It could be practice for the rest of us.

One year back, the Indian government revoked Article 370 which gave autonomy to Kashmir. According to a report by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, incidents of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir have declined by about 36% after the abrogation of Article 370. To prevent any protests a strict curfew was imposed on Kashmir, telephone and internet services were cut off and political leaders put in prison. The coronavirus lockdown added to restrictions on movement of people and the ban on 4G internet services has made online medical care almost impossible. Hundreds of Kashmiris still languish in prison and curfew was reimposed in the last few days to prevent protests on the anniversary of abrogation. "The government concocted a false narrative of Article 370 being anti-development," wrote Kashmiris Saifuddin Soz, Salman Soz, who are members of the Congress Party and, therefore, opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), in a recent report, put economic losses in Kashmir Valley in the past year at Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion)." Ominously they add, "Kashmir is in the grip of an undeclared emergency." "The Gujarat model may have been a myth, but the Kashmir model is a reality and it is coming your way." Many have disappeared in Kashmir and journalists are afraid of reporting what is happening on the ground. But foreign media have no such fear. "As Delhi tightened its control on the region last summer, journalists faced a mix of harassment, surveillance, intimidation and information policing," reported the CNN. The rest of the nation is not much better. "The Editors Guild of India has said there is 'a growing pattern of misuse of criminal laws to intimidate journalists' in different parts of the country, which is 'deeply disturbing'," If it is any consolation to Kashmiris, the whole of India was put under curfew on 25 March, to stop the spread of coronavirus when the total number of cases was just 564 with 10 deaths. Anyone venturing out was beaten or humiliated with improvised punishments by the police. It was called lockdown, instead of curfew, and telephone and internet services were not disrupted. "44 years ago, in 1975, India saw its darkest phase when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared emergency across the country." Now, the BJP is bribing politicians in states to switch allegiance to it from other parties. "In the Rajasthan crisis, newspapers speculate that the going price for a state legislator to switch parties ranges between Rs 15-25 crores or $2.25 million to $3.75 million," wrote Sadanand Dhume. The BJP is using governors to interfere in administration in states ruled by opposition parties and is using the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to threaten opponents, which is "further proof of the creeping Congressification of the BJP in the Modi-Shah era", wrote Rajdeep Sardesai. Soz maybe right. We may yet see a state of Emergency. Maybe Kashmir was just practice.