As I have often argued in the Indian Parliament, Kashmir is not merely about territory or security. Statecraft that romanticises land while neglecting the lived realities of its people, their hopes, aspirations, and anxieties, stands on fragile moral ground. It is, and has long been, a test of the Republic’s moral and constitutional imagination.
The choices made in Kashmir, often in the name of necessity, have steadily redefined the relationship between the state and the citizen. What is unfolding is not only a story of conflict management, but of a democracy increasingly comfortable with governing through surveillance, control, and the quiet normalisation of exception.
In order to understand the depth of this transformation, one might turn to Michel Foucault and his idea of the panopticon: a system in which the possibility of constant observation produces self-discipline. The genius of the panopticon lies not in the act of watching alone, but in inducing the belief that one is always being watched. Over time, individuals internalise this gaze and regulate themselves. In Kashmir, this is no longer an abstract theoretical construct; it has become a lived condition.
The history of Kashmir offers a layered backdrop to this present. When Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India in 1947 amid the turbulence of Partition and invasion, the promise held out was not merely of territorial integration but of political accommodation. That promise found early expression in the special constitutional status granted under Article 370, a recognition, however imperfect, of Kashmir’s distinct political context.
Yet, even in those early decades, the fault lines were visible. The dismissal and arrest of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 marked a turning point, signalling that political dissent in Kashmir would increasingly be mediated through the lens of national security. The subsequent decades saw a steady erosion of autonomy, punctuated by moments of political manipulation that deepened alienation. The insurgency that erupted in the late 1980s dramatically altered the landscape.
Violence, militancy, and the tragic displacement of communities, including the Kashmiri Pandits, created a crisis that demanded a response. The state responded, as states often do, by expanding its security apparatus. Laws such as the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA) institutionalised extraordinary powers, embedding a framework where suspicion could justify prolonged detention and where accountability often appeared elusive.
There is no denying the reality of violence during those years, nor the obligation of the state to protect life and sovereignty. But what began as an exceptional response gradually hardened into a governing logic, and thus, the “temporary” became routine and the extraordinary became ordinary.
It is in this context that Foucault’s notion of biopolitics—the management of populations through regulatory controls, acquires particular resonance. In Kashmir, governance increasingly appears as an exercise in administering life itself; regulating movement, communication, and even the rhythms of daily existence. Curfews, checkpoints, and identity verifications do more than maintain order, they in fact shape how life is lived on a daily basis.
The events of August 2019 marked perhaps the most definitive assertion of this logic. The abrogation of Article 370 was accompanied by an unprecedented communication lockdown. For months, an entire population experienced the suspension of digital connectivity, phones went silent, the internet disappeared, and with it, access to education, healthcare coordination, commerce, and even basic human contact beyond immediate physical spaces. This was not merely a security measure; it was a reconfiguration of lived reality.
For the ordinary Kashmiri, the cumulative effect of these measures is profound. Consider the student whose academic future is repeatedly disrupted by internet shutdowns and the trader whose business depends on connectivity that can be switched off without notice. The journalist navigating an environment where information itself becomes tightly controlled. Or the young citizen who learns, early on, that political expression is not just an act of speech, but a calculated risk.
This is where the extension offered by Gilles Deleuze becomes critical. Deleuze argued that modern societies are moving beyond disciplinary institutions into “societies of control,” where power is continuous, fluid, and embedded in networks that regulate access and behaviour. In such a system, control is not episodic; it is ambient. It operates through modulation rather than direct confrontation. Kashmir increasingly reflects this paradigm.
Governance is less about periodic intervention and more about constant calibration: who can move, who can speak, who can connect, and under what conditions. The result is not simply compliance, but a deeper internalisation of limits. People begin to anticipate restriction, to edit themselves before the state needs to intervene. The public sphere shrinks not only because it is policed, but because it is pre-emptively abandoned.
This is the quiet power of the panopticon; it produces silence without always needing to enforce it. The defenders of this model will argue, with some justification, that Kashmir is not an ordinary situation. They will point to cross-border terrorism, radicalisation, and the strategic vulnerabilities of the region. These concerns are real, and any serious engagement must acknowledge them. But the question is not whether security is necessary; it is whether security can become the sole grammar of governance.
A Republic, if it is to remain one, cannot afford to see an entire population primarily as a security problem. To do so is to fundamentally alter the nature of citizenship. Rights become conditional, contingent on compliance. Participation becomes fraught, shadowed by the fear of reprisal. Trust, perhaps the most intangible yet essential element of democratic life begins to erode. The tragedy is that this approach is self-reinforcing.
The more a population feels surveilled and controlled, the more alienated it becomes. The more alienation grows, the more the state justifies its reliance on surveillance and control. It is a cycle that sustains itself, each turn narrowing the space for democratic engagement.
Kashmir, therefore, is not at the margins of the Indian Republic; it is at its very centre. It is here that the Republic’s commitment to its own constitutional ideals is most severely tested. Can it accommodate dissent without immediately securitising it? Can it engage politically rather than administratively? Can it trust its citizens enough to risk the unpredictability of democracy?
These are not abstract questions. But these are the questions that shape the everyday lives of millions. They determine whether a young Kashmiri grows up seeing the state as a distant authority to be navigated, or as a legitimate framework of belonging. They decide whether democracy is experienced as a living practice or as a distant promise.
The Republic must recognise that surveillance and control, however effective in the short term, are poor substitutes for legitimacy. They can manage behaviour, but they cannot command trust. They can enforce silence, but they cannot generate consent.
In the final analysis, Kashmir compels India to confront an uncomfortable truth: the methods used to govern its most contested region will, over time, define the character of the state itself. A Republic that normalises the logic of the panopticon in one place risks extending it elsewhere, and that is quite noticeable in several other parts because what begins as an exception rarely remains confined.
The choice, then, is stark but unavoidable, which asks whether India can persist with a model that privileges control over consent, surveillance over dialogue, and administration over politics. Or whether it can reclaim a democratic imagination that sees Kashmir not as a territory to be managed, but as a people to be engaged; equal in dignity, equal in rights, and equal in their claim to the Republic. In choosing between these paths, the Republic is not merely deciding the future of Kashmir, it is deciding what it is willing to become.
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