From stone-pelting and shutdown calendars to peace, participation and development, the transformation of J&K; represents one of the most consequential changes in India’s internal security landscape.
Manzoor Naik
For decades, Jammu and Kashmir was discussed primarily through the vocabulary of conflict: terrorism, separatism, infiltration, shutdowns, stone-pelting, militant recruitment and the permanent anxiety of violence. For the ordinary citizen, however, these were not merely entries in government reports.
They were disruptions to everyday life. A school could close because of a protest. A shopkeeper could lose a day’s earnings because of a hartal. A student could find examinations postponed. A transporter could be unable to move. A tourist could cancel a visit. A family could find itself living with the uncertainty of whether the next day would bring normality or another shutdown. The most significant achievement of the Narendra Modi government in Jammu and Kashmir is therefore not simply that the number of terrorist incidents has fallen. It is that violence ceased to be the organising principle of everyday public life to the extent it once was.
That transformation did not happen overnight, nor can it be attributed to a single operation or decision. It was the consequence of a sustained security, intelligence, legal, administrative and developmental strategy. But politically, the Modi government made one decisive change: it refused to accept the old equilibrium in which terrorism, separatist mobilisation, organised street violence and disruption could coexist with governance. The results are difficult to dismiss:
The defining feature of the earlier period was the convergence of several forms of violence. Terrorists operated in the shadows. Separatist organisations mobilised people through shutdown calls. Street protests could rapidly become violent. Stone-pelting became a recurring feature of confrontations with security forces. Terror financing sustained networks that helped keep the machinery of disruption alive.
The Modi government’s response was to treat these not as isolated phenomena but as interconnected components of a security ecosystem. According to data placed before Parliament by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, terrorist-initiated incidents in Jammu and Kashmir fell from 228 in 2018 to 46 in 2023. Organised stone-pelting incidents fell from 1,328 in 2018 to zero in 2023, while organised hartals fell from 52 to zero. The same parliamentary data recorded 11 terrorist-initiated incidents up to July 15, 2024. The importance of this approach lies in its comprehensiveness.
A terrorist organisation cannot be effectively confronted merely by eliminating individual terrorists if recruitment, financing, logistics, propaganda and infiltration continue uninterrupted. Similarly, street violence cannot be permanently reduced merely by deploying more personnel if the networks financing and organising it remain intact. The strategy therefore moved towards dismantling the infrastructure that allowed violence to reproduce itself.
The most consequential political decision came on August 5, 2019, when the Union government changed the constitutional and administrative framework governing Jammu and Kashmir and Parliament enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, creating the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The decision remains politically contested. It should be acknowledged as such in any serious discussion. But whatever one’s political position on the constitutional changes, there is little doubt that August 2019 represented a fundamental break with the political status quo.
The Supreme Court, in its December 2023 judgment concerning Article 370, upheld the Union government’s constitutional measures by a unanimous five-judge bench. The significance of the change was therefore not merely symbolic. The government sought to replace exceptionalism with a framework of constitutional integration and uniform application of Indian law. But constitutional integration by itself cannot create peace. Peace requires institutions capable of enforcing the law. Perhaps the clearest evidence of transformation is found not on the battlefield but in the streets. In 2018, organised stone-pelting incidents numbered 1,328 and organised hartals 52. By 2023, both figures had fallen to zero in the government’s parliamentary data. This is a profound change in the social life of Kashmir. For years, shutdown calls had become a mechanism through which separatist groups could determine whether markets opened, schools functioned and public transport moved. The calendar of ordinary life could be interrupted by a calendar of protests. That system has largely disappeared. It is important not to confuse the absence of organised stone-pelting or hartals with the claim that every security problem has vanished. Terrorism has not disappeared from Jammu and Kashmir. Individual attacks and infiltration attempts remain possible, and security forces continue to operate in difficult conditions. The correct conclusion is therefore not that J&K has become a completely violence-free territory. The more important conclusion is that terrorism is no longer able to impose the same degree of on the entire social order.
Governments often measure security through encounters and arrests. Citizens experience security differently. A parent experiences it through the ability to send a child to school. A shopkeeper experiences it through the ability to open the shutters every morning. A student experiences it through the certainty that an examination will take place as scheduled. A tourist experiences it through the confidence to travel. A young person experiences it through the possibility of imagining a future without violence. This is why the decline in organised street violence is perhaps as important as the decline in terrorist incidents. The Ministry of Home Affairs reported that J&K received more than 2.11 crore tourist visits in 2023, describing the improved security environment as a factor enabling greater socio-economic activity.
