Modi’s Hindu-nationalist project in Jammu and Kashmir has become a nightmare for Hindus

The end of the state’s “special status” was supposed to bring it inside the BJP’s big tent. Instead, it has imperiled civilians.

As President Donald Trump and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi showed during their meeting in Washington, D.C. this week, the two leaders have a lot in common: a preference for muscular nationalism and a desire to make their respective countries “great” again by—at least in theory—lifting up the common man.

Little discussed was how Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party are aggressively pushing to turn India from a secular republic into a Hindu-nationalist State—nowhere more starkly than in Jammu and Kashmir.

Before Partition in 1947, Kashmir was a Muslim-majority kingdom under a Hindu king who sought independence from both India and Pakistan. But Pakistan, claiming Kashmir for its Muslim identity, launched an armed offensive. By October 1947, the king, unable to resist, turned to India for help, leading to Kashmir’s absorption as a federal state with exceptional autonomy: its own constitution, flag, and exclusive land rights for Kashmiris.

That fragile peace collapsed. Pakistan-backed militancy and brutal Indian Army crackdowns turned Kashmir into a heavily militarized conflict zone. In this chaos, both sides have played dangerous demographic games. In the 1990s, Islamist militants violently expelled Kashmiri Pandits—the region’s indigenous Hindu community—to assert Muslim dominance. Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists see Kashmir’s Muslim-majority status as a scar on their vision of a Hindu-first India.

In August 2019, Modi scrapped Kashmir’s autonomy and dissolved its legislature—a move that fulfilled a Hindu nationalist goal but created a slew of new security challenges which the Indian State is ill equipped to handle.

As Siddharthya Roy reports, the strong armed move of autonomy abrogation has blinded government to ground realities, cut off their eyes and ears on the ground, and inflamed confusion and tensions between the army, police, bureaucrats, and politicians. And, for the first time since the 1990s—put Hindu civilians directly in the crosshairs of Pakistan-backed militants.

An Indian paramilitary trooper stands guard as a Kashmiri boy looks on while voters wait to vote during elections in North Kashmir's Kupwara district / Faisal Bashir/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

On the evening of May 29, 2024, Kupwara, a district nestled in the rugged valleys of Jammu and Kashmir, became the stage for a violent, dramatic, and embarrassing confrontation. It began with a raid by the Jammu and Kashmir police on a suspected narcotics operation. The officers moved swiftly, acting on intelligence gleaned from intercepted communications they believed would lead them to a key figure linked both to the drug trade as well as to cross-border militancy. For the officers, this was a typical operation, one they did not anticipate would result in an armed confrontation. But when they arrived at the suspect’s house, they made a stunning discovery: He was a soldier in the Territorial Army, a reserve component of the Indian Army tasked with supporting internal security.

The situation escalated rapidly. At around 9:40 pm, 30 to 40 armed soldiers of the Territorial Army led by three lieutenant colonels stormed Kupwara police station after learning of the raid. Soldiers assaulted police officers using rifle butts and physical blows, leaving four officers hospitalized, eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage revealed. Amid the chaos, the soldiers reportedly seized mobile phones from the injured personnel and abducted the head constable. The incident upended what, until then, had been a long history of coordination between local police and federal authorities.

The next day, the Jammu and Kashmir Police began initiating criminal proceedings against 16 army personnel. But the military authorities appeared indifferent, calling the episode a peacefully resolved "minor misunderstanding,” despite video evidence and witness testimony to the contrary. A Srinagar-based defense spokesperson went further, describing reports of the altercation as "misfounded and incorrect." In much of India, such a shocking episode would prompt swift legal action—in this instance, no such measures have been taken. But Kashmir, a fault line in the bitter, decades-long conflict between India and Pakistan, has always been a unique case.

In August of 2019, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, dividing it into two territories under New Delhi’s direct control and dissolving its state legislature. In so doing, he reversed a seven-decade-long compromise intended to safeguard the unique identity of India's only Muslim-majority region. To carry out his power grab, Modi revoked a pair of constitutional provisions: Article 370, which had granted Jammu and Kashmir the right to its own constitution along with significant control over internal matters, and Article 35A, which had given its state legislature the power to restrict non-residents from settling there or acquiring land. Indian government officials made gestures to restore Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood by pledging to eventually hold state elections.

