Kashmir After 370: Militancy and Mainstreaming

Militancy is the sustained use of armed violence by organised groups against the state and civilians to pursue political or separatist goals. In Jammu and Kashmir it has, since the late 1980s, combined home-grown alienation with a cross-border proxy war: Pakistan-based outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) supply the guns, training and handlers, while local networks of sympathisers supply the recruits, shelter and money.

This article traces how that militancy took root, what changed when Article 370 was abrogated on 5 August 2019, why the violence map has shifted from the Kashmir Valley to the Jammu hills, and who the over-ground workers are: the invisible backbone UPSC asked about in 2019. It closes with the mainstreaming story of elections, panchayats and the statehood debate.

Why militancy took root in Kashmir

The militancy that erupted in 1989-90 was not a single grievance but a pile-up of them. Each layer below fed the next, which is why the answer to any mains question on J&K must be multi-causal rather than monocausal.

The 1987 Assembly elections, widely perceived as rigged against the Muslim United Front, are the usual starting point: young activists who had campaigned peacefully concluded that the ballot box was closed to them and picked up the gun.

Note the feedback loop for mains answers: political alienation created the recruit pool, external support armed it, and governance failures kept replenishing it. Breaking the loop is the whole logic of the post-2019 strategy.

The abrogation of Article 370: what changed on 5 August 2019

Article 370 was a provision in Part XXI of the Constitution, headed 'Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions', which gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status: its own constitution, a separate flag, and autonomy over all matters except defence, foreign affairs, finance and communications. A companion provision, Article 35A, empowered the state legislature to define 'permanent residents' and reserve for them rights over land, employment and scholarships, barring outsiders from settling permanently.

On 5 August 2019 the Union Government moved Presidential Order C.O. 272, applying the entire Constitution to J&K and rendering Article 370 inoperative, followed by C.O. 273 abrogating the article itself. The stated aim was full constitutional integration: to curb separatism, end the two-constitution anomaly, and extend central laws, from the Right to Education to the UAPA and the NIA Act, to the region.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 then bifurcated the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and Ladakh, without one. Direct central administration was expected to speed up security responses and development delivery, but it also meant the region lost elected government for over five years.

In December 2023 a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the abrogation, holding that J&K had no internal sovereignty and that Article 370 was a temporary provision. The Court directed that Assembly elections be held by 30 September 2024 and that statehood be restored 'at the earliest', a verdict that frames every current debate on the region's political future.

Timeline: from accession to the post-2019 order

Read the trend with discipline. Official reporting describes terror incidents down sharply since 2020 and local recruitment collapsing to a single case in 2025 after 146 in 2021 - date-labelled Defence Ministry figures reported in 2026. The same reporting records 163 ceasefire violations in 2025, 124 of them during Operation Sindoor, against near-zero in 2023-24. The honest mains conclusion is therefore double: the everyday insurgency has shrunk, but the escalatory, Pakistan-linked spectacular attack remains the live risk.

Security after abrogation: what the data shows

The Defence Ministry's 2025-26 Annual Report describes the security situation as 'firmly under control', and the numbers behind that claim are striking. Violence did not vanish, but its scale and character changed.

• Terror incidents fell nearly 75 per cent since 2020; between 2022 and 2025 they dropped from 151 to 35, a decline of about 77 per cent.
• Stone-pelting has been eliminated: zero stone-throwing incidents were recorded in 2025, down roughly 90 per cent from pre-abrogation years.
• Local recruitment collapsed from 146 youth in 2021 and 121 in 2022 to 19 in 2023, four in 2024 and just one in 2025, the lowest ever.
• Infiltration is down too: six attempts were foiled on the LoC in 2025, compared with 18 in 2023 and 10 in 2024; 12 terrorists were killed while crossing.
• Terrorists neutralised fell from 232 in 2020 to about 46 in 2025, suggesting the active militant cadre has shrunk dramatically.
• Tourism held up: J&K received around 23 million visitors in 2025 despite the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 25 tourists and a local pony operator.

