On August 5, Jammu & Kashmir observed the seventh anniversary of the reading down of Article 370 and the demotion of the state into two Union Territories. The Modi government’s 2019 decision remains a major faultline in the politics of the region. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrated the event as the completion of J&Ks constitutional integration with India, while Kashmiri parties like the National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – who see it as a reminder of unresolved political and constitutional grievances – organised protests.The Congress also observed August 5 as a “Black Day” with its leaders criticising the downgrading of the state into a UT and calling for the restoration of statehood.Despite the change of status – or perhaps because of it – J&K’s politics has witnessed a noticeable dynamism, as manifested by the participation in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024 and the UT Assembly polls that led to an elected government currently headed by Omar Abdullah. In an interview to Karan Thapar in The Wire, Omar has expressed frustration at the pace of developments. He indicated that he had gone out of his way to work with the Union government, which is in effective control of the UT, but all that has happened is that he has lost political capital in the process without commensurate returns.Essentially, he is talking about the restoration of statehood. The Supreme Court Constitution Bench that upheld the reading down of Article 370 in a judgement of 2023 had also called on the Election Commission to conduct the assembly elections by September 30, 2024. Importantly it had asked for the restoration of complete statehood for J-K at the earliest.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Nearly three years down the line, there are no signs that the Modi government plans to do that.There is no doubt that violence in J-K has come down. Going by the metric of the loss of security personnel, we can see that where 78 were killed in 2019, the figures since have been declining— 56 (2020), 45 (2021), 30 (2022), 33 (2023), 26 ( 2024), and 17 (2025). But just why this has happened is not clear. It could be due to the continuing and massive deployment of security forces in the Valley. Or, it could be an outcome of turbulence in Pakistan which has long supported the Kashmiri separatists.Yet this situation is nowhere near normality. Last year’s ghastly massacre in Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam may be a one-off event in terms of scale and brutality, but sporadic violence continues to dog J&K and a large number of people continue to be incarcerated in its jails on national security grounds. Data by the South Asia Terrorism Portal will show that besides continuing arrests and some arms recoveries, there have been some violent incidents in the month of July. A police officer was shot dead on July 22 in Anantnag. He was part of the security detail for the Amarnath Yatra. On July 31, two migrant workers from Chattisgarh were killed by terrorists in Kulgam district. A new feature of the law and order situation are the activities of narcotics smugglers, who appear to have become very active in the UT. But while incidents of violence may have gone down, the situation in J&K continues to be bad and is evidenced more by the continuing police action against separatists, and especially their alleged supporters.A move aimed at scoring political brownie pointsJammu & Kashmir has been served ill by the powers that be in New Delhi. The reading down of the already hollowed out Article 370 was aimed at scoring political brownie points and has hurt the sentiments of the people in the Valley, more than achieving anything else. In its 2023 judgment, the Supreme Court resorted to sleight of hand to uphold the Union government’s actions, rather than honestly dealing with the legal conundrum. As for the demotion of the state, the court left the question hanging. It chose not to take issue on the foundational constitutional issue as to whether Article 3 of the Constitution gives Parliament the power to extinguish a state’s existence.In summary, the court validated the legal mechanisms used to reorganise the territory (including President’s Rule interventions and carving out Ladakh), but bypassed setting a precedent on the broader power to demote a state into a UT by relying on the government’s promise that statehood for J&K would be restored.Ostensibly there is peace in the Jammu & Kashmir area and violence has come down sharply. Yet there are reasons not to trust this surface calm and neither do the people of the state do so.A hallmark of just how abnormal the situation is was brought out by an item based on a parliamentary committee report in the Hindustan Times last week that only 3 of the 6,500 Kashmiri migrant families which had initially expressed a willingness to return to the region have permanently returned to the Valley. The committee has asked the government for a comprehensive assessment of the issues holding them back, including security and livelihood.On June 30, more than 100 prominent citizens from India and Pakistan, including separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and former J&K chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, urged prime ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif to revive bilateral dialogue and restore normal relations.The letter coordinated by O P Shah, chairman of the Centre for Peace and Progress, was signed by 61 Indians and 55 Pakistanis, including former R&AW chief A.S. Dulat, former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, and former Pakistan high commissioner to India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi called for the restoration of diplomatic ties, resumption of visa series, the reopening of trade and transport links and discussions on India-Pakistan issues including Jammu & Kashmir.There has been no formal response to the letter. Just around the time the letter was circulated, Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri formally dismissed reports of backchannel meetings between the two countries. Indeed, the Ministry of External Affairs reiterated that relations – including the Indus Waters Treaty – will remain frozen till Pakistan credibly and irrevocably ends state-sponsored cross border terrorism.But the reality is that the full restoration of normality in the state will require the steps suggested by the authors of the letter. Besides the issue of addressing domestic sentiment, New Delhi will have to deal with Pakistan. This is not an impossible exercise, but it is a challenging one. But the important thing is to make a beginning.The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.