Few communities have paid a heavier price for their loyalty to the Indian State than the Kashmiri Pandits, and fewer have been so thoroughly reduced to a mere political exhibit. When the carcass of Article 370 was buried in 2019, the internally displaced Kashmiri Pandit community celebrated what they believed was a historic homecoming. Instead, twelve years of muted political will from a ruling establishment that rode to power on the explicit promise of their dignified return has proven that nationalistic headlines do not build homelands. The bitter irony is that the very people who defined “Kashmiri Statehood” under the Maharaja are today’s perpetual displacees, weaponized in manifestos but abandoned in reality.

When we talk about the laws protecting state subjects, it is important to remember who originally went to Maharaja Hari Singh to enact them-the Kashmiri Pandit community. In the 1920s, facing an influx of civil servants and administrators from Punjab, Kashmiri Pandits led the “Kashmir for Kashmiris” agitation. This directly resulted in the 1927 Hereditary State Subject Order to protect local jobs, administrative roles, and land ownership.

The protections, later institutionalised under Article 35A of the Indian Constitution, did not originate from post-independence Kashmiri nationalism, but rather from the anxieties of educated Kashmiri Pandit community during the Dogra regime. In the early 20th century, Maharaja Pratap Singh’s administration heavily imported educated civil servants and administrators from neighbouring Punjab. Fearing economic and bureaucratic marginalisation, the Kashmiri Pandit community led a fierce “Kashmir for Kashmiris” agitation in the 1920s to secure local employment and land rights.

Maharaja Hari Singh Bahadur demonstrated far-sighted statesmanship and proactively issued State Subject Order No. I-L/84 on April 20, 1927, graciously acceding to the popular demand of the Kashmiri Pandit community while simultaneously fortifying the sovereignty of the state. This........

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