Kashmir’s socio-political landscape has long been shaped by overlapping layers of sovereignty, geography, ethnicity, language, religion and community. These have historically produced entrenched power structures in politics, bureaucracy, and society, privileged certain groups while marginalising others.While the new political and governance framework has papered over Kashmir’s historically inherited complexities, it is also reigniting and reconfiguring the dormant ones. Shared sovereignty and concentrated elite power are giving way to a more plural but contested arena in which sub-ethnic groups are asserting agency. 

The governance changes have reshaped power dynamics in J&K, particularly through the politicization of sub-ethnic identities. The quasi-sovereign framework under Article 370 had insulated and entrenched a Valley-centric Kashmiri Muslim elite hegemony. Its removal has dismantled that insulation. Alongside, in its place, new avenues have opened for previously peripheral groups, notably sub-ethnic tribal communities through delimitation, political reservations for Scheduled Tribes (STs), extension of central schemes and expanded affirmative action.

Far from simplifying the region’s challenges, this shift has layered fresh complexities onto an already fragmented terrain, reshaping power contestation and raising new questions about social cohesion. While this could foster long-term equity, the immediate outcome is greater fragmentation, with additional layers of competition over political seats, administrative roles, employment opportunities, economic resources, and social recognition.

The recent affirmative action policy has institutionalised and amplified sub-ethnic distinctions within the population of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the demographic majority. Conferring the Gujjars and Bakarwals with dedicated channels for reservations in education, employment, and political representation has deepened the divide. So too the subsequent policy shifts, particularly the extension of Scheduled Tribe status to the Pahari ethnic group. All these policy changes have intensified competitive claims over finite reservation quotas and electoral constituencies.

Prior to independence, the Dogra monarch governed a Muslim-majority population, with........

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