There was a time when the turban, the dastaar, carried weight. Not just as cloth on the head, but as a symbol of honour, leadership, and responsibility. Today in Kashmir, what remains is a Loore Dastaar: a turban without a head beneath it, a position without power, and a system without the people.
On July 13, as Kashmir marked Martyrs’ Day, a date that commemorates those who fell resisting Dogra autocracy in 1931, the Chief Minister stood before the public and admitted aloud, “Are we slaves?” He posed the question rhetorically, yet his tone betrayed resignation, not resistance. A man who holds the supposed top seat of the region’s administration was reduced to asking, not answering, what role he truly plays in the governance of Kashmir.
And if the one wearing the dastaar is unsure of his agency, what is left for the rest of us?
Who governs Kashmir?
Since the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, we have been told that democracy has been restored in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). What kind of democracy has no elected Assembly for five years? What kind of democracy appoints a Lieutenant Governor, not chosen by the people, but by bureaucrats in Delhi? And what kind of democracy forces even its ceremonial leaders into silence, caution, or token speeches made under watchful eyes?
The Loore Dastaar is not just a metaphor. It is a political reality.
There are no meaningful mechanisms of power-sharing anymore. No federalism, no State autonomy, not even basic space for political negotiation. Local governance is reduced to administration. The police, bureaucracy, and security agencies run the region, not elected voices, not community leaders, not even civil society. We have Panchayat members and District Development Council representatives, but what is their role when their budgets are frozen and their motions ignored?
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This isn’t power-sharing. It’s a power projection.
Look no further than the words of Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, the sitting MP from Srinagar, who just days ago exposed a brutal truth on national media. He described how army convoys block roads even in cases of severe medical emergencies. Ambulances carrying patients in critical condition are stopped. Pregnant women have been forced to wait behind military vehicles while their lives hang in the balance.
If this is the reality for an MP to highlight, imagine the plight of the common Kashmiri, far from the media, far from any mic or camera.
Imagine being stuck on a road, bleeding, breathless, with your loved ones helpless, because your pain, your life, is secondary to the performance of power. Because in this version of democracy, the state doesn’t exist to serve the people. The people exist to accommodate the state.
This is the system we live under. One where symbols are upheld, but substance is stripped away. A land of posters and promises, not policy and protection.
Public votes, but is never heard
And so, I return to that image: the Loore Dastaar. A turban once worn with dignity, now held aloft like a museum piece. A Chief Minister who can’t move without New Delhi’s signal. An MP who can only raise his voice after watching his people suffer. A public that votes, but is never heard.
Yet I do not invoke the Loore Dastaar only to mourn. I invoke it as a challenge. To demand more than illusion. To insist on self-respect, representation, and accountability. If democracy is real, it cannot exist only in slogans and state-sponsored headlines. It must live on roads that are free, ambulances that move, leaders who lead, and citizens who are heard.
Until then, let us call this what it is: governance without authority, power without consent, and leadership without legitimacy.
A Loore Dastaar. A hollow crown on an invisible head.
Ifrah Khalil Kawa is a Master’s student in Peace and Conflict Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia. Her research interests include international relations, conflict dynamics, and global peacebuilding.
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