I AM A JAMMUITE: When Cold Exposes Limits of Governance
Cold cannot be confronted by strength alone.
It requires systems, intent, understanding, and responsible governance.
Anil Kumar Sharma
Brrrr… it’s cold.
Winter is often described not merely as a season, but as a celebration. Wrapped in a warm duvet, with another cup of hot tea in hand, one begins to reflect on the cold wave we are currently experiencing and the thoughts it quietly provokes.
There is comfort in old wisdom that tells us that whether the weather is fine or foul, hot or cold, we weather it nonetheless. Sunshine delights, rain refreshes, wind braces, and snow exhilarates. There is no bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
Winter also reminds us of something deeper. Nothing is meant to bloom all the time. No winter lasts forever, and no spring skips its turn. However difficult it may feel, spring always follows.
That quiet optimism, however, meets a harsher reality when winter is lived not as poetry, but as policy.
The other day, during a routine conversation with my son who now lives in Milwaukee in North America, winter entered our discussion naturally. I spoke of how life here has narrowed in recent weeks. Fog blocks even the sun’s warmth, movement slows, and daily routines in Jammu and Kashmir feel curtailed. He asked about the temperature. I told him it hovers around eleven degrees in Jammu and remains below zero in Srinagar.
His response was revealing. It is minus five there today, and sometimes it goes down to minus forty. Yet life continues in full working mode. Indoors, people move around in minimal clothing because homes are uniformly heated. This is routine across North America and Europe. Extreme cold exists, but it is neutralised by systems.
That contrast explains more than any statistic ever could.
In developed countries, winter is treated as an operational certainty. Infrastructure is designed on the assumption that cold will arrive and stay. Central heating, insulated housing, resilient power supply, snow ready roads, and dependable public transport ensure continuity. Work continues through winter, while people often choose summer for vacations, travel, and leisure.
There, winter is for work. Summer is for rest.
In Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the rhythm is almost the reverse.
Here, winter suspends public life. Educational institutions shut for long winter vacations. Offices function at reduced capacity. Large parts of the Union Territory, especially the higher reaches, are cut off as roads close. Families travel in winter not for recreation, but to escape the severity of the cold. Summer becomes the season of activity, while winter becomes a season of contraction.
This is not a cultural choice. It is a structural constraint.
The experience of cold in Jammu highlights a paradox. Temperatures here are far milder than in colder countries, yet the cold feels harsher. The reason lies not in nature, but in preparedness. Inadequate heating, poorly insulated homes, and limited access to quality winter clothing mean that people here absorb the cold directly. Those living in far colder climates are protected by design, habit, and governance.
In developed societies, cold is kept outside institutions.
In Jammu and Kashmir, cold enters homes, schools, offices, and hospitals.
The economic consequences are predictable. Tourism slows, construction halts, daily wage employment collapses, and agriculture enters forced dormancy. Income earned in warmer months must stretch across long winter weeks. Schools close not merely due to snowfall, but because classrooms cannot offer children basic thermal comfort. Healthcare access becomes uncertain precisely when vulnerability increases.
What deepens the hardship is not winter itself, but the absence of winter governance.
Snowfall is not unexpected. Sub zero temperatures are not anomalies. Yet every winter seems to place the administration in the same dilemma, reacting rather than anticipating, managing rather than preparing. Over time, lowered expectations become normalised.
Winter preparedness does not require imitation of Western models. It requires context sensitive planning. Insulation standards for public buildings, reliable winter electricity and water supply, decentralised heating in schools and hospitals, assured snow clearance on critical routes, and protection of winter livelihoods are not luxuries. They are baseline obligations in a cold region.
Without them, endurance becomes compulsory rather than voluntary.
And yet, society continues to compensate where systems fall short. Families gather in one heated room. Neighbours check on the elderly. Food and fuel are shared. Human warmth bridges institutional gaps.
In developed countries, winter tests efficiency.
In Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, winter tests endurance.
The distinction matters. Patience should not be mistaken for policy, and resilience should not become a substitute for governance. As winters grow increasingly erratic, preparedness will determine whether cold remains a season, or becomes a crisis.
Winter will return.
Whether it finds us merely patient, or finally prepared, depends on choices made long before the first snowfall.
Sardi ka muqaabla sirf taqat se nahin hota.
Is ke liye nizaam, niyyat, samajh aur zimmedari bhi chahiye.
(Cold cannot be confronted by strength alone.
It requires systems, intent, understanding, and responsible governance.)
(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE)
