Asif Mahmood

Elections in Azad Kashmir are just around the corner, yet the real issue is that the politicians have been left behind while society has moved ahead. When politicians and politics fall behind but society continues to evolve, a vacuum emerges between the two. If politics continues to evolve, that vacuum is naturally filled. But when political evolution comes to a halt, the result is not stagnation; it is the birth of crises.

Politics thrives on inspiration. A politician must possess enough moral and emotional capital to keep people invested. The political class in Kashmir needs to ask itself a difficult question: does Kashmiri politics still offer a slogan that inspires, a hope worth believing in, a dream worth pursuing, a romance that captures the public imagination? If it does, what form does it take? And if it does not, why has it disappeared?

Politics, too, must understand that the moment it distances itself from the people, the moment it is reduced to little more than a pursuit of power through the back corridors of authority and a scramble for vested interests, the public inevitably loses interest. And when people disengage from politics, both politics and the democratic process lose their legitimacy. When politics becomes synonymous with manipulation, deal-making, and opportunism, society ceases to place its trust in it.

Politics needs to retain an element of romance if it is to remain meaningful. Tell me, what romance is left in Kashmiri politics today? There is the Pakistan Peoples Party, the Pakistan Muslim League (N), and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Although PTI is not formally participating in this electoral process, it remains part of the political landscape. But what exactly is the inspiring idea on offer? PTI seems to have little beyond the politics of resentment and post-truth narratives, while the other parties have reached a point where even their slogans have faded away. On what basis, then, is the ordinary citizen expected to remain emotionally connected to these political parties?

Times have changed. The architecture of traditional politics is undergoing a profound transformation. Industrialisation reshaped European societies over generations. In Pakistan, however, social media has transformed society at an even greater speed. Politics based on kinship, clans, and local factions is steadily losing relevance. Individuals are increasingly making their own choices. A new age of digital individualism has taken hold. Young people are thinking, questioning, reacting with passion. Their palms carry difficult questions, and unless those questions are heard and answered, democracy and the democratic process cannot command genuine legitimacy.

The real question, then, is: where do we go from here?

One thing must be clearly understood. Whether it is the Kashmir Action Committee or an even more radical version of it, such platforms cannot resolve the underlying problems, nor can those problems ultimately be solved through them. They may serve as an outlet for public frustration. They may temporarily soothe collective anger and emotional upheaval. But enduring political questions are resolved only through political and democratic means.

If anyone believes that while remaining within a democratic order they can bypass established politics and adopt some entirely different path to resolve their grievances, they may perhaps achieve an occasional partial success. But such methods can never deliver lasting results, nor can they guarantee meaningful change. More often than not, they lead only to disorder and destruction.

There is only one viable path: democratic struggle. Come to power through democracy, through elections. Whatever your worldview may be, whatever social or political vision you hold, contest elections, win the public mandate, and implement it through constitutional authority. To stay outside the electoral process, shut down cities, paralyse public life, occupy the streets, and assume that demands can be secured in this way is wishful thinking—especially when some of those demands require constitutional amendments. Constitutions are not amended by sit-ins on highways. They are amended inside legislatures, through democratic procedure and constitutional process.

Democracy, despite all its imperfections, remains the best option available to us. At present, no workable alternative exists. If one group succeeds today in sitting on the streets until all its demands are accepted, another group will attempt the same tomorrow, followed by a third the day after. Before long, such a pattern breeds nothing but anarchy. That is precisely why the democratic path remains the only sustainable one.

There is another important point. Those who come onto the streets and stage protests ultimately direct their demands to governments. If they are genuinely convinced that the public stands with their ideas and slogans, then there is a far better course available: contest elections, form the government yourselves, and implement your philosophy of life through democratic authority. Or support a political party that is at least sympathetic to those demands.

Protest is a means of influencing the democratic process. It can never be a substitute for the democratic process itself.

There is no denying that elections are often deeply flawed. Electoral transparency has long been one of our gravest challenges. Yet even that problem can only be corrected by participating in the democratic process, not by abandoning it for the streets.

That is why it is often said that the cure for democracy is more democracy.