Critics saw these moves by Modi as part of a concerted effort to pave the way for demographic changes and further the BJP’s mission to transform India from a secular nation into a Hindu-nationalist state. Removing protections against non-Kashmiri land ownership raised fears of settler colonialism, sparking local resistance and international condemnation—particularly from Pakistan and human rights organizations, who characterized the abrogation of 370 and 35A as an erosion of Kashmir's historical autonomy and cultural identity.

For Modi and the BJP, Jammu and Kashmir’s unique status had long been an obstacle to their vision of a unified nation. “Article 370 and 35A gave only separatism, nepotism and corruption to the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” Modi said in a national address on August 8, 2019. Pakistan, India’s historical rival, had used Article 370 “as a tool to spread terrorism” that had claimed 42,000 lives lost since the insurgency began in 1989, he added. “I am confident that people of Jammu and Kashmir will defeat separatism with new energy and new hope.”

The result has been anything but. The end of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status has created a dangerous vacuum of constitutional norms. Dissolving the state assembly and imposing central rule has sharply curtailed the ability of local elected representatives to address grievances or hold security forces accountable. Neutering local institutions has, in effect, transferred greater authority to the Indian central government. And because abrogation severed reliable, local sources of intelligence on militia activities and emerging threats, New Delhi has effectively blinded itself to on-the-ground developments.

To compensate, Indian security personnel began flooding Jammu and Kashmir starting on August 5, 2019. Their expanded presence across the region, however, has had the effect of increasing the likelihood of clashes between civilians and the armed forces. Thanks to the hollowing out of local authority, multiple security forces now operate under competing authorities and minimal oversight. Together, these factors have created an unstable environment rife with confusion—one that, paradoxically, has become increasingly dangerous for Hindus in the region.

Since 2023 and through the end of last year, a spate of shocking incidents, including the Kupwara melee, have revealed the unintended consequences of the BJP’s gamble in Jammu and Kashmir: Rather than stabilizing the region, it appears to have sown the seeds for more significant unrest.

A Security State

The threat of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims has always hung over Jammu and Kashmir. Ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, the Muslim-majority territory sought independence and received support from a Pakistan-backed militia invasion in October 1947. The ensuing uprising forced the Maharaja to seek military support from New Delhi, leading to Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India, and, two years later, the passage of Article 370.

For decades, Article 370 helped maintain a precarious balance between Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy, India's sovereignty, and the region’s ties to Pakistan. But over the decades, Pakistan-backed militancy steadily transformed Jammu and Kashmir from a regular state in the Indian Union into a security state, one where democratic accountability and civilian rights have taken a back seat.

The tension boiled over in the wake of the disputed 1987 assembly elections, when young Kashmiris who had participated in the democratic process found their votes rendered effectively worthless thanks to widespread rigging engineered by the Congress party, which controlled the central government at the time. Many of these disillusioned youth crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir, later returning as trained militants.

By 1989, the unrest had exploded into a violent insurgency fueled by separatist sentiments and support from Pakistan, further militarizing the region and deepening divisions. The ensuing insurgency of the 1990s marked Kashmir's bloodiest era, a time of targeted killings of Kashmiri Hindus, leading to their mass exodus, and the killings of hundreds of Muslims in counter-insurgency operations.

For a time, the anti-India groups, including both armed outfits like Lashkar-e Taiba, Kashmir’s largest terror group, and unarmed ones like the Hurriyat Conference, found a place in Kashmiri politics, so long as they adhered to an unwritten rule: one that excluded anyone outside of the armed forces, government, and law enforcement from the target list. But events over the past two years suggest this is no longer the case.

“Our Eyes and Ears Have Closed”

At approximately 7:00 pm local time on the evening of January 1, 2023, two unidentified rifle-toting assailants infiltrated the village of Dangri, in Jammu and Kashmir’s south. Moving with chilling precision, they targeted at least three houses belonging to Hindu residents. Reports indicated that the attackers verified the victims' identities by checking their identification cards before firing on them, killing four civilians and injuring six others. The next day at around 9:00 am near the home of one of the victims from the previous day's shooting, an improvised explosive device detonated, killing a child instantly and injuring six others, predominantly children, including a pair of siblings.

