We, the people of India, have always been emotional while talking about Kashmir. No matter which state we come from, what is our mother tongue or what religion we follow, Kashmir is a subject that always instigates our patriotic feeling. This is because Kashmir has always been at the focal point of our political discussions since independence, the reason being the unique relationship of J&K with the Indian Union. This relationship has now undergone a drastic change following the presidential assent to two separate bills which have respectively led to the scrapping of the special status to J&K and bifurcating the state into two Union territories – J&K with a legislative assembly and Ladakh without one. There has been a long standing debate in India about the special status of J&K which granted an unparalleled autonomy to the state to the extent that it could have its own constitution and even its own flag. The Kashmiris even had dual identities – they were state s...