There was a time when carrying the Tiranga openly in large parts of Kashmir could invite a stare, a threat, perhaps worse. Today, the same Valley produces kilometre-long Tiranga processions, schoolchildren carrying the national flag, government employees marching beside policemen, youngsters taking selfies with it and thousands walking along Srinagar’s Boulevard with the Tricolour held high.
For the BJP, these are irresistible pictures. Almost orgasmic. For a Kashmiri, these are nothing but changing colors of a people known for being the most refined opportunists in the region. Lawrence described Kashmiris as ‘timid and effeminate’. He also remarked they are ‘very unstable and very prone to give undue weight to rumours, and that they are emotional and ruled by sentiment’.
But photographs can capture a moment. They cannot always capture a mind. A cross-section of BJP workers across the Valley claim they have captured the minds of people walking with them; which may be just one of many illusions the party and its people may be harboring in Kashmir.
That brings us to this uncomfortable question: Can BJP really interpret the Tiranga in Kashmiri hands as evidence that the political heart beneath it has changed? Hands that hold Tiranga today also held an unwelcome weapon not long ago.
So, the answer is neither an enthusiastic yes nor a cynical no. Something has unquestionably changed in Kashmir. But then, Kashmir has seen such changes since 1947, and Kashmir watchers remark that there is nothing so exciting about this change. Give Kashmiris a small gap, a small breather, a small window, and they wouldn’t think twice before pushing themselves back to where they were brought back from.
That is despite the fact that the statistics are too substantial to dismiss. Organised stone-pelting, according to Ministry of Home Affairs data, fell from 1,328 incidents in 2018 to zero in 2023 and remained at zero up to July 2024. Organised hartals declined from 52 in 2018 to zero.
More importantly, Kashmiris returned dramatically to the ballot box. The three Valley parliamentary constituencies recorded 50.86 per cent turnout in 2024 compared with only 19.16 per cent in 2019. Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag-Rajouri registered their highest Lok Sabha participation in decades.
These are not Tiranga photographs. These are behavioural changes. Something has moved. But BJP will again be wrong in saying that all this happened because of them; it may as well have happened that on account of being deprived of the “boycott vote”, it happened against them.
So, BJP would make a grave mistake if it converted the decline of separatist political behaviour into an assumption of BJP acceptance. The mass participation could also mean its rejection, or an attempt to keep it ‘under the thumb’. You can’t change an atrophied heart of decades with an overnight surgery. Atrophy stays, and so does the scar.
So, in that context, the 2024 election delivered perhaps the most important message BJP can receive from Kashmir: A Kashmiri can participate enthusiastically in Indian democracy without voting BJP. He can also swear by the Indian Constitution and still oppose it in the Indian Parliament.
And similarly, a Kashmiri can carry India’s national flag without carrying a lotus in his political heart. Forget lotus; he may as well not carry India in his heart.
How Voluntary Is the Tiranga?
This year’s pictures demand another qualification.
The massive Srinagar Tiranga Yatra of August 12 was led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. Official reporting itself says that thousands of students, government employees, security personnel and members of different sections of society participated.
Across Kashmir, district administrations organised Tiranga Yatras involving schools, government departments, police, employees and youth groups.
There is nothing improper about a government organising Independence Day celebrations. Every government does so.
But BJP should therefore resist presenting every person visible in such a rally as a spontaneous political declaration.
There is an even harder document to confront.
J&K’s General Administration Department issued Circular No. 17-JK(GAD) of 2026 dated August 5. It directed government officers and officials stationed in Srinagar and Jammu to attend the main Independence Day functions as part of their “official duty”, with absence permissible only after prior permission from their immediate superior. Heads of departments and administrative authorities were told to ensure compliance.
That changes the interpretation of at least some images.
A government employee walking with the Tiranga may be deeply patriotic. Another may simply be obeying an official direction. A third may be both. A fourth may believe that in a government system it is professionally wiser to participate than to explain why he didn’t. There is also a fifth… the problem is that fifth could be everywhere, and yet not visible.
