Srinagar, July 26: The PDP President Mehbooba Mufti’s remarks at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar have reopened one of Kashmir’s deepest political wounds: the legacy of the 2016 unrest and the use of force against civilians. While the PDP president intended to distinguish between law-and-order situations elsewhere and the security challenges posed by militancy in Kashmir, one phrase, “banta hai”, came to define the entire speech, eclipsing her broader message.
Addressing students protesting over the NEET paper leak, Mehbooba contrasted police action in Delhi with the situation in Kashmir. In doing so, she suggested that security forces in Kashmir were confronting militancy, adding that there “was militancy there” and that “it banta hai”, a phrase many interpreted as justifying the use of force against Kashmiri protesters. Critics quickly isolated those words from the larger speech, transforming them into a potent political weapon.
The backlash was immediate because the comment struck at a deeply sensitive memory. For many Kashmiris, 2016 remains synonymous with pellet injuries, civilian deaths and mass protests during the PDP-BJP coalition government led by Mehbooba Mufti. Any suggestion, even if unintended, that those actions were justified was bound to provoke outrage.
The National Conference sensed an opportunity. Party leaders demanded that Mehbooba apologise, arguing that no democratic leader should appear to legitimise excessive force against civilians. The controversy also enabled the NC to reinforce its long-standing narrative that the PDP cannot escape responsibility for decisions taken during its coalition with the BJP.
NC leader and Zadibal MLA Tanvir Sadiq called on Mehbooba to apologise, arguing that her remarks appeared to equate routine public protests with militancy.
“Are those who protest against reservation militants? Are those who protest for basic amenities also militants? This is shameful coming from a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir,” Sadiq said, adding that Mehbooba owes an immediate apology to the people of J&K.
NC spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar accused PDP president Mehbooba Mufti of justifying the use of force against Kashmiri protesters, including young people and children.
“I am appalled beyond words. @MehboobaMufti unabashedly and casually brands every Kashmiri protester a ‘militant’. The kids, the little girls… just everyone was a militant, she says,” Dar posted on X.
“Even shame must be ashamed today. Her hypocrisy is uglier than what I believed.”
Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party similarly criticised the remarks, saying that describing the suffering of Kashmiri protesters as something that “banta hai” amounted to lowering the political discourse and undermined the pain experienced by thousands of families.
“This is, after all, the same leader who justified the killing of Kashmiri children by asking, ‘Kya woh doodh aur toffee lane gaye the?’ (Had those children gone out to fetch milk and toffees?),” Bukhari said.
The Awami Ittehad Party was even more scathing, accusing Mehbooba of “political hypocrisy” for condemning police action against students in Delhi while, in its view, rationalising actions taken against Kashmiri youth during her own tenure. It argued that she owed an apology to young Kashmiris rather than attempting to recast her record.
On social media, however, the debate was more nuanced than the political rhetoric suggested. Critics widely shared clipped videos containing only the “banta hai” phrase, arguing that Mehbooba had inadvertently admitted the legitimacy of the state’s response during 2016. Supporters countered with longer videos, insisting that she had been explaining the distinction between counter-insurgency operations and ordinary policing rather than endorsing civilian casualties. The resulting information battle became less about what she said in full and more about which clip viewers encountered first.
Politically, the controversy exposes the PDP’s continuing dilemma. Since 2019, Mehbooba Mufti has positioned herself as one of the strongest critics of the Centre’s Kashmir policy and a defender of civil liberties. Yet every attempt to reclaim that space is overshadowed by the legacy of her party’s alliance with the BJP and the events of 2016. Her opponents understand this and have repeatedly sought to bring that period back into public debate.
In the end, the storm over “banta hai” is about more than a single phrase. It illustrates how, in Kashmir’s intensely polarised politics, a few words can outweigh an entire speech, and how unresolved memories of 2016 continue to shape the credibility of today’s political leaders.
