The United Nations human rights office called the pellet shotgun “one of the most dangerous weapons used in Kashmir” and recommended its removal from India’s arsenal for crowd control. When the Indian government was asked why it fired into the faces of children, it declined to answer, citing national security.
Clearly, “limited damage” is not a description the evidence can bear.
The Chauhaan teaser’s complaint that limited force produces no results is equally untrue because, in Kashmir, there has never been restraint by the government or any shortage of force. The region’s condition today reflects what more than three decades of force have wrought.
A government that answers one violation with another, graver violation does not earn trust; it forfeits it.
Protesters take to the streets because the doors of Parliament have been shut to them. And this is not just in Kashmir.
The Indian government’s Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy adopted in 2014 requires all draft laws to be opened for public consultation for 30 days. Yet, according to PRS Legislative Research, of the 301 Bills introduced since 2014, 227 underwent no public consultation at all. Of the 74 that were published, at least 40 fell short of the prescribed 30-day consultation period.
The ‘mother of democracy’ will not discuss family matters with the family.
There is further evidence that we are a parliamentary democracy only in name. The share of Bills referred to standing committees has fallen from 71 per cent before 2014 to below 20 per cent since.
In December 2025, the government was asked whether it monitored implementation of the consultation policy. It replied that it had never evaluated the policy and kept no record of who complied with it.
Increasingly, the government’s most problematic directives do not arrive as laws but as rules and advisories drafted by the executive without legislative scrutiny, let alone public consultation.
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