‘We have been made fools’: Why J&K’s hope for Omar Abdullah government has soured in a year

During his Independence Day speech in Srinagar in August, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah struck a sober note.

“The last time I stood here, I was chief minister of a state,” Abdullah said, addressing an official function in Bakshi stadium. “We had an Assembly that made decisions, and a cabinet that implemented them. We had our flag, our constitution, our laws.”

He went on: “Today, I am chief minister of a Union territory. Cabinet decisions are passed, but many don’t get cleared. Some files don’t return. Some disappear.”

The admission of powerlessness was a far cry from Abdullah’s campaign speeches for the assembly last year.

At the time, Abdullah’s party, the National Conference, had promised to strive for “full autonomy” of Jammu and Kashmir within the Indian Constitution, to undo the Narendra Modi government’s decisions to scrap the state’s special status and downgrade it into a Union territory.

The party promised to restore Articles 370 and 35A, which had till August 2019 granted locals of Jammu and Kashmir exclusive rights over owning immovable property and jobs in the troubled region.

The party had also promised to put an end to “unjust terminations” of government employees on the grounds of national security, which had become common under the Lieutenant Governor’s rule, make...

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