Celebrations, silences in Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh after Article 370 repeal

The diktat led my grandmother to declare that she would now leave her house in Old Jammu to her four granddaughters

The state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), as we have known it, consisted of three contiguous regions with distinct cultures, languages, ideologies and religions, put together by a trade treaty and military conquest by Dogra ruler, Maharaja Gulab Singh. On August 5, the Union government of India reshaped the state’s boundaries, slicing it into two union territories, one with a legislature and the promise of becoming a state some day, and the other without a legislature but with a hope of getting one, perhaps on another day. This is the fate of the land that was tied to the Indian