Why Jammu And Kashmir Needs More Than Statehood To Stabilise

 J&K’s politics today resembles the "Well of Death," in circuses where stunt bikers ride within a steel mesh sphere. Politicians circle endlessly within the constraints of structural polarisation, unable to break out of the loop. Despite Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s efforts to bridge the regional and religious divide, including avoiding provocative rhetoric and symbolically visiting the Statue of Unity in Gujarat, a pet project of the Modi government, there are still no signs of statehood.  

The restoration of statehood is essential to reestablish a semblance of constitutional normalcy regarding J&K’s place within the national polity. However, even if statehood is restored to Jammu and Kashmir, instability is unlikely to subside due to structural factors and will continue to impact national politics. Decentralised governance structures remain absent in the diverse former state, and both the national and local elites lack the political bandwidth to tackle the region’s long-term structural challenges. Day-to-day administrative demands consume most of their attention, leaving little room for meaningful engagement with deeper political issues. 

Situated at the edge of India with the weight of history, mixed demographics and a divided state located between two countries, it calls for a unique approach to be applied that brings in the best practices of internal federalism.  

In the meantime, the bifurcation between the Jammu and Kashmir regions has only deepened. As the Omar-led government approaches the completion of its first year in office, with four more years to go, the reality is that the political elite in the two regions remain divided even in their demand for the restoration of statehood. Some of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have openly mentioned that the status quo should be maintained, as the regional balance will be preserved only then.  

The reasons for this are not hard to assess. Today, little binds Jammu and the Kashmir Valley. The ethnic, religious, and demographic divide is further compounded by historical mistrust. Though not entirely binary, as both regions have linguistic and cultural variations within, there is no coherent glue that unites them politically or emotionally. The historical contestation over the interpretation of the events of July 13, 1931, is a striking example of these tensions. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah suggested that the events of that year were directed against British rule rather than the princely state.

Learning from his past experience, he has consistently avoided criticising Maharaja Hari Singh, his grandfather’s arch-rival. Yet, the fact is that Sheikh Abdullah’s entire political movement was rooted in opposition to princely rule, which he called 'Shaksi raj' (individual rule), and Omar’s recent interpretation sparked a strong backlash across large sections of the Kashmir Valley. Against this charged backdrop, the next day after his house arrest on July 13 this year, Omar attempted to visit the graveyard of the 1931 martyrs, but was unsuccessfully prevented from doing so by the police acting under the Lieutenant Governor’s authority.

Notably, during the 2002 assembly elections campaign, Omar Abdullah had made a castigating remark against the Maharaja in Samba, a Hindu-majority border area, which ignited large-scale protests against him in Hindu-dominated parts of Jammu and Kashmir.

In the conflict-ridden J&K, 2024 election results - barring a few exceptions - have starkly reflected religious polarisation, largely stemming from the Congress party’s collapse. Jammu now stands electorally firmly in the BJP’s camp, particularly in Hindu-majority areas, while the National Conference and its allies continue to dominate the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley and Muslim parts of Jammu.  

Operating within the constraints of dual control in Jammu and Kashmir and against the backdrop of deepening religious polarisation, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has sought to adopt an efficient managerial style of governance. His past experience of being politically betrayed by former teammates in Jammu, some of whom later joined the BJP during the 2024 elections, seems to have made him more cautious in his political outreach. In the Kashmir valley, his close associates are the second and third generation NC leaders.

Few appreciate how deeply rooted the region’s complexities are. Except for Muzaffarabad, all other districts of present-day Pakistan-administered Kashmir were part of Jammu province. Even Muzaffarabad is not a Kashmiri-speaking area. While the partition disrupted Jammu’s ethnic base, the Kashmir Valley remained intact and homogeneous, making Kashmiri-speaking Muslims the largest ethnic group in the reorganized state. As per the 2011 Census, Kashmir’s population was nearly 16 lakh more than Jammu’s, although Jammu’s geographical size is nearly double. Even within the Kashmir Valley, there is a significant non-Kashmiri-speaking population - namely Gujjars and Paharis - demonstrating that internal diversities exist everywhere. Indeed, Jammu’s terrain varies widely - from near sea level to altitudes of 16,000 feet, while Kashmir is a plain with modest elevation differences and relatively easy intra-regional access. Yet, Jammu’s complex geography and demographic heterogeneity are not adequately addressed by simple electoral math. More significantly, the political temperature in both Jammu as well as the Valley shapes the national discourse - especially in the Hindi-speaking heartland for different reasons, and sometimes developments, particularly in the context of national security, have international significance as happened recently after the Pahalgam attack.