Tourism is not merely an economic statistic in Kashmir. It is also a psychological indicator. The Modi government’s J&K policy cannot be understood exclusively through the prism of counter-terrorism. The larger argument has been that security must create the conditions for development, while development must strengthen the constituency for peace. The Union government has accelerated infrastructure, roads, power, education, healthcare, tourism and other development projects in the Union Territory. A 2023 parliamentary response noted that 53 projects under the Prime Minister’s Development Package, with an outlay of Rs. 58,477 crore, were being implemented across sectors including roads, power, health, education, tourism, agriculture and skill development.
This approach reflects a basic principle of modern counter-insurgency: military success cannot by itself produce durable peace. A road connecting a remote village to a market can be as consequential over the long term as a security operation. A functioning school can weaken the attraction of radicalisation. Employment can provide an alternative to the underground economy of militancy. Tourism can give young people a legitimate stake in peace. The ultimate measure of success is therefore whether the citizen sees a greater return from peace than from violence. There is another transformation that deserves greater attention: political participation.
The Election Commission of India recorded exceptionally high voter participation in Jammu and Kashmir during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, describing the turnout as the highest in a General Election in the Union Territory in 35 years. This should not be interpreted as proof that all political disagreements have disappeared Democracies are supposed to contain disagreement. But there is a fundamental difference between expressing political disagreement through elections and expressing it through violence, intimidation or enforced shutdowns.
The return of large numbers of voters to polling stations is therefore an important sign of institutional normalisation.
A ballot paper replacing a stone is not merely a change in political technique. It is a change in the relationship between citizen and state. Any account of the transformation that focuses only on Narendra Modi would be incomplete. The Prime Minister provided the political direction. Union Home Minister Amit Shah played a central role in the government’s security and administrative strategy. But the transformation was implemented by thousands of personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, Army, Central Armed Police Forces, intelligence agencies and civil administration. Many paid the ultimate price.
Government data show that security-force fatalities declined from 91 in 2018 to 30 in 2023. Behind every number was a human being. A policeman who did not return home. A soldier whose family received a call no family wants to receive. A civilian caught in the crossfire. The restoration of normal life in Kashmir cannot be separated from those sacrifices. It would be simplistic to say that Narendra Modi personally “ended terrorism” in Jammu and Kashmir. No responsible analysis can make such an absolute claim.
Terrorism has not disappeared. What the Modi government has demonstrably done is change the operating environment in which terrorism and separatist mobilisation functioned. It weakened the ability of separatist networks to paralyse daily life. It intensified action against terror financing and support structures. It strengthened intelligence and counter-insurgency coordination. It pursued infiltration control. It altered the constitutional framework after August 2019. And it linked security more directly with development and economic opportunity.
The measurable outcomes are substantial: organised stone-pelting and organised hartals reaching zero in the government’s 2023 data; terrorist-initiated incidents falling sharply from the 2018 level; fewer fatalities among security personnel; increased tourism; and greater electoral participation. That is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a different one. The danger now is complacency. A reduction in violence can create the conditions for peace, but peace must be institutionalised. The Government of India and the administration in J&K must continue to ensure that every region benefits from development. Jammu, Kashmir and the tribal and border areas must all see meaningful investment in roads, healthcare, education, connectivity, employment and tourism. Young people must have opportunities that make violence unattractive not merely because the state prevents it, but because they have something far more valuable to lose: a future.
The fight against terrorism must also remain intelligence-driven and precise, with the rule of law and protection of civilian life at its centre. Security and civil liberties cannot be treated as mutually exclusive objectives in a democracy. The next phase must therefore move from ending the culture of disruption to building a culture of opportunity. The strongest argument for the Modi government’s Jammu and Kashmir policy is ultimately not a political slogan. It is the experience of ordinary people. When markets open without fear, when children attend school without shutdown calendars, when tourists arrive in large numbers, when young people think about entrepreneurship instead of militancy, when citizens queue at polling stations rather than barricades, something fundamental has changed.
The numbers tell part of that story. The rest can be seen in everyday life. For decades, Jammu and Kashmir’s tragedy was that an entire generation was forced to grow up with the idea that violence was normal and peace was temporary. The Modi era has challenged that assumption. It would be premature to declare victory over terrorism forever. But it is equally wrong to deny the scale of the transformation that has already taken place.
The “reign of terror” was not ended by one speech, one law or one military operation. It was confronted through a sustained combination of political resolve, constitutional change, security operations, intelligence coordination, action against terror financing, institutional integration and development. The challenge now is to ensure that the peace created by that transformation becomes irreversible. Because the ultimate success of Jammu and Kashmir will not be measured by how many terrorists are eliminated. It will be measured by how many young Kashmiris never have to become terrorists in the first place — because they have a school to attend, a university to enter, a business to build, a job to pursue, a family to support and a democratic future worth believing in. That would be the real end of the reign of terror. And that would be the real meaning of peace in Jammu and Kashmir.
