The need for political unity in Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah sits near a police barricade outside the Parliament Street police station in New Delhi on July 20, 2026, after being denied permission to protest at Jantar Mantar. | Photo credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah took to the streets of New Delhi in July with his cabinet in tow to press for the restoration of J&K’s federal safeguards – he was denied permission to protest at the iconic Jantar Mantar. People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and Srinagar MP Ruhullah Mehdi conducted separate programs in Delhi in the following days. If anyone expected this sequence of events in the capital to be a surreal moment of reclaiming Kashmir’s democratic space for dissent, they were not thrilled. What was more prominently illustrated were the deep divisions within the Kashmiri leadership.
After coming to power in October 2024, Omar Abdullah shrewdly focused on mending relations with Delhi. He hoped that calibrated navigation would help in negotiating a decent arrangement for J&K. But in Srinagar, Mr. Abdullah’s political opponents described his exploration of areas of agreement with New Delhi, and the tailored cronyism that entailed, as offensive. They reiterated that there could be no lower political goal in Kashmir than the reversal of the August 5, 2019 legislation that stripped the Himalayan region of its semi-autonomous status.
While Kashmir’s right to dignity and a respectable federal arrangement is non-negotiable, the way to its realization cannot be to daily flog a rather incompetent local government for not being combative enough. While this resentment is well received in the echo canyons of people’s online lives, it serves no other purpose than to create a veneer of ideological superiority for a few. The need of the hour for all Gupkar politicians is to contemplate political unity even as serious differences simmer beneath the surface. The importance of political unity cannot be overlooked at a time when the rest of India’s opposition is apparently wary of getting involved in the Kashmir issue.
Almost two years after voters elected the local government in impressive numbers and built a “bureaucratic apparatus” that settled comfortably in his absence, the unelected office of Lieutenant Governor (LG) continues to wield significant power, adding to the confusion. In a region that is close to violence, it can manifest itself in a sprinkling of political rejection: not only towards local government, but also towards participatory democracy itself.
Ensuring Kashmiri participation in elections has always been difficult. This is often the result of the penetration of patronage networks of mainstream leaders. Rural belts vote more briskly because people depend on local politicians, for amenities and as bulwarks against police arbitrariness.
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Case studies of several people detained under the Public Safety Act underscored that local lawmakers are often the ones to “go to” for political and legal support, a favor paid for voting, even if one may not be otherwise enthused about the election. The bureaucratic apparatus created a vacuum that the people voted to abolish. Disarming elected legislators not only erodes the country’s federal support, but has the potential to erode their territorial connections and influence on which participatory democracy in Kashmir is built.
The importance of handing over full executive powers to the elected J&K government should also be understood from the point of view of its indispensability in making decisions in the area of law and order, especially in a fragile security situation. The non-local bureaucrats who advise the LG on internal affairs are cut off from the political topography of the region and can deploy hasty, tactless mechanisms in the face of a threat.
After the April 2025 Baisaran terror attack, the houses of at least 10 alleged militants, including that of Aadil Thoker, a key suspect, were razed in Guri Thukarpora village of Anantnag. Guri Thakurpora was an Ikhwan (renegade) village, supposedly pro-India, although militancy was rampant in the 1990s. If the elected leadership were a security stakeholder, this could be seen as the use of brute force, especially in a peripheral space invested in years of trust building.
The National Conference should have understood much earlier that New Delhi was in no mood to hand over full executive powers to J&K. Perhaps they are doing so now and are considering a range of resistance activities, although organizing street protests is off the table. While the struggle of Kashmiris is for dignity and rights, not just statehood, a credible course towards it must be devised with political ingenuity and collectively.
Anando Bhakto is a senior journalist from New Delhi who reports on developments in Kashmir
Published – 01 Sep 2026 0:43 IST