The NC’s Post Article 370 Strategy of Simulated Dissent in Kashmir

When dissent is curated rather than engaged, it loses its transformative potential, writes Huzaiful Reyaz.

This choreography—of the dissenter who won’t defect and the party that won’t punish—serves to protect both. It is ideological dissent without institutional disobedience,

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

In the charged political climate of post-Article 370 Jammu and Kashmir, dissent, especially from within the mainstream political fold, carries layered meanings.

It is no longer merely about ideological differences or leadership styles; it has become a complex performance shaped by institutional irrelevance and a desperate battle for political survival. In this context, when a senior leader like Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi publicly challenges his party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC), for its silence and strategic ambiguity, it is tempting to read it as a sign of internal democracy.

But the reality is more complicated than that.

Earlier this year, Ruhullah, a Shia leader from Budgam and an MP representing Srinagar, broke ranks to criticise his party’s equivocation on the constitutional disempowerment of the region.

Calling for a more assertive stance on political dignity and the restoration of autonomy, Ruhullah’s statements stood out not only for their candour but also for the eerie quiet with which they were received by the NC leadership. No rebuke. No endorsement. No debate. Just a studious silence.

This episode is emblematic of a broader strategy, one that has become central to the NC’s political grammar since 2019: the careful curation of internal dissent as a survival mechanism. By allowing occasional eruptions of discontent from within, the party simulates ideological vitality without risking structural disruption.

This is dissent without disruption—a controlled release valve that projects openness while preserving dynastic power.

Ruhullah’s Position: Dissent as Distance

Ruhullah’s political positioning since 2019 has been unmistakably distinct. Unlike the rest of the NC leadership, who have largely chosen tactical silence, selective outrage, or procedural protests, Ruhullah has consistently invoked moral clarity.

He has rejected the politics of accommodation that once defined the NC’s approach to New Delhi, and called for a renewed, assertive articulation of Kashmiri autonomy. In public speeches, social media posts, and interviews, Ruhullah has critiqued the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A not merely as a legal setback, but as a civilisational assault on Kashmiri political identity.

He frequently recalls episodes such as the 1953 dismissal and arrest of Sheikh Abdullah to contextualise the state’s long history of democratic subversion in Kashmir. By foregrounding memory and grievance, Ruhullah positions himself not just as a party insider, but as a reluctant insider—a voice of conscience.

Yet, this moral clarity does not translate into institutional challenge. He remains within the party, refraining from organising a breakaway faction, issuing an ultimatum, or mobilising mass support. Instead, his dissent is largely rhetorical, often issued through media channels and social media platforms, and carefully walks the line between opposition and loyalty.

In December 2024, Ruhullah’s walkout from an NC Working Committee meeting over disagreements regarding reservation policies and the party’s political passivity was framed by the party as a “personal emergency.” The message was clear: ideological ruptures are to be depoliticied, not engaged. Disagreement must remain a private affair—even when it erupts in public.

Historical Precedence 

This isn’t the first time the NC has had to navigate internal dissent. The party’s history is replete with moments when internal critics were either expelled, sidelined, or domesticated.

In the late 1970s, Mirza Afzal Beg—a co-founder of the party and then Deputy Chief Minister—fell out with Sheikh Abdullah over governance issues and political direction. Accused of disloyalty and sacked in 1978, Beg went on to found the Inqalab National Conference, attempting to mount a challenge to dynastic rule.

The attempt failed, but the episode marked a turning point. It made clear that within the NC, dissent that seeks structural change or threatens the ruling dynasty’s supremacy would be treated as rebellion, not difference.

Unlike Beg, Ruhullah has not made a clean break. Instead, he remains tethered to the party’s institutional machinery while projecting distance from its strategic decisions. This serves both, the individual and the institution: Ruhullah builds a brand of moral seriousness, and the NC absorbs dissent without destabilising itself. It’s a mutually beneficial theatre—if also a cynical one.

Dissent as Performance

Why does the NC tolerate such dissent today, when it previously punished it?

The answer lies in the dramatically altered political landscape of Kashmir since August 2019. With Article 370 abrogated, the state bifurcated, and the region placed under direct central control, mainstream political parties lost not just power but legitimacy. Their public outreach has reduced, their support base has eroded, and their ideological ground is shaky.

In this context, dissent from within functions as a form of political insurance.

By allowing controlled dissent, the NC signals to both, its constituents and external observers, that it remains a broad tent—alive, critical, and self-correcting. It becomes a way to perform pluralism in a moment of deep political marginalisation. Crucially, it avoids the harsher response that a more confrontational posture would invite in the current political order.

But this strategy comes at a cost. When dissent is curated rather than engaged, it loses its transformative potential. When moral clarity is tolerated as long as it does not translate into organisational reform or leadership challenge, it becomes performance, symbolic rather than substantive.

