Opinion Seven years after August 5: Delaying J&K statehood any longer would be a breach of trust
Continuing to withhold statehood now will eat into the achievements of 2019. It demoralises those who participated in elections, estranges as many in Jammu as in Kashmir, and turns what was meant to be a temporary provision into a breach of trust.
The biggest concern is the youth. For years now Jammu and Kashmir has reported one of the highest youth unemployment rates in India, much higher than the national average. (File Photo) Anniversaries can often become rituals. Worse, they can become alibis. Seven years ago, Article 370 was abrogated, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir was reduced to two Union Territories. The constitutional argument around it is over. The law that Parliament passed received the imprimatur of the Supreme Court and has attained a measure of political finality. The bigger question is: Did the 2019 intervention achieve what was promised?
Three principal rationales were given in 2019 for the abrogation and downgrading of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. First, that Article 370 had taken on a psychological resonance well beyond its legal purport. It fed the idea of conditional integration and in doing so nurtured separatism. On this score, the record is significant. The separatist lexicon has clearly lost much of its sheen. The Hurriyat exists only on paper. Apart from the occasional sermon delivered by the Mirwaiz from the pulpit at Jama Masjid, little of the once all-pervasive separatist combine survives. Political parties that forecast a constitutional apocalypse have resumed electoral politics and elections are increasingly inclusive. Cycles of mass agitation once commonplace, the ecosystem of hartals, shutdowns and street violence that routinely brought life in the Valley to a halt have significantly abated, if not ended.
The absence of an uprising, however, is not the presence of belonging. Integration cannot be judged merely by quiet streets, tourist arrivals, cultural festivals, or the National Song and National Anthem being sung with ritualistic precision. Does the citizen fully feel that this is his or her republic, too: Equal, responsive, and unafraid to question?
Second, the arrangement held the promise of strengthening nationalist political forces while allowing the state to deal more aggressively with cross-border terrorism and home-grown militancy. There is no denying the substantial security gains. Terrorist networks have been disrupted; the organisational sinews of violence, much of it fuelled from across the border, have been – rightly — dealt with ruthlessness. Targeted killings continue, however, to be a reminder that operational stability is not yet political certainty. The Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack on Baisaran in Pahalgam last year was just one reminder of that.
No less significant, the Assembly election in 2024, the first in 10 years, returned the National Conference to power. August 2019, and the delimitation that followed, did not yield the political realignment that was either expected or would have served the Centre’s purposes best. That the Union government gracefully accepted the verdict of polls it did not win tells you something that no amendment to the Constitution can – Indian electoral democracy functions in Jammu and Kashmir, and its sovereignty there is not contingent on winning elections. Contrast that with the manipulated governance structures in POJK, and the mass uprising and repression being unleashed across the LOC.
Third, direct central rule was also meant to cleanse the state of long-entrenched networks of patronage and corruption, improve governance, and deliver development on the ground directly from New Delhi without local interference. It is here that the promise of 2019 remains most unfulfilled. Direct rule may have temporarily increased accountability, but the emergency dispensation has been allowed to settle into permanence. There is now an elected Chief Minister and cabinet in Jammu and Kashmir. But powers are scattered between them, the Lieutenant Governor and New Delhi. The Lieutenant Governor cannot be held accountable at the polls; the chief minister can but does not have the authority of a full state government. Both positions are diminished by this arrangement.
I spent much of my summer vacation this year in Srinagar, which once ranked among the most liveable cities in India. Today, traffic is a nightmare, construction unregulated, public spaces being systematically reduced, and the air citizens breathe is toxic. Smart cities are not made by decorative pavements or Instagram-worthy building facades while the citizen cannot move freely or breathe with dignity. Today, Srinagar is being mutilated in the name of development. If this is normalcy, it is normalcy without governance.
The biggest concern is the youth. For years now, Jammu and Kashmir has reported one of the highest youth unemployment rates in India, much higher than the national average. This is not just an economic crisis. It is potentially a political and social time-bomb. Employment in the state needs to be treated as a national security issue and not yet another bureaucratically disguised welfare programme.
The continued exile of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley remains a profound test. No claim of normalcy will be complete, or morally justified, until a community that was driven out by terror can return in safety and dignity. Return must not mean segregated colonies or merely employment “packages”. It must be voluntary, and allowed to reclaim real, political, cultural, educational and social space instead of being announced by the government as yet another administrative “achievement”. Kashmir without its Pandits is diminished; Pandits without the promise of being able to return to Kashmir remain prisoners of memory.
None of this is to deny what was gained. The permanent-resident regime that 35A entrenched — women forfeiting property on marrying outsiders, the refugees of 1947 stateless in all but name — created what was, in practice, a hierarchy of citizenship within a single republic. It is gone, and its defenders never did explain why autonomy required it. That is a real achievement, and it is precisely why the rest matters so much.
And that is why statehood can no longer be postponed. It is not a concession to separatism; it is the completion of integration. The Centre made it clear that the UT arrangement was meant to be temporary. The Supreme Court recorded the assurance that statehood will be restored at the earliest. Elections have since taken place. There is an elected government in place. Continuing to withhold statehood now will eat into the achievements of 2019. It demoralises those who participated in elections, estranges as many in Jammu as in Kashmir, and turns what was meant to be a temporary provision into a breach of trust.
The writer is dean, SIS, JNU and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Jammu
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