“They have sealed our fate,” my father said as he heard news of the abrogation of Article 370. “The politics of Kashmir has ended forever, now there is only the politics of Delhi.” This was the first reaction in my home to India’s dismantling of Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy and it expressed the absolute political disempowerment of our people. My mother, an apolitical commoner, heard my father speak and remarked, “Just our bad luck.” 

Both their faces were gloomy, overwhelmed by sadness as the move brought on a harsh security lockdown and communications blackout, which has now lasted over 50 days.

I, meanwhile, was trying to comprehend all that was being televised from the Parliament. It soon became clear that the sovereignty of the people of Kashmir had been stolen.

Sovereignty, after all, was what undergird Kashmir’s reluctant accession to the Indian Union. As Jammu and Kashmir’s sovereign ruler, Hari Singh, had agreed to delegate certain powers over Kashmir to Delhi, and not vice versa. So, it was India that enjoyed special status in Kashmir, not the other way round. Article 370 testified to this: the constitutional provision was temporary not because India was authorised to discard it someday, but because Jammu and Kashmir was still an undecided matter at the United Nations — and the people of Kashmir were yet to exercise their right to permanently accede to India or Pakistan. 

A great irony of the subcontinent’s history is that even as it prided itself on being a democracy, India never engaged with the legal status of Kashmir in a democratic manner. In the past seven decades, it has imprisoned Kashmir’s elected leaders, hollowed out its special status, rigged elections. The underhanded abrogation of Article 370 carried forward that tradition.

One of the reasons offered for the removal of Article 370 was that it was an instrument of separatism. Paradoxically, the protections promised by the provision formed the foundation of Kashmir’s pro-India politics. Indeed, for mainstream politicians, it was their main argument for why Kashmiris were better off staying with India. With Article 370 gone, the politics of Autonomy, Self Rule and Achievable Nationhood have died a natural death. The ground of mainstream politics, whatever is left of it, is now open for national parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress to dominate. Kashmiris and their local parties are out of the discourse now.

Sections of the Indian media have argued that Article 370 could not resolve the Kashmir dispute, so why not try without it? The problem is that Article 370 was never aimed to solve the problem; at the most, it was an arrangement to help win the hearts and minds of the people of Kashmir. That opportunity is now forever lost. Had Kashmiris decided to do away with Article 370, it would have been a victory for India. The vice versa is an obvious defeat.

Now, when the roots of pro-India politics are plucked out, what remains are the roots of separatism. The dismantling of Kashmir’s special status has only enhanced the legitimacy of separatism. For evidence, see Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Geelani’s statement describing the dumping of pro-India politics as a victory for the separatists, urging Kashmiris to join the “valiant struggle” for freedom and liberation, and asking them to “face the naked Indian brutality with courage”. Even former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has described the abrogation of Article 370 as “total betrayal of the trust” of Kashmiris, while Shah Faesal, the neonate in the pro-India politics,  has called it “an aggression against the people of the state” and rued that the “constitutionalists are gone” now. Another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, has called India an “occupying force”. In a political atmosphere shaped by this narrative, what turn the Kashmiri street might take is not difficult to understand. The mass protests against a small land allotment to the Amarnath Shrine Board in 2008 offers a few clues.

It is already an ugly situation. The Hindus of Jammu who wanted a separate state and a Hindu chief minister with guarantees of land security lost out. They achieved none of their stated objectives from the removal of the special status. They will remain attached to the troubled Kashmir. And even if the new Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir gets a Hindu chief minister, they would enjoy little power under a lieutenant governor appointed by Delhi. Insecurities around land are, in fact, deeper in Jammu region, not least because the rich state of Punjab is next door. Furthermore, the Muslims of Jammu region are not comfortable with the loss of statehood. The people of Ladakh have sensed the demographic challenges and even their BJP MP, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, has publicly expressed such concerns. The Muslims of Kargil have protested against the abrogation of Article 370 and decided to fight it. 

The problem for the Indian government is that if it gives demographic security to the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions but not Kashmir, it will only serve the agenda of separatists whose major fears are associated with demographic change. They never accepted the constitution of India and they can’t be bothered about direct rule from Delhi. After all, they used to call mainstream politicians of the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party and People’s Conference “puppets of Delhi”, and described Kashmir a “police state”. So, without demographic guarantees, all three regions will remain unstable. It is a double-edged sword.

As for the Kashmiri street, it’s gripped by fear. And not without reason. The BJP’s point man on Kashmir, Ram Madhav, made it clear early this year that “misguided” Kashmiris will be punished and the “treacherous” banished. 

Abhinav Kumar, a serving police officer in Kashmir, wrote in July, “Unless this structural dominance of the Valley is dismantled, no amount of operational successes can end the raging fire of insurgency in Kashmir.” For this to happen, he argued, the Indian state should alter the Muslim majority of the Kashmir valley. Does he mean ethnic cleansing?

The Indian state is trying to convince the people of Kashmir that with Article 370 dead, economic development is around the corner and the women are about to be “liberated”. The problem is that India has lost the credibility to convince Kashmiris; it is always seen to be on the other side of the truth. AS Dulat, former spymaster in Kashmir, quotes Brajesh Mishra, India’s national security advisor under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as having said, “The Kashmiri rarely speaks the truth to you because he feels that you are lying to him.” Such is the distrust that the Indian state’s very language is understood as violence of narrative, or “hermeneutical violence”.

Today, the average Kashmiri feels threatened, and not only because of torture, humiliation and economic breakdown. They are reluctant to come out of their homes. The armed forces are looking angrier than ever. People in mainland India are openly lusting after Kashmiri women. Some state governments are longing for their land. Corporates are eyeing their small businesses. Words like “Gaza” and “settler occupation” are entering the public discourse. Low-scale militancy appears to be of no use. Pakistan is seen as being weak and unable to take on India. The people are in a bind: India does not own them, Pakistan does not “liberate” them. Pro-India politics is dead. The Hurriyat has the sentiment, but no solution. People fear Ram Madhav’s punishment. They worry about demographic change. Men see their future in jail. Women are numbed by speeches of Indian leaders. Constitutional guarantees do not exist. The narrative of development does not appease them. The world is not interested in the human cost of the security lockdown. So, where does the common Kashmiri go from here?

I spent 40 days under the lockdown and all I saw it engender was hopelessness. And that bodes ill for Kashmir, and India.

Rameez Bhat is a political columnist from Kashmir.