August 5 marks seven years since Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)’s special status (Article 370) was revoked by the Narendra Modi administration; a few days hence, August 9 will mark seven years of J&K’s loss of Statehood. Both actions were accompanied by the most dubious lockdown in India’s history. Thousands of troops were flown in, over 5,000 political leaders and cadre were detained, and curfew was imposed together with a communications blockade.
These were emergency measures, yet no emergency was either visible or declared. The Modi administration argued that its measures were temporary and would lead to a violence-free region in which economic growth would be unleashed. Instead, and predictably, violence has continued, as last year’s terrorist attacks in Kashmir’s Pahalgam (April) and Delhi’s Red Fort (November) attest; indeed, it has spread to areas that were relatively dormant, such as Poonch-Rajouri, and from there to adjoining districts of J&K.
Economically, the region continues to suffer. According to the J&K Economic Survey 2025-2026, the ratio of the region’s per capita income to the national average is 76.6%, whereas it was 79.9% in 2013-14, a fall of 3.3 percentage points. Unemployment remains close to twice that of the national average; graduate unemployment is as high as 23.9%.
Lockdowns and summons
Kashmiri response to the Pahalgam attack was a wholehearted rejection of violence, expressed in peace marches and candlelit demonstrations. It offered the Modi administration an opportunity for peacebuilding on the ground, beginning with the restoration of Statehood. Instead, the Union Home Ministry chose an even more heavy-handed security response. This year’s Amarnath yatra is the most militarised in the history of J&K. Citizens are routinely charged under the draconian Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on the flimsiest of grounds; mass summons are common — over 2,000 were called in for questioning after Constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi was shot on July 22 this year — curfews are more often in place than not; and the Union Territory has had the highest number of Internet and communications shutdowns in the country since 2019.
At the time, few recognised how momentous the Modi administration’s actions were, not only in what they did but also in how they did it. Article 370 was hollowed out by executive fiat — a Governor who later said he was ‘ordered’ to sign by the Union Home Minister. Statehood was removed by legislative fiat, via a Parliament which did not even consider consulting J&K’s people or political leaders. No Indian State had been stripped of its Statehood since Delhi lost its Statehood in 1956.
Together, the two actions comprised a breathtaking violation of India’s constitutional principles and the basic structure of the Union. They should have been seen as the second major salvo against India’s democracy — the first being the re-communalisation of the Indian polity through state-sanctioned attacks on Muslims and Christians — but instead they were hived off as specific to conflict-ridden Jammu and Kashmir.
The belief that draconian measures are justified in a conflict-ridden region is fundamentally flawed both morally and pragmatically, as India knows from its own colonial past. Morally, the argument that subjugation is a means towards a desirable end masks the point that subjugation is a repugnant end per se, never a means. Pragmatically, as India knows from its more recent past, subjugation only breeds disaffection which will likely express itself in violence when peaceful means of expression are disallowed.
Editorial | Fulfil the promise: On restoring Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir
Yet, the deployment of the argument has allowed the Modi administration to get away with direct rule for seven years. The Supreme Court of India let Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta parrot the argument for four years before weakly advising that Statehood be restored as soon as possible.
Three more years have passed since then, without the Court hearing petitions seeking a timeline for restoration. At no point did the Court question the Union on the utility of its measures on constitutionally moral, or even merely pragmatic, grounds.
Lieutenant-Governor holds power
The Constitution limited the imposition of emergency conditions to six months. Yet, in J&K, emergency conditions have not been lifted for seven years. Though the J&K High Court has repeatedly and increasingly lamented the misuse of draconian laws by the J&K police, its strictures do not appear to have led to reform. J&K held elections two years ago, but the elected administration has few powers. It is the Lieutenant-Governor who controls the administration, the police and government prosecutors under the 2024 Transaction of Business Rules; he has now been granted emergency powers over telecommunications. As an appointee rather than an elected representative, the Lieutenant-Governor is not accountable to the people.
Accountability through democracy
Thanks to India’s young, who so joyfully turned the derogatory ‘cockroach’ into an assertion of strength, accountability has acquired a salience that it had been stripped of over the past decade. Fortuitously, J&K’s ruling National Conference party had already decided to renew a campaign for the restoration of Statehood that the Congress party had launched two years ago but persisted with only fitfully. Now the campaign for Statehood must couch itself in the name of accountability.
As the Constitution clearly recognised, an elected administration is the only way to provide for accountability. Though accountability needs guarantees by an independent legislature, oversight and autonomous institutions and a free media, these too require an elected administration to develop. At base, civil society acquires some space to push for reform under an elected administration, which it lacks under an appointed administration.
Over the past decade, J&K has acquired a number of ugly firsts. It was the first State to undergo wide use of the semi-lethal pellet guns in 2016. (Ironically, pellet guns were developed partly as a less lethal response to the stone-pelting agitation in 2010. Our Interlocutors report had criticised their induction.) It was the first State to lose its special status and its Statehood in 2019. It was the first State to undergo a communal delimitation in which Jammu’s demography was altered by the creation of additional Hindu-majority constituencies, some of them with populations below 50,000, in 2022.
Is it not time for J&K to experience some positive firsts instead of suffering only ugly ones? After all, it was the first State to overcome communal gerrymandering when the 2024 elections yielded a majority for the pluralist National Conference-Congress alliance. It is only fitting that it also be the first State to regain the Statehood that has been withheld for so long.
Radha Kumar is a former Member, Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir, and the author of the book, The Republic Relearnt: Renewing Indian Democracy, 1947-2024
Published – August 05, 2026 12:16 am IST
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