A longer comparison underlines the structural shift. J&K Police data shows that between 2009 and 4 August 2019 the region recorded 1,435 terror incidents with 382 civilian deaths and 672 security-force casualties. From 5 August 2019 to August 2026 it recorded 652 incidents, 191 civilian deaths and 213 security personnel killed, while 858 terrorists were neutralised.

Two caveats matter for a balanced answer. First, ceasefire violations spiked to 163 in 2025 (124 during Operation Sindoor in May) from just two in 2024, a reminder that the LoC can heat up fast. Second, the Pahalgam attack of April 2025 showed that high-impact terror strikes remain possible even as everyday violence falls.

The net assessment for UPSC: abrogation's security dividend lies less in ending militancy outright than in shrinking its footprint, drying up local recruitment, and shifting the remaining threat to cross-border, Pakistan-sustained modules. The Defence Ministry explicitly links the recruitment collapse to the rebuttal of Pakistan's 'home-grown terrorism' narrative.

The militancy map is moving: the Jammu shift

Since mid-2021, militant activity has spread from the heavily militarised Kashmir Valley to the hilly, forested terrain of the Jammu division, particularly the Pir Panjal range and the Chenab Valley districts of Poonch, Rajouri and Doda. This is a deliberate Pakistani tactic to open a new front, stretch Indian resources thin, and exploit terrain the counter-terror grid covers less densely.

• Security redeployment : after the 2020 Galwan standoff with China, Army troops were shifted from the Jammu sector to the Line of Actual Control, thinning the counter-terrorism grid.
• Terrain advantage : dense forests, high-altitude ridges and cave networks in the Pir Panjal provide natural cover for ambushes and evasion of cordon-and-search operations.
• Hybrid militancy : cadres have shifted to 'hybrid militants' who live normal civilian lives and are activated only for specific attacks, making them nearly impossible to profile.
• Encrypted communication : small, decentralised cells coordinate through encrypted messaging apps and VPNs on civilian smartphones, defeating traditional interception.
• Cross-border logistics : drones ferry arms, ammunition and narcotics across the LoC and International Border, sustaining militant ecosystems without large infiltration.

The policy implication is a pivot from large-scale deployment to intelligence-led, technology-enabled operations: reviving Village Defence Guards (VDGs), community-based local defence units in remote areas, upgrading the anti-infiltration grid with sensors and drones, and rebuilding grassroots human intelligence among a younger generation of Kashmiris.

Over-ground workers: the invisible backbone

Over-ground workers (OGWs) are civilians who provide logistical, financial, intelligence, communication, recruitment, propaganda and safe-haven support to terrorist organisations without directly participating in armed violence. They blend into the community, hold ordinary jobs, and are 'activated' only when needed, which makes them the hardest layer of the terror ecosystem to detect. UPSC's 2019 mains question, framed around the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami, asked exactly this: what role OGWs play and how to neutralise them.

The lesson for answers: kinetic operations kill militants, but only dismantling the OGW network starves the next generation of cadres. That is why the state pairs Operation All Out with the State Investigation Agency (SIA), created in 2021 to build watertight legal cases against terror supporters, and with the 2019 UAPA amendment that lets the government designate individuals, not just organisations, as terrorists.

The state's toolkit: security, law and development

India's J&K strategy since 2019 runs on three rails at once: security operations to degrade the militant ecosystem, legal instruments to choke its support structures, and development to drain its recruiting ground.

