Fulfil the promise: On restoring Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir
It has been over two and a half years since the Supreme Court of India recorded the Union government’s solemn assurance that Statehood would be restored to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) . It set no timeline, but the expectation was that it would happen within a reasonable period and steps would be taken progressively. That the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has done nothing on this front since then can only mean that it has interpreted the lack of a timeline as a licence for the indefinite deferral of Statehood. This is despite repeated assurances from the Centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged it in the run-up to the J&K elections , and Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated it on the floor of Parliament. Unsurprisingly, the inaction has driven J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to organise a series of agitations and rallies, culminating in a sit-in at Jantar Mantar on July 20 . His grievance, and that of the province, is legitimate. The retention of Union Territory status even after popular elections subordinates the elected government to an unelected Lieutenant Governor who retains preponderant authority over the bureaucracy, the police and other institutions. There is no principled justification for perpetuating this arrangement once elections have been held and a government installed. New Delhi’s rationale for inaction has been trite: “security”, invoked by the Solicitor-General before the Court late last year, citing the Pahalgam attack, in a hearing on a petition seeking restoration of Statehood. But this argument cuts no ice. By the government’s account, the attack was orchestrated from across the border, and India responded with Operation Sindoor . A cross-border provocation can have no logical bearing on whether J&K’s elected representatives are to be trusted with the powers of a full State. If anything, empowering elected leaders to address local grievances is precisely how a polity assuages concerns before they turn into resentment, which fed into cycles of militancy in the Kashmir Valley for decades. The Centre’s handling of J&K, Ladakh and even Manipur reveals a troubling pattern in how border regions with substantial minority populations are treated. Secure in its dominance across the north, the west and now the east, the BJP appears to regard the concerns of citizens in these provinces as expendable. Such a view is myopic: governance that treats a border region as politically dispensable only deepens alienation, and instability soon spills over and unsettles governance overall. The BJP seems cynically content to leave the Statehood question hanging until the political arithmetic, already sought to be reworked through delimitation in J&K, tilts decisively in its favour. A promise made to the Court, to Parliament and to the people of J&K cannot be held in abeyance until political circumstances turn expedient for the BJP. Published - July 16, 2026 12:20 am IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit READ LATER SEE ALL Remove Related Topics court / government / Jammu and Kashmir / Bharatiya Janata Party / Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections 2024 / Narendra Modi / parliament / ministers (government) / Delhi / Governor / Pahalgam terror attack 2025 / national security / Operation Sindoor 2025 / Ladakh / Manipur
- 1The J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 converted the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, J&K (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without one), following the reading down of Article 370. Under the arrangement applied to J&K, the Lieutenant Governor retains significant control over police and public order even after elections, creating an unusual federal asymmetry. This tension between elected government and appointed administrator recurs in India's Union Territory model, also seen in Delhi's disputes with its Lieutenant Governor.
- 2Since Article 370's abrogation in August 2019, the Centre has repeatedly cited security concerns, including cross-border terrorism, to justify continued central control over J&K. The Pahalgam attack referenced in the editorial joins a long list of incidents, including the 2019 Pulwama attack, that have shaped New Delhi's security-first posture toward the Valley. Critics argue this framing has been used to indefinitely postpone the political normalisation promised to J&K's roughly twelve and a half million residents.
- 3The Supreme Court's December 2023 judgment in In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution upheld the abrogation of Article 370 but directed the Union government to restore Statehood to J&K 'at the earliest' and to hold Assembly elections, subsequently conducted in 2024. The Court's assurance on Statehood, referenced in this editorial, carried no binding timeline, leaving enforcement dependent on political will rather than judicial mandate. This gap between judicial expectation and executive follow-through recurs in Indian constitutional litigation on federalism.
- 4J&K's 2024 Assembly elections saw high voter turnout, often cited as evidence of public faith in the democratic process despite the region's Union Territory status. Omar Abdullah's National Conference-led government has since operated with limited powers compared to full statehood, a friction mirroring Delhi's decades-long tussle between its elected government and central appointees. Continued deferral risks undermining the credibility of electoral participation as a route to genuine self-governance.