In response, the local police, the federal government's Central Reserve Police Force, and army personnel, launched an extensive search for the perpetrators. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which handles counterterrorism, assumed control of the operation, eventually filing charges against five militants, three of whom were reportedly based in Pakistan. In addition, two residents from the Poonch area of Jammu and Kashmir and a juvenile were arrested for allegedly providing logistical support to the attackers. To bolster regional security, New Delhi deployed additional Central Reserve Police Force officers, amounting to approximately 1,800 troops, stationed chiefly in the volatile Rajouri and Poonch districts.

To provide some solace to the families of the victims, the government offered a payment of 1 million rupees and a government job for the next of kin of each civilian killed. By January 21, 2023, appointment letters for these jobs were distributed to the families of the seven individuals who lost their lives. These efforts did little to quell the anguish. Saroj Bala, who lost both her sons in the attacks, has been particularly vocal, staging multiple protests to demand a more thorough investigation. She has repeatedly expressed frustration with the NIA’s findings and the pace of the inquiry.

Several months after the Rajouri attacks in June 2023, a young officer attached to the Srinagar desk of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, gave me a mixed but ultimately sanguine assessment of post-370 Kashmir. “Our eyes and ears have closed—especially in South Kashmir where the militants have their strongest bases and the support of locals,” the agent said of the post-370 era. But the new paradigm came with benefits, too. “I’m not saying the scrapping of 370 and suspension of local elections was all bad. From a law enforcement point of view, 370 scrapping has been very effective.”

Under 370, police operations faced significant challenges due to political interference, the agent said. When individuals suspected of providing support to militants were arrested, local politicians would often call police stations and pressure officers to release them. This interference tied the hands of both the police and the Special Operations Group, the commando division of the Jammu and Kashmir police, making it difficult to conduct thorough investigations or questioning.

With the revocation of Article 370, such political interference stopped. Suspects found it harder to get bail and custody periods became longer. This gave law enforcement and intelligence personnel the freedom to investigate and interrogate at their own pace, free from external pressure. This represented a major shift, allowing for more comprehensive operations and intel gathering against militant networks.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a visit to Srinagar / Firdous Nazir/ Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images

From August 2019 to mid-2022, there was a reported 32% decline in acts of terrorism compared to the ten months preceding the abrogation. Deaths of security forces fell by 52%, and civilian deaths decreased by 14% during this timeframe. In 2021, there were 126 militant attacks recorded, 103 in 2022, and just 29 in 2023. Between January and July of 2024, only five attacks were documented. Even local recruitment into militant groups saw a stark decline from 143 local youths joining militancy in 2019 to just 100 in 2022, suggesting a drop in local support for militant activities. The BJP’s propaganda machine has cited these figures as unassailable proof that their strongman leader and his strong politics succeeded where no one had.

Yet militancy eventually showed signs of resurgence. The fighters adapted to the post-370 environment, operating with greater caution. Valuable intelligence, which previously came from monitoring protests organized by separatists or through informant networks, began to dry up. The lack of actionable intelligence and visible militant activity made it hard to predict or prevent future plans. The underlying danger of not knowing what militant groups might be planning loomed large.

New militant outfits like The Resistance Front, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, have claimed responsibility for high-profile attacks. Long-established groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have reasserted their presence. Local governance has deteriorated, leaving communities feeling abandoned and vulnerable. Cracks between Indian political parties and within bureaucratic hierarchy, security agencies, and law enforcement, are widening. Confusion over who controls Jammu and Kashmir runs rampant.

“How long do you think before we see another Rajouri-style attack?” I asked the R&W officer, referring to the attacks on Hindu households on New Year’s Day, 2023. “I can’t be sure because, as I said, we are missing hard actionable intel,” he said. “But I’d say within a year at most.”

The officer’s estimate was close. Very close.