• Operation All Out (from 2017): coordinated Army, CRPF and J&K Police campaign that neutralised top commanders and disrupted terror networks.
• UAPA amendment, 2019 : enabled designation of individuals as terrorists; J&K recorded 371 UAPA cases in 2022, the highest in India.
• NIA action : terror-funding probes against Hurriyat leaders and hawala operators; separatist leader Yasin Malik was convicted in a terror-funding case in 2022.
• Bans on separatist bodies : Jamaat-e-Islami J&K and the JKLF were banned under the UAPA for supporting radical activities.
• Border hardening : CIBMS with infrared sensors, drones and thermal imaging on the LoC; anti-drone and anti-tunnel measures after the 2021 Jammu airbase drone attack.
• Development push : the Prime Minister's Development Package (2015), all-weather roads, the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link, and a GI tag for Kashmiri saffron in 2020.
• Youth programmes : Himayat, Udaan, Nai Manzil, USTAAD, Sadhbhavana, UMEED and the Mumkin scheme's subsidised commercial vehicles.
• Winning hearts and minds : the Army's Operation Sadbhavana and CRPF civic-action programmes run schools, medical camps and career counselling in affected areas, the exact theme of the 2023 mains question.

The G20 Tourism Working Group meeting hosted in Srinagar in May 2023 deserves a mention in answers: it was staged as proof of normalised security, and it fed directly into the tourism surge the region has since seen.

Deradicalisation and rehabilitation: the soft front

Deradicalisation is the process of moving individuals away from extremist ideology toward reintegration into society, through counselling, ideological counter-narratives, vocational training and family engagement. It is distinct from disengagement, which means stopping violent behaviour without necessarily abandoning the ideology; disengagement often comes first and deradicalisation follows. The distinction matters because a surrendered militant who has disengaged but not deradicalised remains a recruitment risk.

Jammu and Kashmir's surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy applies this logic to militancy. Militants who lay down arms are offered a structured path back, with reported provisions including monthly stipends, fixed deposits and vocational training rather than indefinite incarceration. The strategic reasoning is cold: every surrendered militant is one less gun, one less recruiter and a living demonstration that the exit ramp is real, which erodes the romance of militancy more effectively than any press release.

States have experimented with wider counter-radicalisation approaches: counselling cells, community and family outreach, and involving religious leaders and civil society in building counter-narratives, with Maharashtra's reported deradicalisation programme often cited as an early model. In J&K, the Army's Operation Sadbhavana and civic-action programmes described above play a supporting role at the community level, addressing the grievance pool from which recruiters draw.

The case for the soft front is that kinetic operations alone cannot end militancy: force degrades networks but can also generate the grievances that refill the recruitment pool. Rehabilitation breaks the cycle by addressing ideological and economic drivers together, and international experience, from Saudi Arabia's and Singapore's programmes, both hedged as context-specific, suggests that firm security action combined with credible exit ramps outperforms either approach alone. For the examination, deradicalisation is the complement to, not the replacement of, the security toolkit.

Mainstreaming: from the ballot box to the panchayat

Mainstreaming means drawing the region's politics back into constitutional channels: elected legislatures, empowered local bodies and functioning democratic institutions, so that grievances travel through votes rather than violence. The post-2019 sequence was deliberately staged as delimitation, then elections, then statehood.

• Delimitation : the Delimitation Commission redrew Assembly constituencies and completed its work, enabling the first elections under the new map.
• District Development Councils : elected in December 2020, the DDCs were New Delhi's first grassroots democratic experiment in the UT, giving villages a development voice.
• Assembly elections, 2024 : held in September-October 2024 with heavy, coercion-free turnout; the National Conference-led alliance won and Omar Abdullah became Chief Minister in October 2024.
• Special-status resolution : the new Assembly passed a resolution in November 2024 seeking restoration of J&K's special status and constitutional guarantees.
• Panchayat polls pending : terms of over 4,200 panchayats expired in January 2024 and DDC terms ended in February 2026, leaving grassroots governance in limbo over OBC reservation and delimitation of wards.

The statehood restoration debate is the unfinished third step. The Centre had promised statehood after delimitation and elections; with both done, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah moved an Assembly resolution in September 2026 demanding 'immediate and urgent' restoration of full statehood, keeping the issue politically live. For mains answers, this is the honest closing note: security gains are real and measurable, but democratic completion is still awaited.

