Security, in most conflict-ridden societies, is defined by barbed wire, bunkers, and men in fatigues. But in Kashmir, it has historically been more elusive — less about the number of boots on the ground and more about the distance between the citizen and the State.

For decades that distance was cultivated by political actors, who rather than bridge it, weaponised ambiguity — praising peace in Delhi while indulging radical sentiment in Srinagar. Their legacy was not governance, but governed volatility — a Valley suspended between grievance and neglect.

It is against this inherited disorder that Manoj Sinha’s tenure as the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, since August 2020, must be understood — not just as an administrative assignment but as a civilisational rectification. He didn’t come to manage crisis; he came to undo its architecture.

Perhaps the most striking illustration of this reversal is the vanishing of hartals, which used to define and shape life in the Valley. What were popularly known as enforced “media" shutdowns were only pseudonymous political tools — they were enforced social stagnation on a wide scale.

During previous regimes, people tried to avoid going into areas that lockdowns would take place or even justified them as expressions of unique identity. Sinha’s approach was different: he did not outlaw them, he made them obsolete.

By strengthening public confidence in lawful governance and dismantling the underground networks enforcing hartals, not a single hartal has occurred during his tenure. This surpasses law and order maintenance; it is the psychological emancipation of a society.

That psychological shift encompasses........

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