Back to square one

Kashmir's future is caught in a vicious circle

In 2019, the Union government had made provisions under Article 370 and 35A inoperative, doing away with Jammu & Kashmir’s special status and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories. It had then hoped to bring peace to the region and hold elections as soon as the Election Commission deemed fit. Now, a little more than two years since those seminal developments, Home Minister Amit Shah's first visit to the region is essentially a security review that takes place against the backdrop of the deaths of 11 civilians across the communal spectrum —Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh — and long-running military