Way forward

• Intelligence-led operations with human-rights discipline : dismantle OGW and hybrid-terrorist networks through shared live intelligence while upholding rights, so operations do not recreate alienation.
• Harden the border grid : seal the LoC and IB with drones, electronic sensors and anti-drone systems against infiltration and narco-smuggling.
• Political dialogue and reconciliation : engage mainstream parties and willing separatists; complete the statehood promise to close the democratic deficit.
• Community engagement : strengthen grassroots democracy, train Village Defence Guards properly, and run targeted youth de-radicalisation.
• Jobs and skills : expand technical training and private investment to attack the 6.7 per cent unemployment that feeds the recruit pool.
• Diplomatic pressure : expose cross-border terror financing on FATF and UNSC platforms and squeeze state sponsors of proxies.

UPSC and this topic: PYQ weightage

• 2023 : 'Winning of Hearts and Minds in terrorism-affected areas is an essential step.' Asked for measures adopted by the government as part of conflict resolution in J&K.
• 2019 : on the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami, asked to examine the role of over-ground workers in assisting terrorist organisations and measures to neutralise them.
• 2024 : border-management question on conflicting issues along the China and Pakistan borders and the Border Area Development Programme.
• 2023 : use of drones by adversaries to ferry arms and drugs across borders, and measures to tackle the threat.
• 2020 : internal security threats and transborder crimes along the Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan borders including the LoC.
• 2020 : steps to deny local support to militants and manage favourable perception among locals, squarely the OGW and hearts-and-minds theme.

