion. A terrible deception lies here, and that would cost Kashmir much more than it cost it its statehood in the long run.
Ruhulla Mehdi has become more of a commentator than anything else. Almost an irritating ter in die prescription of a bitter pill written by a Dr Ali Jan of politics.
This affliction makes every administrative action an occasion for reaction. Every incident a microphone moment. The language remains fiery, the posture defiant, but the structural impact remains elusive. There is little evidence of sustained legislative strategy, policy architecture, or institutional engagement that survives beyond the news cycle.
He has never provided solutions or a possible roadmap for problems that he cries foul about and pins blame squarely on his own party and party leadership. So much so that even his party leadership has begun to take him lightly.
This is not unique to one individual, but Ruhullah’s case illustrates the pattern clearly because expectations around him were higher. Youth, visibility, and rhetorical sharpness created hope that a different political grammar might emerge. What many see instead is a familiar script repackaged for a younger audience. He is now, actually, deceiving them – by using them and their problems as fodder for his own grandstanding.
The deeper issue is not intent, but outcome. His best outcome would have been if he had provided a solution. Access the archives, and you would realise he never has.
If raising issues alone were governance, Kashmir would have transformed long ago. The region does not suffer from a lack of speeches; it suffers from the absence of systems. It does not lack outrage; it lacks enforcement, monitoring, and continuity.
There is also a subtler manipulation at work. By constantly projecting himself as a lone voice battling authority, a politician shields himself from scrutiny. Any criticism can be dismissed as hostility. Any demand for results can be branded as unfair. This creates a moral immunity – a politics of perpetual innocence. An age of 49 is not innocent; it is almost male menopause.
But representation is not about moral posturing. It is about results. Results? Inform, if there have been any!
An MP is expected to ask: What committees am I influencing? What legal safeguards am I pushing? What budgetary reallocations have I secured? What written assurances have I extracted? What follow-up mechanisms exist? And he is supposed to tell what he has done for the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. Has he?
No. These are unglamorous questions. They do not trend. But they matter. And until Kashmir politicians understand they matter, Kashmir is eventually set for perpetual doom.
The tragedy is that Kashmiri politics has trained its audience to mistake noise for navigation. The louder the protest, the greater the presumed sincerity. In this environment, politicians are rewarded not for outcomes but for outrage management. And so, the cycle continues.
The public feels represented, but remains unchanged. Politicians feel validated, but remain unaccountable. Institutions remain untouched, and systems remain broken. This is the real cheat – not legal, not procedural, but psychological.
When doing one’s constitutional duty is projected as exceptional bravery, expectations collapse. Citizens stop demanding more. Democracy quietly shrinks. In other words, citizens’ brains atrophy. Because of politicians like him, Kashmir’s neural network has collapsed.
Does Kashmir deserve this, or does it deserve better than symbolic defiance? Doesn’t it deserve rigorous representation – the kind that works through files, frameworks, and follow-ups rather than microphones and moments?
A politics that celebrates routine duty as heroism is not empowering the people – it is lowering the bar for leadership. And it is pushing its people into a vicious cycle of docility and decay.
