The Rupture in the Valley, Sajad Lone, the Jammu Question, and the Unsettling of Kashmiri Political Grammar
A profound and potentially tectonic shift is underway in the political consciousness of Jammu and Kashmir, one that challenges decades of entrenched narratives and power structures. As articulated by Professor Ashok Kaul in a piercing analysis, a “decisive rupture with the past has occurred, disturbing assumptions once regarded as immutable.” This rupture is not merely about administrative changes post-Article 370; it is a deeper, moral and intellectual unsettling manifesting in the re-emergence of the Jammu separation debate, the provocative interventions of leaders like Sajad Lone, and a palpable exhaustion with the “performative grievance” that long defined Valley-centric politics. This current affair is the story of a political ecosystem in metamorphosis, where old certainties are fracturing, and new, more grounded conversations about citizenship, governance, and belonging are hesitantly beginning.
The End of Calibrated Ambiguity: Sajad Lone and a New Political Idiom
The catalyst for this moment of reckoning, as Kaul identifies, is the political articulation of figures like Sajad Lone. His invocation of the Kashmiri adage “Tut vanan tutis” (“Even if the mulberry breaks, it does not bend”) is more than defiance; it is a declaration of a willingness to break inherited political taboos. For decades, the dominant political idiom from the Valley, represented by the National Conference and the PDP, operated within a framework of “tacit mystification and calibrated ambiguity.” This framework balanced a rhetorical commitment to a distinct Kashmiri identity with a pragmatic engagement with New Delhi, all while leveraging a narrative of perpetual grievance and victimhood to maintain political legitimacy.
Lone’s intervention, however, represents a clear departure. His politics, as Kaul notes, “neither negates the idea of India nor confines itself to the language of grievance.” Instead, it attempts a precarious and novel negotiation: to express a form of Kashmiri patriotism within the framework of Indian nationalism. This directly unsettles the separatist imagination across the Line of Control, which relies on a binary of total resistance versus total submission. More critically, it holds a mirror to the traditional Valley parties, exposing the “moral ambiguities that long sustained their political conduct.” By moving towards a politics focused on governance, development, and civic participation rather than symbolic resistance, Lone’s stance signals that the era where politics was sustained by “habit, repetition, and inherited fear” may be ending.
The Jammu Question Reborn: Not Geography, but Grievance
The re-emergence of the demand for Jammu’s separation from Kashmir is the most visible symptom of this rupture. Kaul astutely argues that this debate is not a “narrow administrative proposition” but an “expression of unresolved historical consciousness.” It is, at its core, a struggle over memory, legitimacy, and the recognition of collective suffering.
Jammu’s grievances—of political marginalization, inequitable resource allocation, and the subordination of its economic and strategic interests to a Kashmiri-centric political elite—are decades old. For too long, these concerns were deferred “in the name of a unity that, in practice, served only a narrow circle of power brokers.” The post-370 political reconfiguration and the broader shift in national discourse have provided Jammu with the political space and moral confidence to articulate these grievances with renewed vigor. The debate sharpens a fundamental moral urgency: “injustice left unaddressed does not disappear; it merely waits.” Jammu’s assertion is a demand that its postponed grievances finally be heard and addressed, challenging the assumption that the Valley’s political sentiments should exclusively define the region’s agenda.
The Unifying Architecture of Grievance: From Pandits to Kashmiri Muslims
Kaul’s most powerful contribution is his analysis of the “striking continuity” in the architecture of institutional grievance across communities—a continuity that reveals the crisis as fundamentally institutional, not communal. He traces a devastating lineage:
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The Kashmiri Pandits: From the 1960s onward, as “numerical strength gradually became the organising principle of political representation,” the Pandits, “limited in number and lacking political leverage, became among the earliest casualties.” Quotas and policies instituted under the “vocabulary of reform and social justice” systematically marginalized them in education and government employment. Their displacement in the 1990s was the catastrophic culmination of this institutional erosion, a process where “fear replaced politics, silence replaced recognition.” Their tragedy was that their suffering “could not be translated into the language of power.”
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The Jammu Region: The same institutional framework that marginalized the Pandits generated parallel resentments in Jammu, which felt its development and political voice were sacrificed to appease the Valley’s elite.
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Sections of Kashmiri Muslims: In a profound historical irony, Kaul observes that with the national expansion of reservation policies, anxieties over “shrinking merit space, bureaucratic invisibility, and institutional marginality” are now being voiced from within the Kashmiri Muslim majority. Communities that once accepted the exclusion of others as “administratively justified” are now confronting the emotional and structural consequences of a system built on demographic calculus.
This cycle reveals a cardinal truth: “Systems built upon selective justice do not remain confined to their original targets. Once institutionalised, exclusion expands, mutates, and ultimately unsettles even those who once benefited from its logic.” The Pandits, Jammu, and now sections of Kashmiri Muslims are all victims, at different times and in different ways, of the same morally bankrupt political model that prioritized group arithmetic over individual merit and equitable citizenship.
The Shift: From Performative Grievance to Grounded Governance
The exhaustion with this old model is giving rise to a new political sensibility. Kaul identifies a move away from the “older culture of performative grievance,” where slogans and symbolic protests generated diminishing returns. In its place is “emerging a more grounded politics, attentive to everyday life, employment, education, dignity, and civic participation.”
This is the transformative potential of the current rupture. The central question in public discourse is “slowly shifting from who governs to how life is lived under governance.” This represents a monumental change. Belonging is beginning to be re-imagined “not solely through resistance,” but “through presence, participation, and shared civic experience.” Nationalism, in this evolving landscape, is being redefined not as a theatrical display of loyalty but as the “shared habitation” of a common civic space. Secularism is being rediscovered as a lived “social practice” of accommodation, rather than a brittle constitutional doctrine.