A Summer of Violence

On June 9, 2024, less than an hour before Modi was sworn in for his third consecutive term, militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district targeted a 53-seat passenger bus carrying Hindu pilgrims traveling from the Shiv Khori temple to Katra. At approximately 6:15 PM, the militants unleashed a barrage of gunfire on the vehicle and hit the driver, sending the bus plunging into a deep gorge. Even as the shattered vehicle lay incapacitated, the assailants continued to fire. Nine people were killed, among them a two-year-old child from Rajasthan and a 14-year-old from Uttar Pradesh. More than thirty others were injured, with at least ten sustaining gunshot wounds. Two days later on June 11, an attack in Hiranagar jolted the region, alongside assaults in Chattergala and Gandoh the following day. India’s Union Home Ministry tasked the NIA with the case. Investigators soon identified, but did not immediately arrest, three Pakistani militants as the primary perpetrators and a local accomplice who allegedly acted as a lookout and scout.

While the Resistance Front initially claimed responsibility for the attack, the group later denied involvement. But the Jammu and Kashmir police and other investigative agencies believe that Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestrated the assault, a theory supported by the methods and weaponry used. The terrorists were equipped with American-made M4 carbine assault rifles—weapons frequently associated with Pakistani Special Forces. The discovery also fueled fears that American-made weapons abandoned in Afghanistan were making their way to India. Amid increasing tensions between the Biden administration and Modi’s government, the discovery of American-made arms raised pressing questions about the source of such weaponry and the broader geopolitical implications of their use. On June 19, authorities arrested a man in the Rajouri district named Hakam Khan in connection with the Reasi attack, on charges of providing logistical support.

The attack appeared to have been part of a broader escalation in militancy across Jammu and Kashmir. Coinciding with the prime minister's inauguration, its timing signalled a challenge to India's security apparatus and the proclamation of absolute success by Modi and the BJP.

Particularly alarming was the deliberate targeting of Hindu pilgrims. The attack was orchestrated just weeks before the annual Amarnath Yatra, a major religious event for Hindus that draws thousands of devotees from across India and overseas to Jammu and Kashmir. Unsuspecting and defenseless, the pilgrims became victims of a meticulously planned assault that underscored the vulnerability of religious gatherings. In essence, the Reasi attackers had issued a clear threat against the demographic change from majority-Muslim to majority-Hindu that lies at the heart of the abrogation of 370 and 35A.

Unlike Kashmir Valley, Jammu is not only a Hindu-majority area—even the Muslim tribal populations of the region have remained unswayed by the secessionist movements. Reasi, then, marks a new beginning in areas affected by militancy.

One of the most concerning trends is the militants' apparent shift towards "hybrid terrorism," per government statements. This strategy involves deploying minimally trained individuals, often young recruits, to carry out attacks, aiming to sow fear and instability while minimizing the risk of detection and capture for the core militant organizations. This evolving tactical landscape presents a significant challenge to security forces and underscores the complex and evolving nature of the conflict in Kashmir.

Early July saw a particularly brutal escalation, with an attack in Manjakote and an ambush in Kathua district that claimed the lives of five Indian Army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer, while injuring five others. On July 8, terrorists targeted an army convoy near Badnota village, resulting in the death of five soldiers and injuries to several others. One week later, four soldiers, including an army major, were killed in an attack in Doda.

National Conference MP Aga Ruhullah during a protest outside the chief minister's residence on December 23, 2024 in Srinagar / Waseem Andrabi / Hindustan Times via Getty Images

On September 27, NIA investigators aiming to dismantle the civilian support network that enabled the attackers raided seven locations across Rajouri and Reasi districts. But the violence continued, with a brazen assault on October 20 at a tunnel construction site in Ganderbal resulting in the deaths of seven individuals. Four days later, a deadly attack in Baramulla—a garrison that serves as a critical logistical and operational hub for the Indian Army— claimed the lives of two soldiers and two porters, underscoring the persistent vulnerability of even well-guarded locations.

On December 15, 2024, the NIA formally charged Hakan Khan in its special court in Jammu in connection with the Reasi bus attack case. The NIA has accused him of providing the militants with shelter as well as logistical and reconnaissance support, and with participating in the conspiracy to carry it out.

“Nobody Knows Where the Control Lies”

The audacity, novelty, and brutality of these attacks laid bare all of Modi's assertion that the abrogation of Article 370 was the final nail in the coffin of Kashmir's unrest. More importantly, Dangri’s New Year’s Day attack sent a message to the Indian State that Reasi and what followed was in the making. But New Delhi was not listening. Nor was it willing to.