Key Terms

• Militancy: Militancy is armed insurgent violence against the state, the term most used for the armed campaign in Jammu and Kashmir. Distinct from terrorism in Indian usage by its territorial and secessionist aims, it combines local recruits with cross-border support. It matters because the changing character of militancy, from gun-toting cadres to hybrid militants, defines counter-insurgency strategy. Example: The three-decade armed campaign in Kashmir.
• Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT): Lashkar-e-Taiba is the Pakistan-based jihadist group founded by Hafiz Saeed, responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and a stream of Kashmir attacks. Designated a terrorist organisation by India, the US and the UN, it operates with alleged ISI patronage. It matters as the principal instrument of Pakistan's proxy war against India. Example: LeT's role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM): Jaish-e-Mohammed is the Pakistan-based jihadist group founded by Masood Azhar after his release in the 1999 Kandahar hijacking exchange. It carried out the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2019 Pulwama bombing. It matters as the group behind the deadliest attacks on Indian security forces. Example: JeM's 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing.
• Over-ground workers (OGWs): Over-ground workers are the civilian support network of militancy in Kashmir, providing shelter, transport, reconnaissance, funds and recruitment without carrying guns themselves. The shift to hybrid militancy has made OGWs the face of the threat. They matter because they are harder to distinguish from ordinary civilians than armed cadres. Example: OGW modules busted for sheltering infiltrating terrorists.
• Article 370: Article 370 was the temporary provision granting Jammu and Kashmir special status within the Indian Union: Parliament could legislate for the State only on subjects in the Instrument of Accession unless the State government concurred, and the President could extend other constitutional provisions to it by order. Rooted in the State's 1947 accession, it was the classic UPSC case study on asymmetric federalism and national integration. Example: It was rendered inoperative through Presidential Orders in August 2019, ending the State's special constitutional status..
• Political grievances: Political grievances are perceived injustices in representation, autonomy and democratic process that fuel separatism, from the rigged 1987 J&K elections to unfulfilled accords. They matter because insurgencies almost always begin as political disputes before turning violent. Example: The widely criticised 1987 Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections.
• External interference: External interference is the involvement of foreign states in a country's internal conflicts through funding, arming or directing militants. In Kashmir it refers primarily to Pakistan's role. It matters because it internationalises what would otherwise be a domestic law-and-order problem. Example: Cross-border infiltration directed from across the LoC.
• Socio-economic gaps: Socio-economic gaps are the disparities in jobs, education and development that alienate youth in conflict zones. In Kashmir, educated unemployment has been a steady driver of unrest. Addressing them is the development leg of counter-insurgency. Example: High educated unemployment among Kashmiri youth.
• Ideological radicalisation: Ideological radicalisation is the process by which individuals adopt extremist beliefs justifying violence, increasingly driven online. In Kashmir it has shifted militancy's idiom from nationalism to pan-Islamism. It matters because radicalised individuals are harder to deter and rehabilitate. Example: Online propaganda drawing Kashmiri youth toward militancy.
• Governance deficit: Governance deficit is the absence or poor quality of state services, administration and justice in remote areas, leaving a vacuum that insurgents fill. In LWE zones it shows up as absentee officials, non-functional schools and unresponsive policing. It matters because insurgency thrives where the state is invisible. Example: Interior Bastar villages with no resident administration.
• OGW networks: OGW networks are the organised webs of over-ground workers linking handlers across the border with local facilitators, funders and recruiters. Security agencies map and dismantle them through the NIA and the State Investigation Agency. They matter as the nervous system of hybrid militancy. Example: Interlinked OGW cells coordinating logistics for infiltrators.
• Article 35A: Article 35A was the constitutional provision, inserted by a 1954 Presidential Order, that empowered the J&K legislature to define permanent residents and reserve rights for them. Abrogated along with Article 370 in August 2019, it had barred outsiders from owning land and government jobs in the state. It matters as the legal core of Kashmir's special status. Example: The permanent-resident regime repealed in August 2019.
• Right to Education: The Right to Education refers to the fundamental right to free and compulsory education for children aged 6 to 14 under Article 21A and the RTE Act, 2009. Extended to J&K after the 2019 reorganisation, it matters as part of the mainstreaming agenda, bringing the region's children under national education guarantees. Example: RTE Act coverage extended to Jammu and Kashmir after 2019.
• Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967: The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 is India's principal anti-terror law, criminalising terrorist acts, terrorist organisations and support to them. The 2019 amendment allows designation of individuals, not just organisations, as terrorists. It matters because almost every major terror prosecution, from Kashmir militancy to urban modules, runs through UAPA. Example: Designation of Masood Azhar as a terrorist under the 2019 amendment.
• Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019: The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 bifurcated the former state into two Union Territories, J&K with a legislature and Ladakh without one, following the abrogation of Article 370. Upheld by the Supreme Court in December 2023, it is the legal foundation of the post-2019 constitutional order in the region. Example: The creation of the UTs of J&K and Ladakh in October 2019.