Should we call that fear? Sometimes perhaps. But administrative compliance is the more defensible description unless evidence of actual coercion exists.
And that is precisely why counting heads in a government-supported procession cannot tell BJP what those heads are thinking.
Fear, Acceptance, or Adaptation?
Kashmir’s present political behaviour probably contains all three.
There will be people who genuinely feel much more comfortable identifying openly with India than their parents did. They are the same people who say LG rule was better than the dispensation that they elected in 2024.
There will be young Kashmiris with little emotional investment in the separatist politics of the 1990s.
There will be employees who participate because government instructs them to. Nobody wants to be sacked for deflection.
There will be families who have concluded that confrontation with the Indian state achieved nothing.
There will be businessmen who value stability because instability destroys livelihoods.
There will also be people whose private political opinions remain radically different from their public behaviour.
That isn’t peculiar to Kashmir.
Human beings everywhere distinguish between what they believe, what they say and what circumstances require them to do.
BJP’s mistake would be to insist that all three have suddenly become identical in Kashmir.
Don’t Turn the Tiranga into the Lotus
Perhaps BJP’s greatest strategic error would be claiming ownership of this transformation.
The Tiranga belongs equally to the Kashmiri who votes BJP, NC, Congress, PDP, an Independent – or none of them.
If BJP begins interpreting every national flag in Kashmir as its own political victory, it may actually slow down the normalisation it wants.
Imagine a young Kashmiri Muslim carrying a Tiranga being told repeatedly: Look, you have finally come over to our side.
His entirely reasonable response may be: I carried my country’s flag. I did not join your party.
That distinction is fundamental.
BJP should actually want Indian nationalism in Kashmir to become larger than BJP.
Because the greatest achievement would not be Kashmiris carrying the Tiranga because BJP governs Delhi.
It would be Kashmiris carrying it even after governments change.
The Real Test
There is a simple way of measuring the transformation.
Return to the same village three weeks after Independence Day.
Remove the DC.
Remove the police band.
Remove the school attendance.
Remove the government circular.
Remove the television camera.
Remove BJP.
Then observe.
Does a shopkeeper still feel comfortable displaying the Tiranga?
Does the youngster reject Pakistan-sponsored terrorism when nobody important is listening?
Will villagers protect a tourist, minority neighbour or outsider when danger comes?
Will people vote freely?
Can someone openly support BJP without becoming socially untouchable?
And equally, can someone oppose BJP while comfortably asserting that India is his country?
That is normalization.
Not choreographed unanimity.
Kashmir has undoubtedly travelled an enormous distance from the violent street politics of previous decades. To deny that would be dishonest.
But to announce that the journey is complete because thousands appeared beneath the Tiranga would be equally foolish.
So, can BJP trust the Kashmir having the Tiranga in its hands?
It should trust the Tiranga.
It should welcome the hand.
But it should still take time to understand the heart.
Because the day a Kashmiri carries the Tiranga without fear, instruction, political calculation or the need to prove anything to anybody – that will be the day India has won something far more enduring than an election.
And BJP would be wise enough, on that day, not to claim that victory entirely for itself.
Kashmir’s Theatre of Allegiance
Kashmir’s political street has repeatedly shown an extraordinary ability to change its symbols of allegiance according to the political moment – India in 1947, plebiscite in the 1950s, rejection of Pakistani infiltrators in 1965, armed separatism after 1989, Pakistan flags in the 1990s and 2000s, even Chinese flags in 2016, electoral resistance in 2024, and Tirangas everywhere in 2026.
How Indian Are the Abdullahs and Muftis?
Abdullahs’ and Muftis’ political vocabulary on Kashmir has often sounded conditional – accession, Article 370, autonomy, Pakistan, “dispute”, even the Tricolour becoming matters of qualification.
The issue is not their right to criticise Delhi; that is democracy. The question is why criticism of India has so often been louder than condemnation of Pakistan’s militancy, occupation of PoK and interference in Kashmir. Why has the simple declaration – “Kashmir is an integral and irrevocable part of India” – so often come wrapped in a “but”?
Criticising government is democracy; ambiguity about the nation is something else.
