Srinagar, Sept. 1 -- By Sheikh Salman Amin

Kashmir's political establishment has spent decades converting public hope into electoral currency.

Parties that once presented themselves as guardians of constitutional guarantees and regional autonomy gradually entered the same bargains that weakened those protections.

After the constitutional changes of August 2019 and years of bureaucratic rule without an elected government, electoral politics returned with the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party seeking renewed trust from a population already exhausted by disappointment.

Their campaigns revived old grievances and promises, while their own histories remained part of the story.

The poet Raghib Tehseen gives this disillusionme...