For over three decades, Kashmir was not a voice—it was a narrative, hijacked and manipulated by Pakistan’s propaganda machinery. The pain of this land was never Pakistan’s concern; it was a tool, a weapon, a theatre script for international forums. While Islamabad paraded selective tragedies before the world, the actual victims—those who stood by India, whose families were shattered by Pakistan-sponsored terrorism—were pushed into oblivion.

No one asked: Who mourned these loyal sons and daughters of Bharat? Who stood by the mothers who lost not one but four children because they refused to feed terrorists? These families were not statistics—they were testaments of courage. And yet, they were forgotten. Until now.

This past month in Jammu & Kashmir, something extraordinary happened. Something that doesn’t often make headlines in the noise of national politics but should dominate the conscience of a nation. For the first time in independent India’s history, families of terror victims—those killed for their loyalty to the Indian State—were brought to the front stage of justice, remembrance, and restitution.

In Anantnag and later in Baramulla, scores of families who had been living in the shadows of memory—women who lost husbands, children who never met their fathers, parents who buried sons—were called forth not to be consoled, but to be recognised. Forty of these families, many of whom had never stepped into a government building with hope, were given job orders, legal protection, and public honour. But what they received most profoundly was a return of moral dignity—a currency long denied to them by both state apathy and societal betrayal.

The picture of change has existed for some time now, but there has been a spotlight on it emanating from the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha. He has provided a different narrative to governance in Kashmir. In an atmosphere characterized........

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