Onlykashmir.in Editorial Desk
National Conference president Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s decision to invite leaders of the INDIA bloc and various other political parties, even the local BJP President and formerly BJP-PDP alliance leaders to participate in the proposed protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, demanding the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, has sparked a political debate.
Over the past few days, social media has been dominated by questions over which leaders were invited and which were left out. Several political figures have openly expressed disappointment at not receiving an invitation.
It is no secret that various political forces, directly or indirectly, played a role in the process that led to the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status and the loss of its statehood.
If some of those very individuals have now been invited to join the protest, every citizen and every political observer has the right to question that decision. The moral credibility of any public movement is weakened when its platform includes faces that are widely perceived to have been associated with the erosion of the very rights the movement seeks to restore.
However, there is another question that deserves equal attention.
Those who are criticising the protest solely because certain leaders were not invited should also have the courage to identify those who, in their opinion, should not have been invited.
If they believe that the credibility of the movement has been compromised, they should go beyond merely listing the excluded leaders and also point out those whose presence contradicts the very purpose of the campaign.
Simply saying that a particular leader was not invited is an incomplete criticism. Intellectual honesty demands that critics clearly identify those whom they believe were responsible for the loss of statehood, the weakening of constitutional rights, or the erosion of public trust, and explain why such individuals should not be part of the protest platform.
Without that consistency, making noise only about the invitation list appears less like a principled stand and more like an exercise in political optics aimed at attracting public attention.
The restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood is not a partisan issue. Political parties must rise above personal egos, partisan interests, and the pursuit of temporary publicity.
It is easy to politicise invitation lists, but honesty requires telling the whole truth. It is not enough to question why certain leaders were excluded; critics must also explain who should have been excluded and why.
Otherwise, the entire controversy risks becoming nothing more than political grandstanding, fleeting headlines, and an exercise in hypocrisy rather than a sincere debate on restoring the rights of the people.