The larger question is this: can such controlled expressions of dissent reinvigorate Kashmir’s mainstream politics, or do they merely delay a deeper reckoning? The NC’s current model—allowing internal critique as long as it does not destabilise the dynastic core—may help it survive another election cycle, but it offers little by way of political renewal.

Moreover, this model reproduces a dangerous paradox. By tolerating dissent only when it is strategically useful, the party reduces it to a spectacle. Ruhullah’s critique becomes part of the party’s branding, a proof of vitality rather than a provocation toward reform. This is how systems absorb critique to sustain themselves, not to change.

Illusion of Introspection

Across India’s political landscape, dissenters have historically faced marginalisation, expulsion, or even imprisonment. From Yogendra Yadav’s ouster from the Aam Aadmi Party to Sharad Yadav’s principled stand against the BJP-JD(U) alliance, breaking ranks has come at the cost of power, position, or party loyalty.

In contrast, Ruhullah Mehdi’s dissent within the National Conference appears curiously insulated, loud enough to make headlines, yet quiet enough to avoid institutional rupture.

Despite his public criticism of the NC’s post-370 silence and political passivity, Ruhullah has neither resigned from the party nor posed a credible challenge to its leadership structure. He continues to occupy a central space within its electoral and ideological apparatus, even representing the party as its Srinagar MP.

This duality, being both insider and critic, works to his personal advantage. It allows him to fashion himself as a morally upright dissenter while enjoying the protection, visibility, and electoral capital that comes with party affiliation. The cost of his rebellion, in this context, is remarkably low.

Compare this to political figures in other regional formations who have taken dissent to its logical conclusion. Ruhullah, by contrast, remains firmly embedded in a structure he ostensibly critiques. His dissent is thus not a threat to the party’s dominance, but a curated performance that shields it from external scrutiny. The NC, in turn, benefits from his moral outrage. It uses Ruhullah to project internal debate and ideological vitality at a time when the party is otherwise seen as rudderless and compromised. His critiques offer the illusion of a party in introspection, grappling with its failures, when in reality, there is little evidence of course correction. 

This choreography—of the dissenter who won’t defect and the party that won’t punish—serves to protect both. It is ideological dissent without institutional disobedience, a ritualised performance that boosts the personal credibility of the speaker while leaving the system fundamentally unchallenged.

Shrinking Space for Opposition

In post-Article 370 Kashmir, the fate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) offers a sobering view of how opposition politics in the region has collapsed, not always through external repression, but often through internal incoherence.

Once a formidable electoral force, the PDP today appears politically hollow, organisationally fractured, and strategically directionless. Its marginalisation is frequently read as the cost of standing up to the Centre after 2019. But that interpretation obscures a deeper truth: the PDP was not punished for defiance, it was discredited for duplicity.

For years, the PDP positioned itself as both a partner to the BJP at the Centre and a custodian of Kashmiri identity in the Valley—a political balancing act that ultimately collapsed under the weight of its contradictions. By entering into an alliance with the BJP in 2015, the PDP legitimised the same political project that would later oversee the abrogation of Kashmir’s autonomy. In the end, the PDP did not pay the price for resistance. It paid the price for opportunism.

After August 5, 2019, the party’s rhetoric shifted dramatically, with Mehbooba Mufti recasting herself as a vocal opponent of the Centre’s “constitutional betrayal.” But the pivot came too late, and with too little credibility. Her arrest and subsequent defiance were framed as acts of principle, but they lacked the moral weight of a party that had not already compromised on the question of autonomy.

The PDP’s collapse, therefore, was as much a crisis of narrative as it was of state repression. Unlike the National Conference, which perfected the art of ambiguity, the PDP swung from enabling the BJP to denouncing it, making both positions seem politically hollow.

Yet even in its collapse, the PDP inadvertently reinforced the NC’s comparative legitimacy. By losing relevance so dramatically, it created a vacuum that the NC could fill, not with radical opposition, but with carefully managed critique. Ruhullah Mehdi’s dissent, then, plays out against this backdrop: he appears bold because the political field is so barren, not because his words are transformational. His survival within the NC and continued electoral prospects only underscore how selective dissent, when calibrated to avoid real confrontation, is rewarded in Kashmir’s new political normal.

The lesson is clear: Kashmir’s mainstream parties have not been destroyed, they have been reshaped. Some, like the PDP, are punished for incoherence. Others, like the NC, are preserved because they dissent without disruption. Leaders like Ruhullah thrive not because they break the rules, but because they perform critique in a way that doesn’t threaten the architecture of managed democracy.

(The author is a researcher and independent writer based in New Delhi. His work engages with questions of identity, governance, and public life through the lenses of politics, religion, culture, and society. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)