Chief Minister sahib, I voted for you. But your govt is disappointing me

By Maria Khan

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Sahib,

I voted for you in the recent  Assembly elections.

Like lakhs of other people of J&K, I believed your party’s promises. I believed your new avatar of someone who understands common people’s lives and aspirations better, would translate into better governance. I believed that after years of uncertainty, we would finally get a government that understood what ordinary people in Jammu & Kashmir expect in their day to day lives.

I am a happy, married woman. Don’t see this write up as the outpouring of an unhappy being. This write up seeks to make you to realise how miserable common citizens’ lives have become in Kashmir today.

Today, I am left asking a simple question: Have you done an honest and open reflection about how your voters feel today?

Every day, your government talks about the need for statehood restoration. Yes, statehood is important. Nobody disputes that. But do you have any idea how ordinary people are living in Kashmir today? Do you know what our daily lives look like?

I admire you for your fitness consciousness. You enjoy your walks and jogs at the Royal Spring Golf Course and similar sites in Jammu. You have access to world-class sports facilities. You can physically unwind in secure and beautiful spaces. But what about us?

I won’t talk about big things here. Like any normal human being, every morning, I want to step outside for a walk. I cannot.

The stray dog menace has turned our colonies, villages and neighbourhoods into zones of fear. We can’t move around anywhere, basically. We parents are afraid for our children just stepping out of our homes. Elderly people are afraid to venture out. Children are being bitten almost on a daily basis. Adults have been bitten. And, sadly, I have never seen you or any of your ministers/MLAs visiting children bitten by stray dogs. Did you see the traumatic video of a child at Kralpora, Budgam, being chased by dogs and crushed by a vehicle?

Does solving the stray dog menace require permission from the central government or statehood?

Hon’ble Supreme Court recently gave clear directions what policy instruments states and union territories have to get rid of this menace. Did your government consider any follow up actions? Did your government set aside a budget to address this issue?

Perhaps this is not a priority. Perhaps this issue cannot fetch votes and create vote banks.

That is not all.

When I drive to office, I sit in traffic and watch a system that seems designed to frustrate ordinary citizens. Traffic lights suddenly change because a VIP convoy is approaching. Signals that are green for the public become red without warning. We wait while powerful people pass.

Have you ever experienced traffic management through the eyes of a common citizen?

There appears to be no traffic discipline, no enforcement and no accountability. Road accidents claim precious lives every day. People die not only because of crashes but because road rules barely exist, safety culture is alien here and emergency response systems remain inadequate and disorganised.

Finally, when I return home after work, I want to take my children outside. I want them to cycle. I want them to breathe fresh air.

Again, I cannot.

The dogs are there.

My children, like thousands of others, are becoming addicted to mobile phones because there is increasingly nothing safe and accessible outside for them. Which safe open spaces I could take them to, which don’t have dogs?

Many of us now suffer from high blood pressure, rising cholesterol, stress-related illnesses and early symptoms of diabetes. We are trapped indoors. We are stressed at work. We are stressed on the roads. We are stressed in our homes.

I wish to ask today: What exactly is your government’s vision for improving our quality of life?

And then there is education and job prospects for our children.

As a parent, I sit with my children every evening and look at their books. Every time, I am shocked by the disconnect between what they are learning and what the modern world demands.

 Our children continue to be burdened with outdated curricula that often seem disconnected from today’s reality.

Have you ever sat down with parents, education experts and school authorities and asked whether our children are being prepared for the future?

Have you developed a time-bound plan to modernise education and jolt the medieval era J&K Board of School Education? Or are we simply expected to watch another generation fall behind?

Your government’s positioning on the Reservation issue has created deep anxiety among J&K’s majority population. There is a deep anxiety today among us that higher education and job opportunities for our children are shrinking and aspirations are being crushed. This is not a small issue.

Our young people need hope.

They need confidence that merit, effort and excellence still matter.

What they see instead is merit being sidelined by mediocrity, reserved privilege and uncertainty. Your government is not siding with the silent majority; it is playing vote bank politics.

Meanwhile, food safety remains a massive concern. We recently went through the horror of so-called “rotten meat” in our markets. What were we being fed? What about the outcomes of investigations or any systemic reforms introduced afterward?

Why this silence?

Do we not deserve answers?

Do we not deserve accountability?

What pains me even more is watching our environmental assets disappear before our eyes. Green spaces shrink. Wetlands are encroached upon. Illegal constructions emerge. Agricultural land vanishes.

Does stopping these violations require statehood?

Does protecting public spaces require approval from the Central Government?

Then there are our hospitals.

Have you visited the emergency departments recently?

Have you seen the overcrowding?

Have you seen the condition of public toilets?

Have you witnessed exhausted staff trying to cope with overwhelming patient loads?

Have you examined why families often complain about delays, absent specialists and malfunctioning equipment in our public hospitals and emergency units?

A civilised society is judged by the quality of its public healthcare. Yet many ordinary citizens continue to experience a system that barely is able to save lives. Isn’t it shocking that in this 21st century we do not have a dedicated cardiac emergency hospital in Kashmir, even as thousands die of cardiac issues that need not be fatal every year?

What disappoints me most is hearing elected representatives repeatedly say their hands are tied.

If every governance failure can be explained away by constitutional limitations, then what exactly is the purpose of having an elected government?

You once said bureaucrats respond only when there is fear of transfers.

Is that really the governance model we should aspire to?

Shouldn’t governance be built on systems, accountability, technology and competence rather than fear?

Shouldn’t your government surround itself with experts, technocrats and reformers who can create lasting solutions?

Please understand this clearly. Your government is trying to apply a governance model of the 1980s and 1990s in an era which is different, where the subjects of the state are young people who have different idea of how  governments should govern.

I can see clearly that even today most of your MLAs and ministers live in the nostalgia of the past. Some of them are very experienced. Some of them are very loyal to you. You indeed need loyal people. But people like me who voted for you are expecting a basic normality in our lives.

People like me are not asking for jobs, contracts, favours or special treatment.

We are asking for something much simpler.

We want safe streets.

We want better education for our children.

We want reliable hospitals.

We want safer food.

We want efficient traffic management.

We want public spaces where our children can play without fear.

We want a government that focuses as much on everyday governance as it does on larger political goals.

Kashmiris are not sheep. We are educated, informed and exposed to how cities and societies function elsewhere. We know what good governance looks like.

I voted for hope.

Today, I feel disappointed.

Please don’t promise us the stars.

Just give us a life where we can walk, breathe and live with dignity.