Implications and the Path Forward: Conversation Over Certainty
This rupture presents both immense challenges and possibilities.
Challenges:
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Political Instability: The unsettling of the old order creates a volatile transitional phase. Traditional parties like the NC and PDP, struggling to adapt, may resort to more aggressive rhetoric, risking renewed polarization.
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The Risk of Majoritarianism: The new discourse, while more integrative, must guard against simply replacing one form of majoritarianism with another. The legitimate aspirations of Jammu cannot be met by further marginalizing the Valley, just as the Valley’s integration cannot come at the cost of dismissing its unique historical experience.
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The Unhealed Wound of the Pandits: Any conversation about justice and morality in Kashmir remains hollow without a sincere, comprehensive reckoning with the genocide and displacement of the Kashmiri Pandits. Their right to return, rehabilitation, and justice is the foundational test for any new “humane politics.”
Possibilities:
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A More Inclusive Politics: The fracturing of the monolithic Valley narrative creates space for diverse voices—from Jammu, Ladakh, and divergent perspectives within the Valley itself—to shape a more representative politics.
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Governance-Centric Discourse: The focus on everyday life can lead to greater accountability, better service delivery, and a politics that delivers tangible improvements in living standards.
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A New Basis for Integration: Integration built on shared civic participation and economic aspiration is more sustainable than integration enforced solely through constitutional fiat or security apparatus.
Conclusion: The Unfinished Conversation
Professor Kaul concludes not with a resolution, but with the necessity of continued conversation. “What emerges is not certainty but conversation; not resolution but transition.” The rupturing of old silences is painful but necessary. The path forward is towards a “more humane politics; one grounded not in absolutism, but in consent, recognition, and the shared ethics of habitation.”
The current affair in Jammu and Kashmir, therefore, is the painful birth pangs of a new political consciousness. It is the sound of inherited dogmas cracking under the weight of their own moral contradictions and the practical needs of a population weary of conflict. The ultimate outcome is uncertain, but the direction is clear: away from the mystified politics of the past and towards a fragile, difficult, but necessary conversation about a future built on justice, recognition, and shared belonging for all its inhabitants—Pandit, Muslim, Jammuite, and Ladakhi alike. The valley’s political grammar is being rewritten, and every word now carries the weight of a fraught but hopeful future.
Q&A on the Rupture in Kashmir’s Political Consciousness
Q1: According to Professor Kaul, what is the fundamental nature of the “decisive rupture” occurring in Jammu and Kashmir’s politics?
A1: The rupture is not merely administrative or policy-based, but a deeper moral and political transformation in consciousness. It represents a break from long-held, “immutable” assumptions and the “tacit mystification and calibrated ambiguity” that defined traditional Kashmiri leadership. This shift is characterized by an exhaustion with performative grievance politics and the emergence of new voices willing to challenge inherited narratives, focusing instead on governance, civic participation, and renegotiating belonging within the Indian Union.
Q2: How does Sajad Lone’s political articulation, exemplified by “Tut vanan tutis,” differ from the traditional idiom of Valley-based leadership?
A2: Traditional leadership (NC, PDP) operated within a framework of ambiguous symbolism, balancing distinct identity rhetoric with pragmatic Delhi engagement, all while leveraging a grievance narrative. Lone’s idiom marks a clear departure by explicitly engaging with Indian nationalism without resorting to the language of negation or exclusive grievance. It seeks to articulate a Kashmiri patriotism within the Indian constitutional framework, thereby unsettling both separatist imaginations and the moral ambiguities of the traditional parties, pushing politics towards more grounded issues of administration and daily life.
Q3: Professor Kaul identifies a “striking continuity” in grievance across communities. What is this continuity, and what does it reveal about the root of the crisis?
A3: The continuity is that the same institutional framework has generated marginalization for different groups at different times. It first marginalized the Kashmiri Pandits through demographic-based policies, then fueled Jammu’s resentment over political and economic neglect, and is now causing anxiety about “shrinking merit space” among sections of Kashmiri Muslims. This pattern reveals that the core crisis is not fundamentally communal but institutional and moral—a system that historically prioritized group arithmetic and selective justice over equitable citizenship and merit, ultimately corroding the social fabric for everyone.
Q4: What is the “profound historical irony” Kaul points out regarding the experiences of Kashmiri Pandits and sections of the Kashmiri Muslim community today?
A4: The irony is that communities (primarily in the Valley) who once accepted or were complicit in the institutional marginalization of the Kashmiri Pandits—viewing it as an “administrative necessity” of demographic politics—are now themselves beginning to articulate fears of institutional invisibility and shrinking opportunities due to expanded reservation policies. This demonstrates how systems of exclusion, once established, inevitably expand and mutate, eventually unsettling even those who initially benefited from or were indifferent to their logic.
Q5: What does the shift from “performative grievance” to a “grounded politics” entail, and why is it significant for the future of the region?
A5: The shift entails moving away from politics centered on symbolic resistance, historical victimhood, and ideological sloganeering, towards a politics focused on everyday concerns: employment, education, infrastructure, dignity, and civic participation. This is significant because it changes the central political question from who governs (identity/sovereignty) to how life is lived under governance (development/accountability). It offers a potential pathway for a more stable integration, where belonging is based on shared civic experience and tangible improvements in welfare, rather than on competing, absolutist narratives of identity and history.
