On J&K statehood, Omar Abdullah is spot on. He doesn’t need Trump clickbait

Abdullah’s invocation of Trump runs counter to the grain of his tenure as CM so far, which has located Kashmir, with its distinctive history, squarely within the negotiations in a federal polity.

3 min readJul 14, 2026 06:00 AM IST

First published on: Jul 14, 2026 at 06:00 AM IST

In 2023, in its ruling that upheld the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, the Supreme Court said, “the Solicitor General of India assured this Court of the Union’s commitment made on the floor of the House that the Statehood of Jammu and Kashmir would be restored in the near future upon elections being held”. The BJP has often touted the drop in the local drivers of insurgency and growth in tourism as evidence of the return of normalcy in “Naya Kashmir”. The high voter turnout in the peaceful 2024 elections to the Union Territory’s Assembly signalled trust in the democratic framework, broke a long political standstill. In this context, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s frustration over the delay in the Centre delivering on its promise of statehood is entirely justified and appropriate.

However, Abdullah, who can be sharp and yet complex, could have framed it better. On Saturday, addressing a gathering of National Conference (NC) workers in Srinagar, he said: “Let BJP tell us whether we have to go to (US President Donald) Trump for statehood… and hold dharna outside the White House.” Perhaps, it was a facetious remark, political clickbait. But “internationalisation” (read the US) is among the most knotty threads in the fraught history of Jammu and Kashmir. From the Truman White House pushing the formation of the United Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) in 1948, to US officers assisting armed forces in PoK during the Cold War, to the barely tacit backing of separatism by US State Department officials such as Robin Raphel in the early 1990s, for the better part of a century the US and UK have sought to play a dubious role in the region. Internationalisation of Kashmir has been — and remains —Pakistan’s aim over the years.

Abdullah’s invocation of Trump runs counter to the grain of his tenure as CM so far, which has located Kashmir, with its distinctive history, squarely within the negotiations in a federal polity. While underscoring the curtailed powers of the elected government, he chose not to take a confrontational stance towards the Lieutenant Governor’s office. In the aftermath of the horrific attack in Pahalgam by Pakistan-backed terrorists, he delivered one of the most stirring speeches of his career in the Assembly, framing the Kashmir tragedy as one of the entire country, even as he backed the Union government’s moves, political and diplomatic. Over the last two years, Abdullah has been at the forefront of crafting a new political language in Kashmir. This is his greatest strength as he rightly reiterates the demand for statehood. That’s why there is a need to guard against loose statements that distract attention from it.