India’s former intelligence chief A S Dulat has delivered an unusually candid verdict on the state of Indian-administered Kashmir, and it is one that cuts through the official calm New Delhi likes to project. His remarks do not describe a region in turmoil or on the brink of rebellion. Instead, they sketch something quieter and perhaps more troubling: a political vacuum marked by inertia, silence and a slow erosion of hope. Kashmir, in Dulat’s telling, is not exploding. It is stagnating. Life goes on, but without direction or promise. For many Kashmiris, politics has ceased to be a space of possibility. It has become a distant, frozen arena where decisions are taken elsewhere and imposed without consultation, leaving ordinary people feeling powerless to shape their own future.
This sense of helplessness, he suggested, is now the defining feature of the region. The warning embedded in this assessment is clear. Societies do not need constant unrest to be unstable. Prolonged silence can be just as dangerous. When political expression is stifled or rendered meaningless, frustration does not disappear; it accumulates. Kashmir’s present calm, Dulat argued, should not be mistaken for consent or reconciliation. It may simply reflect exhaustion, fear or the absence of channels through which dissent can safely be voiced. Speaking at a literature festival far from the valley, Dulat chose his words carefully but firmly. He spoke of disappointment that runs deep, beneath the surface of normalcy. Shops open.
Roads function. Tourists arrive. Yet beneath this everyday rhythm lies a population that feels forgotten by the Indian state, treated as a problem to be managed rather than citizens to be engaged. The emotional distance between New Delhi and Kashmir, he implied, has never been wider. Central to his critique was a comparison between two eras of Indian politics. Under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dulat said, the Bharatiya Janata Party approached Kashmir with at least a willingness to talk. Vajpayee’s outreach, including his emphasis on “insaniyat” or humanity, acknowledged that Kashmir was not merely a security issue but a political dispute requiring dialogue, compromise and empathy.
The outcomes were limited, but the intent mattered. That intent, Dulat suggested, is now absent. Under Narendra Modi, Kashmir policy appears driven less by reconciliation than by control. The emphasis is on stability, development and integration, but without political engagement these promises ring hollow. Roads and infrastructure may be built, but trust cannot be engineered through administrative measures alone. A political problem left untreated does not vanish; it hardens. The revocation of Article 370 remains the clearest symbol of this shift. For decades, the provision served as a psychological assurance, however imperfect, that Kashmir’s distinct identity and autonomy were recognized within the Indian union.
Its removal in 2019 was framed by the government as a bold step towards integration and progress. For many Kashmiris, it felt like the final confirmation that their consent no longer mattered. Dulat’s most unsettling observation concerned the aftermath of that decision. Many expected mass protests, sustained unrest or even a renewed insurgency. None of this happened on a significant scale. Instead, there was silence. Communications were cut, leaders detained and daily life tightly controlled. When restrictions eased, the anger many anticipated did not erupt visibly. That, Dulat warned, should worry policymakers far more than street protests ever did. Silence is ambiguous. It can signal resignation, but it can also conceal rage.
Without political outlets, people turn inward. They disengage. They lose faith not only in institutions but in the idea that change is possible at all. A generation raised in such an environment may not believe in dialogue, elections or peaceful protest. The long-term consequences of that disillusionment are impossible to calculate. The discussion at the festival also widened beyond Kashmir to examine the broader cultural climate in India. Speakers criticized the increasingly hostile portrayal of Muslims in mainstream cinema, arguing that Bollywood has become a mirror of the country’s polarized politics. Muslim characters are frequently cast as villains, extremists or outsiders, reinforcing stereotypes that seep into public consciousness and legitimize suspicion.
This cultural shift matters deeply for Kashmir. When Muslims are portrayed as threats in popular culture, it becomes easier to justify heavy-handed policies in Muslim-majority regions. Dehumanization, whether subtle or explicit, lowers the moral cost of repression. It turns political disputes into civilizational battles, where empathy is seen as weakness and compromise as betrayal. Dulat’s remarks do not come from a human rights activist or an opposition politician. They come from a man who spent decades inside India’s security establishment, who understands the logic of the state and the pressures it faces. That is precisely what gives his words weight.
When a former intelligence chief speaks of neglect and indifference, it suggests a failure not of tactics but of vision. The tragedy of Kashmir today is not simply the absence of peace talks or elections with real authority. It is the erosion of belief that such things matter. When people stop expecting justice or representation, they also stop investing emotionally in the state that governs them. Loyalty becomes transactional at best, coerced at worst. India often prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy, a country capable of absorbing difference and dissent. Kashmir has long been the most severe test of that claim.
Managing the region through silence and security may deliver short-term stability, but it risks hollowing out the democratic promise at the heart of the Indian project. Dulat’s bleak assessment should not be dismissed as nostalgia for a gentler past or criticism from a retired official seeking relevance. It should be read as a warning. Kashmir’s quiet is not a solution. It is a question, unanswered and growing more urgent with time. If New Delhi continues to ignore the political and emotional realities of the valley, it may one day find that silence has given way not to dialogue, but to something far more difficult to contain.
