There is something profoundly revealing about the images emerging from New Delhi ahead of the proposed protest at Jantar Mantar. Barricaded roads, restrictions on movement, suspended internet services, cancelled trains, detained students and a massive deployment of security personnel. A national capital preparing to contain its own citizens raises a question that should trouble every believer in constitutional democracy: why does a government that derives its authority from the people appear so apprehensive when those very people assemble to question it? 

For Kashmiris, this spectacle is not unfamiliar. It is a reminder of August 2019, when Jammu and Kashmir was placed under sweeping restrictions, communication networks were shut down and  political life was profoundly disrupted as the Union Government proceeded to abrogate Article 370 and reorganise the state. 

What Delhi is reportedly experiencing today, Kashmir has known for years. The difference is that Kashmiris were expected to accept it as normal. What happened to Kashmir in 2019? On 5 August 2019, the constitutional changes relating to Article 370 were announced. Parliament subsequently passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which came into effect on 31 October 2019. The former state was divided into two Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one. 

Consider the magnitude of this transformation. A full fledged state, with its own elected legislature and constitutional arrangements, ceased to exist in its previous form. Its political status was fundamentally altered. Its territory was reorganised. Its people were placed under a new administrative arrangement in which the Union Government acquired a substantially more direct role in governance. 

And what was the condition in which this transformation unfolded? Communications had been suspended, restrictions on movement and public gatherings had been imposed, and political leaders had been detained. The Supreme Court’s judgment in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, delivered in January 2020, records the communication restrictions and examines the constitutional limits on such measures. 

What does it mean for democracy when a decision of such extraordinary political consequence is implemented while the population most directly affected faces severe restrictions on communication and assembly? Can a people meaningfully participate in a debate about their political future when their ability to communicate, organise and protest is curtailed? 

These are not questions that disappear because Parliament has passed a law. They are questions about democratic legitimacy, accountability and the relationship between power and consent. Who governs, and who gets to decide? 

The central question is not merely whether a government possesses legal authority to take a particular decision. It is whether........

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