WHEN OMAR ABDULLAH addressed the Independence Day gathering at Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar, his words carried the weight of helplessness and resignation. Explaining how the political landscape had drastically shifted since his last address as head of government, he said, “The last time I stood here, I was chief minister of a state. We had an assembly that made decisions, and a cabinet that implemented them. We had our flag, our constitution, our laws. Today, I am chief minister of a Union territory. Cabinet decisions are passed, but many don’t get cleared. Some files don’t return. Some disappear.”
An elected government, Abdullah argued, must have the right to govern. He said people had expected something substantive from New Delhi this Independence Day. “Even I hoped. But nothing came—again,” he said. “Are we better now? After six years of silence, are we?”
After venting his frustration, Abdullah announced a door-to-door signature campaign demanding the restoration of statehood. The announcement came a day after Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, responding to a petition for an early hearing on statehood, said, “You cannot ignore what happened in Pahalgam. It is up to Parliament and the executive to make a decision.” The petition had argued that no security concerns justified a delay in restoring statehood, and that denying statehood without a timeline violated federal principles in the Constitution.
Representing the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta countered that the petition’s timing was meant to “muddy the waters”. He said the government had already delivered on its promise of elections, but restoring statehood involved “several considerations”. The court fixed the next hearing eight weeks later.
The court’s reference to the Pahalgam killings has dampened hopes in Kashmir that the judiciary would compel the Centre to restore statehood. Abdullah’s campaign now seeks to transform a legal matter into a public mandate, while fighting the perception that he has been reluctant to adopt a tougher stance against the Centre.
“From today, we will use these eight weeks to go door-to-door in all 90 assembly segments,” Abdullah said at Bakshi Stadium. “We have tried everything—letters, meetings, resolutions. Now we will visit every household. No one will be left out.” He said the campaign, which would collect thumb impressions from the illiterate, would “run parallel” to the Supreme Court’s eight-week timeline. “We will not let these weeks go to waste,” he said. “This is the people’s cause.”
The move has drawn sharp criticism from rivals. People’s Democratic Party legislator Waheed Para said Abdullah owed an apology to voters who had given him a strong mandate to fight for the restoration of statehood. “With 50 MLAs behind him, he has reduced the fight for J&K’s statehood to token gestures,” Para said. “This is not just retreat; this is betrayal.”
Sajjad Lone of the People’s Conference dismissed the campaign as “childish and immature”. “Ensure that a resolution is passed in the assembly and sent that to the Supreme Court,” he said. Awami Ittehad Party spokesperson Inam Un Nabi accused Abdullah’s National Conference of surrendering to the BJP, terming the campaign as “a shameful confession of political irrelevance”.
Observers, too, see the campaign as being more symbolic than productive. In a political environment dominated by the BJP, a display of popular will may have little impact. But for Abdullah, a petition backed by lakhs of signatures can remind Delhi that statehood is not just one party’s demand but a popular aspiration. The campaign also provides his party with an opportunity to reconnect with voters and politically engage them at a time of deep disillusionment with representative politics.
The move is also meant to counter the criticism that Abdullah has been soft on the Union government. Since assuming office last October, he has avoided adopting a confrontational stance on the statehood issue, disappointing supporters and straining ties with the party’s Srinagar MP Aga Syed Ruhollah Mehdi, who has repeatedly raised the issue in Parliament and urged Abdullah to take a harder stance. Abdullah’s remarks at Bakshi Stadium also came in the wake of speculation that the Centre was planning another major move—either restoring statehood or bifurcating J&K by granting statehood to Jammu while retaining Kashmir as a Union territory.
The initiative also reflects his strained ties with Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, who recently completed five years in office. Despite progress on the development front, Sinha’s tight control over key departments has deepened tensions. His refusal to clear Abdullah’s choice for advocate general, his heavy-handed handling of gatherings, and the July 13 incident—when Abdullah and ministers were stopped from visiting the Martyrs’ Graveyard in Srinagar and were forced to scale walls—have sharpened the perception that elected leaders in Kashmir are being humiliated. Abdullah knows that only statehood can restore balance, and that his leadership is under scrutiny. Personally leading the door-to-door campaign allows him to preempt critics who accuse him of complacency.
The gamble is clear: to convert frustration into mobilisation, disillusionment into participation, and symbolic protest into political leverage. But, with the Supreme Court pointing to Parliament and the executive as the authorities empowered to take a call on the restoration of statehood, his campaign could meet the same fate as separatist leader Yasin Malik’s 2007 Safr-e-Azadi (journey to freedom) campaign—remembered more for symbolism than for results.