"The bureaucracy has spawned so many leaders heading so many departments, nobody knows where the control lies," a Jammu-based veteran officer of the Intelligence Bureau, India’s internal spy agency, told me when asked about Reasi and how it escaped the eyes of Indian intel.

Speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, the officer had shown me an internal memo he had co-authored and circulated among the bureau’s hierarchy following the Reasi attack. It expressed deep concerns about the safety of the upcoming Amarnath Yatra, making clear that the new crop of militants were mainly targeting Hindu civilians and looking to exacerbate communal tensions between them and Muslim communities both in Kashmir and in the rest of India.

"Who knows who will see it and what will be done?” he said of his memo. “Nowadays, Delhi’s corridors prefer yes-men who will align with the ruling party’s propaganda more than professional officers and soldiers like us."

The officer pointed to an even deeper problem: the sidelining of ground-level intelligence in favor of centralized decision-making. Instead of professionals handling security, partisans more interested in propaganda called the shots, he said.

"Veteran officers’ concerns are often overlooked because some Delhi-based bureaucrat doesn’t think it's worth his time listening to a police constable in some village-level police station," he said. “Though these are the officers who often have the clearest sense of emerging threats. They know what’s going to happen. Not someone in Delhi."

The result: a dangerously fractured security apparatus, one in which intelligence might arrive too late, be ignored, or be acted upon in ways that prioritize political optics over public safety.

“One of the key sources of intelligence for the Indian State was the [democratic] political parties of Jammu and Kashmir,” said a young organizer with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns. “The forces can contain the security issue. But Kashmir isn’t merely a security issue, is it? It’s a political issue that needs political resolution.

But the abrogation of 370 has meant the marginalization and alienation of the very parties that could help New Delhi bring about such a resolution. They include the National Conference, Kashmir's oldest political party and a longtime champion of Kashmir's autonomy within India's federal framework; the Congress, India's former ruling party; and the People's Democratic Party, which advocated for dialogue with separatists and Pakistan. Ironically, it was the People's Democratic Party’s alliance with the BJP in 2015 that first gave Modi's party a foothold in Kashmir's governance—a decision that ultimately led to its own political decimation.

These parties had historically served as a crucial bridge between New Delhi and local Kashmiri aspirations. In fact, these parties were instrumental in quelling the insurgency of the 1990s. "The BJP's approach is fundamentally flawed," explained a former state legislator of the Congress party and Indian intelligence asset who requested anonymity. "Previous governments, including Congress-led ones, understood that while strong security measures were necessary, you couldn't simply bypass Kashmiri political participation. They knew that local democratic institutions, however imperfect, were essential for stability."

The current administration's "bulldozer rule," a term increasingly used to describe Modi's forceful governance style, has pushed even pro-India Kashmiri politicians into a position of non-cooperation. These leaders argue that while no one wants a return to the 1990s, the complete dismantling of local political structures leaves them without a meaningful role in governance.

"Modi's supporters might celebrate this as a 'masterstroke' on social media," the Congress legislator added, "but the ground reality is different. Kashmir needs Kashmiri participation in its governance. That's a lesson learned from decades of managing this complex region."

The BJP's social media machinery referenced by the legislator is popularly known as the IT Cell. An aggressive information control strategy, the cell is composed of thousands of coordinated social media accounts, WhatsApp groups, and online influencers who systematically flood digital platforms with narratives supporting the party's political objectives. These digital warriors both promote government policies and actively harass journalists, academics, and activists who challenge the official narrative. Through targeted trolling, coordinated reporting of propaganda, and the strategic spread of disinformation, the IT Cell creates an information ecosystem where dissent is quickly marginalized.

In Kashmir’s case, this digital operation has been particularly aggressive, deploying coordinated hashtag campaigns that celebrate the government's narrative of "Naya Kashmir," or New Kashmir, while simultaneously intimidating and silencing alternative voices. Combined with direct censorship of legacy media and prolonged internet shutdowns in Kashmir, this approach has created a hermetic information environment that systematically obscures the complex realities of the region.

