Two Steps Done, One Withheld: When Security Caution Meets a Promise the Voters Have Kept

A Promise in Three Steps, Stalled at the Last One The

Centre itself set out the sequence: delimitation, then election, then Statehood. Delimitation is done. The election is done - and done well, with a 63.88% turnout and voters in the Valley turning away from boycott politics.

The Supreme Court asked for Statehood "as soon as possible." Yet an elected government still runs a Union Territory. The J&K Assembly's resolution of September 28 asks the obvious question: if two steps are complete, what is the third waiting for?

The case for caution - and it is a serious one - Security is not a slogan in J&K. The region lived through three decades of militant violence.

As a Union Territory, police and public order sit with a Centre-appointed Lieutenant Governor, giving New Delhi direct, unified command over the most sensitive functions.

• Statehood is hard to reverse. Once policing passes to an elected State government, taking it back would need another extraordinary Article 3 exercise. A cautious government may reasonably want certainty before an irreversible step.
• One peaceful election is a data point, not yet a trend. The Assembly's own resolution of November 2024 sought the restoration of special status - a signal that, for some, Statehood is not the end of the demand but the start of a wider one.
• The Court gave no date. "As soon as possible" leaves timing to executive judgment, which is exactly where the Prime Minister's "at the appropriate time" places it.

The case for restoration now - The Centre's own conditions have been met. A sequence that is complete except for its final step begins to look less like a roadmap and more like an open-ended pause.

• Voters did their part. A high, peaceful turnout was the best evidence the democratic process could offer that people want to be governed through their legislature, not the street.
• Conditioning Statehood on the end of militancy hands the veto to militants. As Mr. Abdullah argued, if violence can delay a constitutional promise, those who sponsor violence acquire a say in India's federal design.
• The demand is broad. Parties across the ruling alliance and the Opposition backed the resolution - this is not one party's grievance.

TAN's position Statehood should be restored now, not made conditional on the end of militancy. The security concern is real, but it does not require Union Territory status to be met.

Every Indian State already lives under the Centre's constitutional duty to protect it against external aggression and internal disturbance, with central armed forces deployed wherever needed. Those tools do not disappear when J&K becomes a State again. If the Centre believes a specific interval is still needed, it owes J&K and Parliament a published date and stated criteria

• not an indefinite "appropriate time." A promise without a deadline, after the people have met every condition set for them, erodes the very trust that the 2024 election built. What would change our view: credible evidence that restoring police powers to the State would materially weaken counter-terror operations in ways the Centre's existing constitutional tools cannot address. Absent that, the third step is overdue.