A fundamental structural reality today is that J&K is a Muslim-majority union territory, and within this religiously polarised context, the ruling BJP at the centre has virtually no prospect of electoral success. But it is a player which makes the regional parties consolidate the Muslim vote bank in their favour. However, this dynamic comes at a significant cost: Hindu-majority areas often feel politically excluded and unrepresented in J&K, leading them to place their trust in unelected institutions such as the Lieutenant Governor’s office. For a former state that depends disproportionately on the central government for resources and other forms of support, including huge security related expenses owing to violent extremism or terrorism that has local as well as transnational connections, the fact that the BJP controls the Union government provides Hindu-majority constituencies with an added sense of political influence and a sense of security, even outside the framework of elected state institutions.

The last J&K Assembly session saw heated references to events such as the 1931 Martyrs' Day, underscoring the contested nature of history in the region. Such historical contentions cannot be resolved through a bureaucratic or managerial approach alone. While daily governance is essential, the deep social divides demand a political class well-versed in J&K’s history and its diverse cultural vectors.  

Within J&K, the political elite has consistently failed to unify the two regions. While they have championed federalism within the Indian Union, they have neglected to apply the same principle within Jammu and Kashmir itself. Both Jammu and Kashmir require tailored decentralisation within an overarching framework of asymmetrical federalism. In fact, the Jammu and Kashmir Regional Autonomy Report authored by Balraj Puri in 1999 remained the only serious, comprehensive proposal that addresses these structural challenges. Any genuine reform effort must begin by engaging with this report.  

There are broader, more nuanced efforts to forge a common and inclusive identity for Jammu and Kashmir, but those lie beyond the scope of this article. Then there is another problem, which is the centralised, Delhi-centric flow of information and knowledge on J&K that formulates a unidimensional understanding of the issues. As the saying goes, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

A major underlying issue is the inherited colonial model of centralised knowledge production and second-hand analysis. Much of the so-called expertise on Jammu & Kashmir is based on indirect sourcing- phone interviews or recycled reports - rather than grounded fieldwork. The result is often a superficial and sometimes comically inaccurate understanding of the region.  

A more meaningful solution lies in true federalism that decentralises the production of knowledge itself. Local realities must shape the narrative, not abstract projections from urban power centtess. Without such structural change, the dominant analysis will remain shallow and ineffective. Compared to Western democracies, the Indian Constitution is less federal. But within the Global South, it is relatively accommodating. Unfortunately, the Article 370 debate was hijacked by symmetrical federalism’s binaries and majoritarian impulses. As a result, an opportunity to discuss structural decentralisation based on real historical and socio-cultural contexts was missed.  

Looking ahead, while the restoration of statehood is a vital constitutional step, it must not be mistaken for a comprehensive solution. Lasting stability in Jammu and Kashmir demands a far-reaching structural transformation, one that goes beyond symbolic gestures or managerial governance. What the region truly needs is a bold, imaginative rethinking of federalism: one that embraces asymmetry, meaningful decentralisation, and genuine regional autonomy, tailored to J&K’s layered complexities. This includes acknowledging internal diversities and fostering inclusive political dialogue rooted in local history and sensibilities. Without such a nuanced and multi-dimensional approach anchored in constitutional innovation, historical consciousness, and local knowledge, the restoration of statehood alone will fall short. If not, the frenzied social media chatter on August 4 this year may well become an unsettling political reality which will have its own consequences for India’s political and security landscape.

(The author has worked for 25 years as a practitioner, researcher and analyst on conflict areas and violent extremism issues.)