• Pir Panjal: The Pir Panjal is the mountain range separating the Kashmir Valley from the Jammu plains, whose southern districts, Rajouri and Poonch, have seen a recent shift of militant activity. Dense forests and proximity to the LoC make it ideal for infiltration. It matters as the new geography of Kashmir militancy after 2021. Example: Ambushes on Army convoys in Rajouri-Poonch since 2023.
• Chenab Valley: The Chenab Valley comprises the Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts of Jammu, a remote, forested region where militant presence resurfaced after 2023. Its terrain offers natural hideouts and escape routes. It matters as the second new axis of militancy alongside Pir Panjal. Example: Search operations in Kishtwar's forests after 2024 encounters.
• Hybrid militancy: Hybrid militancy is the current Kashmir model in which part-time militants with no police record carry out attacks and melt back into civilian life, supported by OGW networks. It matters because it defeats profile-based policing: the attacker is unknown to the system until the attack. Example: Part-time militants striking security forces and returning to daily jobs.
• Encrypted communication: Encrypted communication is the use of end-to-end encrypted apps and VPNs by militants to evade surveillance. It matters because it blinds signal intelligence, forcing agencies to rely on human sources and on-ground networks. Example: Militant handlers coordinating over encrypted messaging apps.
• Cross-border logistics: Cross-border logistics is the pipeline of weapons, funds, narcotics and infiltrators moved across the LoC and international border through tunnels, drones and OGW couriers. Dismantling it is the core of border-hardening strategy. Example: Drone-dropped weapons consignments in the Jammu sector.
• Village Defence Guards (VDGs): Village Defence Guards are armed civilian volunteers in Jammu's border villages, the renamed and revamped Village Defence Committees, trained and equipped to resist militant attacks until forces arrive. They matter as the community's first line of defence in remote areas. Example: VDGs in Rajouri responding to militant sightings.
• Operation All Out: Operation All Out was the 2017 joint Army, CRPF and J&K Police offensive that systematically targeted the top leadership of Kashmir militant outfits. It sharply reduced militant numbers and is credited with breaking the back of the Hizbul Mujahideen's local command. It matters as the template of intelligence-led, leadership-focused counter-insurgency. Example: The 2017 offensive that eliminated most wanted militant commanders.
• State Investigation Agency (SIA): The State Investigation Agency is J&K's dedicated counter-terror investigation body, constituted in 2021 on the NIA model to probe terror funding, OGW networks and narco-terror cases. It matters because it gives the UT a specialised agency for the cases NIA does not take up. Example: SIA raids on terror-funding networks in the Valley.
• UAPA amendment, 2019: The 2019 amendment to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act empowered the Centre to designate individuals, not just organisations, as terrorists, and extended NIA jurisdiction. It matters because it lets the state act against ideologues and financiers who hide behind unlisted fronts. Example: Individual terrorist designations under the amended UAPA.
• G20 Tourism Working Group meeting: The G20 Tourism Working Group meeting held in Srinagar in May 2023 was the first major international event in Kashmir after the Article 370 abrogation. It matters as the government's showcase of normalcy and the tourism revival in the Valley. Example: The May 2023 Srinagar meeting signalling Kashmir's return to the global stage.
• District Development Councils: District Development Councils are the elected third tier of grassroots governance in J&K, created in 2020 with direct elections across all districts. They matter as the first major democratic exercise after reorganisation and the vehicle for grassroots development planning. Example: The 2020 DDC elections across Jammu and Kashmir.
• Assembly elections, 2024: The Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections of September-October 2024 were the first in a decade and the first since the loss of statehood, held after delimitation and a Supreme Court deadline. The National Conference-led alliance won. They matter as the democratic milestone of the mainstreaming process. Example: The 2024 polls restoring an elected government in J&K.
• Deradicalisation: The process of moving individuals away from extremist ideology toward reintegration, through counselling, counter-narratives, vocational training and family engagement. It complements kinetic operations by addressing ideological drivers rather than just degrading networks. Example: J&K's surrender policy pairs security action with rehabilitation.
• Disengagement: Stopping violent behaviour without necessarily abandoning extremist ideology; it often precedes deradicalisation. A disengaged but not deradicalised individual remains a recruitment risk. Example: surrender schemes aim to convert disengagement into full deradicalisation.
• Surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy: J&K's framework offering militants who lay down arms a structured return to civilian life, with reported provisions including stipends, fixed deposits and vocational training. The logic: every rehabilitated militant is one less gun and one less recruiter. Example: surrenders are tracked as a metric of the soft front's success.
• Instrument of Accession, 1947: the legal instrument by which Maharaja Hari Singh acceded Jammu and Kashmir to India in October 1947, initially for defence, external affairs and communications.
• Line of Control (LoC): the military control line between Indian and Pakistani administered parts of the former princely state, arising from the 1949 ceasefire and renamed after the 1972 Simla Agreement.
• Hybrid militant: a part-time attacker with no prior militant record who carries out a specific attack and then blends back into civilian life, complicating detection.
• Statehood restoration: the pending third step of the post-2019 sequence - delimitation, elections, then restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

Practice questions