On Monday morning, followed by cameras, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah scaled the iron fence of a shrine in Srinagar’s old city.

In defiance of the Lieutenant Governor’s orders, Abdullah made his way to the Khwaja Naqshband Sahib shrine to pray at the graves of 22 Kashmiri Muslim protesters shot dead on July 13, 1931, by the forces of Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh.

Just a day before, the Lieutenant Governor had put the entire Kashmiri mainstream leadership, including its legislators, under house arrest to prevent them going to the shrine to mark the anniversary of the July 13 “martyrdom”.

As videos of a policeman grabbing Abdullah and trying to stop him from reaching the graves spread across social media, Opposition politicians across the country reacted sharply.

“Is this how an elected Chief Minister should be treated?” Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M K Stalin said in a post on social media platform X. “This is not just about one state or one leader. From Tamil Nadu to Kashmir, the Union BJP Government is systematically stripping away the rights of elected State Governments.”

Abdullah’s act struck a rare note of defiance and dissent against the Centre in a political set-up where the New Delhi-appointed Lieutenant Governor enjoys an overwhelming control on the administration.

It underlined to the wider Indian public the powerlessness of a sitting chief minister in Jammu and Kashmir. “The kind of traction and media interest it generated was significant,” Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a former professor of law at Kashmir University said. “From Akhilesh Yadav to the Tamil Nadu chief minister, many opposition leaders in India sympathised and showed their support to Abdullah.”

But in Kashmir, the symbolism might not be enough, observers told Scroll.

They pointed out a growing apprehension that the chief minister has not done enough to challenge the writ of the Lieutenant Governor administration – whether on Jammu and Kashmir’s reservation policy or the question of political prisoners languishing in jails outside the union territory.

“Leave aside the basic issue of reversing the August 5, 2019 decisions, the Omar Abdullah government has avoided addressing critical issues like release of political prisoners, the arbitrary detention of youth, dismissal of employees from government services by the LG administration…” a political science scholar in Srinagar, who declined to be identified, said.

The Martyrs’ Day promise

A landmark event in the modern history of Jammu and Kashmir and the movement against the rule of the Dogras, July 13 was officially celebrated as ‘Martyrs Day’ for decades.

That changed in 2019, when the Narendra Modi government scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and split it into two union territories.

During the 2024 assembly elections, the first after the erstwhile state was split into two union territories, the National Conference had promised to restore the gazette holiday on July 13.

However, in December, a month after the National Conference government was elected, the Lieutenant Governor administration excluded the day from the official list of holidays.

The National Conference formally wrote to the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha about restoring July 13 as a public holiday, but the latter has shown no urgency to heed to the request.

‘He should represent Kashmiri interests’

In the nine months it has been in power, the Omar Abdullah government has taken few substantive decisions that could push into a path of confrontation with New Delhi.

It has changed the academic calendar in schools, relaxed the upper age limit for open merit candidates appearing for combined competitive examinations of the union territory and announced free travel for women on government buses.

That pales in comparison to the promises made by the party manifesto, from the restoration of special status and statehood, jobs and scrapping the Union territory’s stringent preventive detention law.

Few Kashmiris doubt the powerlessness of the chief minister in a union territory set-up, but it’s Abdullah’s attitude towards the Centre that has antagonised the public, critics pointed out.

In January, during a tunnel inauguration event in Kashmir, Abdullah had showered praises on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for delivering on his promise of holding Assembly elections in the union territory. “My heart believes that you will make this happen”, a gushing Abdullah had told Modi about the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

To many in Kashmir Valley, Abdullah’s behaviour had come as a shock. “Frankly speaking, nobody is expecting him to fight against Delhi and sit on a hunger strike,” said Kaiser Ahmad, a resident of Ganderbal, one of the two assembly segments from which Abdullah won elections last year. “But he should represent Kashmiri interests before Delhi, not Delhi’s before Kashmiris…He should not act like a slave before Modi and Shah.”

‘We feel cheated’

For months now, the Omar Abdullah government has been facing the ire of youngsters for sitting on its promise of rationalising the reservation policy.

In March last year, the Lieutenant Governor administration had increased reservation for Scheduled Tribes to 20% from 10%. Those who benefitted from this step included the million-strong Pahari speaking community of Jammu and Kashmir, who populate most of the Pir Panjal region of Jammu.

But in changing the policy, the share of seats open to the general category was reduced to 40%.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the general category accounts for 69 % of the population, according to the 2011 census. This includes those who do not fall in Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and groups classified as Other Backward Classes.

The new policy drew massive protests from the general category students, who said the policy violated the Supreme Court’s 50 % cap on reservation.

Ahead of the 2024 assembly elections, the National Conference had promised that the new reservation policy “will be reviewed and any injustice and imbalance will be corrected.”

One of the many who had believed in that promise was 21-year-old Subiya Mehraj, a National Eligibility Entrance Test aspirant from Kashmir. “This was the first time I voted. Not only did I vote for the National Conference, I campaigned for the party within my family and friends. I thought they were serious about undoing the injustice done to Open Merit students,” shared Mehraj.

More than half a year after she cast her vote, Mehraj is livid. “I feel cheated. First, the government said to wait for six months for the committee [on reservation] to submit its report. Once that report was submitted, they said it has been submitted to the law department and there’s no time frame when they are going to send it back.”

Mehraj added: “It looks like it’s just a mere slogan for them to woo voters. But they don’t realise it’s about the future of lakhs of youth.”

Under pressure

It is not only Opposition leaders or people who have criticised Abdullah’s non-confrontationist form of governance. His own party colleague and Member of Parliament from Srinagar, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, has been a vocal critic of the way his party’s government has been functioning.

“At times, I feel that the promises that we made during the elections in terms of political agenda – forget local governance – we seem to be… not saying that we are… putting that on the backburner,” Ruhullah told The Indian Express in an interview recently.

The growing criticism of Abdullah’s government in addressing key issues that resonate with the people may have played a role in the chief minister’s conduct on Monday, a second political observer told Scroll.

“There is pressure from society,” agreed Hussain, the former professor of law at Kashmir University.