Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week,...
Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week, sign up here.
If you’re looking for end-of-2020 reading, check out our look back at some of the interviews we’ve done on the Political Fix Friday Q&As this year.
We don’t charge for this newsletter, but if you would like to support us consider contributing to the Scroll Reporting Fund or, if you’re not in India, subscribing to Scroll+.
The Big Story: Full circle
Earlier this month, results came in for Jammu and Kashmir’s District Development Council elections – the first direct polls held in the Union territory since it had been downgraded from a state the year earlier.
To understand these results, we need a bit of background.
On August 5, 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Delhi decided to take full control of the political situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Without engaging with the public or even their representatives in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, the Centre decided to downgrade the state to a Union territory, split it by carving out Ladakh and strip away the Constitutional guarantees of autonomy – i.e. Article 370, that had allowed for the erstwhile princely state to become a part of India.
If that unilateral action wasn’t alarming...
