In most places, an armed policeman walking beside someone indicates danger. In Kashmir, he can also indicate status. A politician may lose an election, surrender his office, disappear from public life and retain barely enough supporters to fill a drawing room. Yet two policemen may continue following him as though the security of the entire region depends upon his survival.
The politician may no longer matter politically. His security arrangement, however, remains magnificently alive.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Human life does not become less valuable when a person loses an election or ceases to hold office. Kashmir has witnessed assassinations, targeted attacks and threats against political workers, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens. Anyone facing a credible danger must be protected, regardless of popularity, productivity or political affiliation.
The real question is whether every protected person continues to face such danger — or whether many are being guarded simply because nobody has bothered to review an old entitlement. And/or nobody has bothered to see how much contribution does the protected person make to the nation-building.
Kashmir has created a curious class of permanently protected personalities. Some hold no constitutional position. Some have exercised no public responsibility for years. Some have little recognisable political activity and virtually no public following. Yet they continue travelling with two or more Personal Security Officers, occupying police manpower that could be used in police stations, markets, vulnerable villages, investigations and public patrols.
These policemen are not produced in unlimited numbers. Every constable attached unnecessarily to a former politician, retired office-bearer or ornamental public figure is one constable unavailable to the public.
That is the burden that needs further calculation.
The public sees the gunman beside the politician. It does not see the understaffed police station from which he may have been withdrawn. It sees the escort vehicle, but not the investigation delayed because personnel are stretched. It sees doors being opened for a protectee, but not the ordinary citizen waiting for police assistance elsewhere.
VIP security therefore carries an opportunity cost. Protecting one person without a genuine contemporary threat can reduce the police presence available to protect hundreds of others.
The arrangement also manufactures political importance. A person who might otherwise enter a gathering unnoticed arrives with armed escorts and immediately acquires an artificial aura of authority. Organisers rearrange chairs. Gates open. Officials become attentive. The rifle standing behind him becomes his introduction.
The gunman, in effect, keeps the politician politically alive.
Some public figures may have lost their constituencies, their party positions and their ability to influence a municipal decision. But the presence of two armed policemen preserves the illusion that they remain dangerously important. In Kashmir’s peculiar status economy, relevance is sometimes measured not by public support but by the number of rifles visible behind a chair.
This is unfair to the police personnel themselves. A trained policeman is not a chauffeur, bag-carrier, shopping companion, domestic attendant or ceremonial accessory. He joined the force to enforce law, protect life and confront danger. He should not be reduced to carrying the fading prestige of someone whose threat perception may have expired years ago.
The principle should be simple: security must follow threat, not title.
Protection should never continue automatically merely because someone once served as a legislator, minister, party office-bearer or government adviser. A former designation is not proof of a present danger. Nor should political access, social influence or repeated requests to senior officers become substitutes for professional threat assessment.
Every security cover should undergo a compulsory review at fixed intervals. A fresh assessment must follow electoral defeat, retirement, resignation, removal from office or prolonged withdrawal from public activity. Where intelligence agencies identify a credible threat, protection must continue without hesitation. Where no meaningful threat remains, personnel should be withdrawn or deployment rationalised.
This does not require disclosing sensitive operational information. The administration can publish anonymised annual figures showing how many protected persons exist, how many police personnel and vehicles are deployed, how many reviews were conducted and how many security covers were upgraded, reduced or withdrawn.
Such transparency would reveal whether Kashmir operates a living security system or a museum of inherited privileges.
There must also be strict action against the misuse of PSOs. A policeman assigned for personal protection must not be used to run household errands, carry luggage, manage private business, secure preferential entry or intimidate local officials. When police protection begins functioning as personal staff, the difference between security and servitude disappears.
The most uncomfortable question is not whether Kashmir can protect threatened people. It must.
The question is whether Kashmir can afford to guard every person who still wishes to appear threatened.
Police manpower is a public resource, not a retirement benefit for political personalities. It must be directed towards actual danger, not permanent prestige. A society cannot complain of inadequate policing while trained personnel remain deployed outside the homes, offices and social functions of people whose public relevance vanished long ago.
A police rifle is not a ceremonial sceptre. A PSO is not a medal awarded for once having mattered.
Kashmir must protect every genuinely threatened life. But it must stop wasting policemen on protecting political importance that survives only because policemen are standing beside it.
