A State That Chose to Listen

Analysis

By Zahid Sultan, Irshad Ahmad Bhat and Anika Nazir

Hannah Arendt

 “Freedom is not a gift or a passive state, but an active process of participation and responsibility within civic life”.

In the contested cartographies of postcolonial India, Jammu and Kashmir has remained a region weighed down by both myth and memory, anxiety and expectation. Governance here has long operated not as a democratic covenant but as an uneasy contract, where power alternated between visible assertion and passive withdrawal. Within this discourse, the exercise of leadership in Jammu and Kashmir demands an appraisal not in slogans or statistics, but in structural shifts attempted in governance, public ethics, and the relationship between the state and its people. As Vaclav Havel once wrote, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

This hope—measured and morally anchored—has guided the tone of governance in Jammu and Kashmir in recent years. What distinguishes this approach is neither rhetorical flamboyance nor administrative aggression. It is the quiet, deliberate refusal to treat delivery of governance as an act of benevolence. Leadership here has consistently rearticulated the purpose of the state—not as a dispenser of favours, but as a moral and constitutional duty-bearer. In a region habituated to political patronage, this return to the elemental dignity of public service marks a break with both the past and its residues.

As India celebrates its 79th Independence Day, this reflection gains a particular resonance. Freedom, after all, is not merely the absence of subjugation; it is the presence of structures that allow citizens to claim dignity, opportunity, and justice. The political economy of Jammu and Kashmir has for decades been a theatre of perverse incentives—where loyalty was traded for largesse, and identity for impunity. The political elite—both mainstream and separatist—capitalized on a systemic vacuum in accountability. What passed for governance often lacked both transparency and universality. Benefits were discretionary, access was mediated, and institutions were either weaponized or withered. In such a milieu, the fundamental wager was this: can the State become a moral institution without becoming a moralizing one?

The answer lay in turning the administrative gaze inwards. The hallmark of recent governance has been the systematization of public delivery. Be it the mass outreach programs like Back to Village and My Town My Pride, or the institutionalization of grievance redressal through JK-IGRAMS, these were not mere tokenistic optics. Rather, they signalled a new administrative temperament, one that demanded presence rather than pronouncements. District officials, once cocooned in bureaucratic aloofness, were tasked with going into the field—not as overseers, but as respondents. Governance, in this new design, was to be proximity-based, not power-distanced. John Stuart Mill once wrote that “The worth of a state in the long run is the worth of the individuals composing it.”

By compelling institutions to serve rather than posture, the state machinery was pushed toward individual worth and collective responsibility. Moreover, the symbolic shift was as significant as the operational one. In Kashmir, the people’s relationship with the state had long been intermediated by suspicion. The attempt was to reduce the dependency on mediation—to restore a sense of citizen entitlement. Welfare, development, justice—these were no longer to be dispensed as compensation or co-option, but accessed as rights.

Nowhere was this recalibration more evident than in the rehabilitation of victims of terror. For too long, public grief in Kashmir was politicized selectively—some deaths were memorialized, others ignored. The recent administration attempted to break that hierarchy of mourning. Financial assistance, education support, and employment for families of slain civilians and security personnel were streamlined. But more than that, the silences around certain categories of loss were publicly acknowledged. Without indulging in sectarian grandstanding, the idea that justice is not divisible was restored.

In matters of infrastructure and economic planning, too, substantive expansion occurred without institutional erosion. The thrust on investment summits, tourism revival, and rural industrial schemes was undergirded not merely by economic imperatives but by a civilizational claim—that Jammu and Kashmir is not a periphery to be stabilized, but a centre to be revitalized. The record speaks: new road connectivity, massive increase in air traffic, consistent augmentation in power generation, and revival of long-stalled hydroelectric projects. But more than metrics, it is the non-political visibility of the State that has changed. For the first time in decades, public institutions have begun functioning without being constantly trapped in political equivocations. Albert Camus writes that, “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

That is precisely what the revival of Kashmir’s institutions reflects: a commitment to the present moment that refuses to be hijacked by either nostalgia or nihilism. What must also be noted is that peace is not reduced to the absence of violence alone. Security was pursued, but not as an end in itself. Peace, in this formulation, had to be grounded in civic dignity. This was most evident in the manner panchayats were strengthened, local bodies given fiscal autonomy, and grassroots participation institutionalized. The idea was simple: security without empowerment is surveillance; empowerment without delivery is deception. The attempt, however partial, was to make the State less coercive and more connective.

That said, challenges have remained. Yet, what is important is that the framework of engagement has changed. There has been a notable decline in custodial silences and bureaucratic opacity. RTI mechanisms, digital public dashboards, and transparent recruitment processes have added layers of procedural legitimacy. One can critique the pace, but not the direction.

Political quietude has often been interpreted as a form of detachment. But perhaps it is a deliberate detachment from the politics of agitation and appropriation, and not from the ethics of administration. There is no Twitter populism, no populist oratory. And yet, by not inserting leadership into the political polarities of Jammu and Kashmir, the institution of governance speaks louder than the individual.

Indeed, in the symbolic imagination of the State, one of the most enduring contributions is the re-legitimation of rule itself. The citizen is not to be sedated by slogans, but respected through service. This idea—that governance is not a spectacle but a sober exercise in responsibility—has been forgotten in many parts of India. In Kashmir, it is nothing short of revolutionary.

Engagement with youth—be it through universities, innovation councils, or sports initiatives—reflects not merely a utilitarian investment, but a deep structural belief that political alienation must be confronted not with disdain but with dignity. Tens of thousands of youth have entered the workforce through transparent recruitment, skilling, and entrepreneurship programs. The culture of political recommendation is no longer the axis around which opportunity rotates. It is merit, visibility, and access.

In matters of transparency, one cannot overlook the scale at which long-pending investigations into land grabs, illegal encroachments, and recruitment scams have been taken up. This has upset many entrenched interests, cutting across party lines. But it signals a maturation of governance: the State is no longer a platform for private accumulation. It is becoming a guardian of public trust.

It is premature to suggest that Jammu and Kashmir has transitioned into a post-conflict polity. But it is not premature to argue that the idea of the State has regained its moral compass. For a region long treated as an exception—legally, politically, emotionally—this restoration of normalcy is not a small achievement. It is transformative in a way that only those who have lived in abnormality can understand.

On the eve of India’s Independence Day, one sees the resonance of this governance model in a deeper light. Independence is not simply a date or a declaration; it is a continuous process of enabling citizens to live with dignity, rights, and a voice. In this context, the quiet labor over institutions, justice, and public service mirrors the larger project of nationhood: that freedom is meaningful only when it reaches every individual.

The task of rebuilding is never singular. No one official, no matter how competent or committed, can undo decades of structural distortion. But the contribution lies elsewhere: making the State present again—not as an enforcer, not as a patron, but as a partner in rebuilding the idea of justice. It is a reminder that in the final analysis, democracy is not a lottery of electoral outcomes, but a covenant of everyday decency between the ruler and the ruled.

Jammu and Kashmir may still carry the wounds of history, but it no longer feels abandoned by the present. That, more than anything, is the quiet legacy—one that resonates as the nation marks the anniversary of its own hard-won freedom.

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.

Zahid Sultan (Freelance Researcher: PhD in Political Science)

Irshad Ahmad Bhat ( Research Scholar)

Anika Nazir ( Social Activist)