If the attacks of recent months are anything to go by, the abrogation of 370 and its thinly veiled dream of the Hindufication of Kashmir might have created a whole new set of problems for which neither Modi nor the Indian security establishment is prepared.

The Modi government has half-heartedly attempted to deliver on its August 2019 promise of a return to statehood, with Jammu and Kashmir holding its first state elections from September 18 to October 1, 2024. Though the elections have put the long time ruling Abdullah family and their National Conference Party back in power, real statehood and federal autonomy remain far off. And not everyone is convinced the worst is over.

A Bajrang Dal protest against the attack in Reasi at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Chowk , Vashi, on June,12, 2024 / Bachchan Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Despite the BJP celebrating the election as a “return to democracy” and a step toward restoring statehood,the elected assembly’s powers are extremely limited. New Delhi still controls security and law enforcement, including police and paramilitary operations, as well as financial and budgetary decision making powers.

Major budgetary decisions, including funding for development projects and public welfare, require the approval of the federal authorities. This financial control ensures that New Delhi can dictate priorities and resource allocation, often sidelining local needs and aspirations.

Critical positions—especially those related to law and order, public administration, and security—are being filled by officers appointed by the central government. The lieutenant governor, who acts as the chief administrator in the union territory, is directly appointed by New Delhi, further limiting the capacity of the local government to assert independent authority.

In India’s constitutional framework, full statehood means having significant autonomy over internal affairs—a privilege Kashmir enjoyed under Article 370—while union territories are generally managed directly by the central government without an elected legislature. Jammu and Kashmir’s hybrid status means it is in a state of limbo.

What curtails Jammu and Kashmir’s assembly the most is the lieutenant governor, who acts as the chief administrator in the union territory, directly appointed by New Delhi. Unlike the post of a governor in other Indian states, the lieutenant governor has direct executive powers and can overrule almost all decisions of the elected lawmakers.

“True peace will be achieved the day Kashmir has true autonomy,” a well known Kashmir analyst with India’s leading think tank, the Observer Research Foundation said over a phone interview. “Forget autonomy, even true statehood hasn’t been restored in Kashmir despite this election. The babus”—or bureaucrats—”of New Delhi don’t understand and don’t even want to understand that what Kashmiris demand first and foremost is respect. Whether it's a politician, a policeman, or even a civilian with no power. Even if they may say things under the pressure of a gun, they will never truly respect or obey anyone who doesn’t respect them first. Be it India or Pakistan.

In one example, the analyst told the story of an IAS officer from New Delhi who had recently visited a sensitive district in Kashmir, accompanied by the district police chief. “The local [news] media were going to publish the news saying ‘Superintendent of Police visits X area with Y IAS officer.’ Do you know what the IAS officer did? He made his secretary call the newsroom and direct them to write ‘Y IAS officer visits X area with the SP in attendance.’ This is the level of pettiness and disrespect New Delhi has for the people of Kashmir!”

“But don’t print my name,” the analyst added. “Not only this IAS officer, but his whole gang of friends will come down on me like no tomorrow.”

Even hardcore supporters of Modi have spoken out in a mix of anger, fear, and frustration. Demands for government accountability and discussions about the changing nature of the conflict are widespread, highlighting a growing sense of unease and a perceived lack of adequate response from authorities.

Aarti Tikoo Singh, a journalist and Kashmiri Hindu voice known for her support for the abrogation of Article 370 and her support for Modi. She holds the new state government, the lieutenant governor, New Delhi, and the security agencies, accountable for the resurgence of violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The argument that human intelligence has declined post-Article 370 abrogation is unconvincing. The security establishment has been working on this for decades. And it is well-known that most Kashmiri Muslims prefer peace over militancy,” she said. “So, why is violence resurging despite a deeply entrenched security apparatus?”

“While Jammu and Kashmir, for the last 35 years, has been a security-focused state where regular politics often takes a backseat, this does not excuse the neglect of underlying grievances affecting all communities—Kashmiri Muslims, Pandits, and Jammu residents,” Singh said. “Nor does it justify the lieutenant governor’s disproportionate focus on Kashmir at the expense of Jammu. Balancing security with governance and addressing community grievances through proactive measures and human rights protections are essential for sustainable peace.”