Kashmir After 370: Tourism, Separatism, and the Long Shadow of Congress Legacy

Poonam Sharma

With the abrogation of Article 370, the Modi government not only changed the constitutional status of Kashmir vis-à-vis the Union, it also reset the ideological terrain that had been conveniently obfuscated by Nehruvian ambiguity and Congress-era appeasement. The increasing arrival of tourists in Kashmir, celebrated by government media as a success story, is only one aspect of a far more profound shift—one riddled with unresolved tensions, ideological fault lines, and memories of betrayal.

Decades were spent putting Kashmir in this state of frozen conflict—not only at the hands of Pakistan’s adventurism, but also of domestic forces whose ideological allegiances seldom lay in the cause of a culturally consolidated India. Patronage by the Congress party to separatist sentiments, romanticism of Article 370 as being a “bridge” and never a “barrier,” intellectual indulgence by the party and its leaders toward anti-national political discourse provided the fertile ground on which discontent bloomed. Sonia Gandhi’s tacit support for leaders who routinely criticized Indian policy in Kashmir—and in some cases, even justified violence—raises disturbing questions about her party’s commitment to national integration.

Post-370, the Indian state has adopted a muscular, unapologetic stance. Yet the influx of tourism and investment has brought with it new fault lines. Resentment is growing among locals—not that Kashmiris do not appreciate peace or progress, but that they are not part of this change. The transformation is not inclusive to them; it is exploitative. Cultural alienation started with the compelled exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and now is being echoed, ironically enough, through a commercialized tourist industry that reduces sacred valleys into Instagram-worthy locations while sidestepping the still-hidden trauma below the surface.

The TRF (The Resistance Front), the rebranded Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy, is not merely a terror outfit—it is a testament to an ideologically desperate backlash against Indian post-370 assertiveness. Its strikes on tourists are designed to undermine the rhetoric of normalcy, to remind everybody that peace in Kashmir remains contested. But such assaults are not merely about militancy—they are also about local resentment that economic dividends are not shared equally, and that Delhi’s definition of “normalcy” muzzles dissent.

This new Kashmiri conundrum—between memories of repression and the illusion of development—is being manipulated not only by Pakistan, but also by forces within India who stand to gain from re-igniting separatist passions. The Congress matrix of journalists, legal activists, and think tanks fostered by Western academia continues to term Article 370’s revocation as “constitutional vandalism.” Their tale, however, ignores the reality that special status was never intended to be everlasting; it was a political accommodation, not a right at birth.

Today’s battle between nationalism and separatism is not what we are witnessing. It is a conflict between two visions of Kashmir: one that wants integration based on accountability and justice for everyone—including Pandits—and another that wallows in a victimhood complex while withholding our nation its due place in India’s civilizational trajectory. The international Left, of which Sonia Gandhi is a silent supporter, has made Kashmir a performative war zone—where each moment of state assertion is branded fascist, and each moment of resistance, even if violent, is idealized.

Tourism cannot be the only measure of peace. Nor can economic investment be a substitute for ideological clarity. The Modi government has managed to impose order, but the real question is—can it create trust without diluting sovereignty? That takes more than infrastructure and counter-insurgency. It takes a political environment where no leader, current or past, can be allowed to subvert national unity in the name of secularism or pluralism.

In Kashmir, history does not slumber—it just bides its time. And each policy decision, every judicial move, and every ideological concession rings down the corridors of time. While the country is marking record levels of investment in tourism, we need to ask ourselves: are we constructing a tranquil Kashmir, or just a lucrative one?