On 5 August 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, headed by Narendra Modi, unilaterally abrogated Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution to repeal Kashmir's semi-autonomous status in India and undermine its United Nation (UN)–mandated right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite. Of course, Kashmir's semi-autonomous status was in place against the backdrop of an Indian occupation that has made it the most militarized place in the world. Many Indians considered Articles 370 and 35A to be an obstruction to Kashmir's integration into India and celebrated the BJP government's decision as a bold step to correct a seven-decade-long ‘historic blunder’ that, they claimed, had impeded Kashmir's growth and development and ‘promoted separatist’ sentiments in the Valley (BBC News 2019). India's violent annexation of Kashmir was framed as a benevolent step to ‘usher in a new dawn’ in the region through Indian investments – at par with other states in India – and build a more peaceful and prosperous region (Economic Times 2019; Shringla 2019). A few months after the abrogation, while the residents were silenced by an unprecedented media and communication blackout and forced to remain caged inside their homes through curfews and shutdowns, Indian investors met in various cities of the country to carve out new investment opportunities in the region in mining, pilgrimage tourism, real estate, housing, and hydropower. In a PowerPoint slide from an investment summit held in Bangalore a few weeks after the abrogation, Article 370 was drawn as a concertina wire, which symbolized its oppressive grip over Kashmir, and represented India's historic failure to integrate the region, which according to government officials, had ‘lagged’ behind every other state in India (Parker 2019). Vast numbers of Indians celebrated Modi as the vikas purush (development man), convinced that Article 370 had stymied development in Kashmir and held it hostage for seven decades.

Despite the fact that Kashmir has routinely performed better compared to other Indian states on many socio-economic indicators such as education, poverty, life expectancy rates, and wealth distribution patterns, thanks in large part to land reforms of the 1950s, the myth of its underdevelopment has persisted in the Indian consciousness for decades (Vishwadeepak 2019).