Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s critics and opponents repeatedly commit the mistake of underestimating him when there is little to no excuse to do so. In Parliament, the opposition raised college debate-level points over procedures and committees while the government moved swiftly to pass the triple talaq bill and the momentous abrogation of Article 370 with clinical despatch.

The voiding of Article 370 is a breakthrough moment not just because the Modi government broke the numerical barrier in Rajya Sabha, but for the ideological fracturing it caused in the opposition ranks as regional parties like the BJD, BSP, TRS, YSR-CP and even the TDP saw a popular support for the move that trumped usual concerns about alienating minority votes and provincial autonomy.

In his first term, Modi provided sufficient evidence that he is a risk-taker who will not shy from taking tough decisions. Determined to use his parliamentary majority to the fullest, he put his political capital on the line on demonetisation and the GST rollout. He moved decisively — though not rashly — to confront Pakistan after a suicide bomber killed 40 troopers in Pulwama. And he did not flinch in using Aadhaar to launch ambitious social welfare schemes in the face of political and legal challenges.

Ahead of the vote on Article 370 and the audacious move to split Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh into separate Union Territories, the home ministry under Amit Shah poured thousands of troops into the state while strategic defections in Parliament demoralised Congress thoroughly. The adroit use of Article 370 itself, which allowed the government to evade the necessity of a two-third vote for a constitutional amendment, fell in the realm of stratagem. But Article 370 defied conventional solutions.

Concerns over parliamentary procedure, lack of discussion with “stake-holders” (a deliciously important-sounding but vague term), misgivings over a compact being betrayed do not answer the question — did Article 370 and the separate status it promised work? Are things better today than in 1950 when it became part of India’s new Constitution? The truth is the goal of safeguarding the identity and rights of J&K has been long subverted by separatism and alienation and the political cause overtaken by the force of global jihad. The conventional political leadership in the Valley is incapable of speaking up against —leave alone resisting — the tide of radicalisation. The PDP and National Conference campaign on the stone-pelters’ platform, and have no positive message to offer. They can do little as ISIS flags are unfurled at mosques and radicalised school teachers put their students in harm’s way, egging them to throw stones at security convoys. Conventional comparisons of development parameters are meaningless in a state where 70% of revenue comes from central transfers (50% as grants-in-aid).

The special status of Article 370 and Article 35A that allows the state assembly to define permanent residents created a false sense of privilege in the Valley and kept alive an insidious aspect of the two-nation theory in India’s only Muslim-majority state. It provided foreign busybodies just the opening to push for “internationalisation” of the Kashmir dispute. Just as the line of control, lacking the sanctity of an international border, keeps a territorial dispute festering, Article 370 created a constitutional ambiguity and set Kashmir apart from the rest of India.

In all the decades since Independence, voices that called for peace and reconciliation in Kashmir have been silenced by the gun. Hizbul leaders who broke away were executed, journalists who dallied with separatists paid with their lives and religious figures who contemplated reconciliation have been assassinated. With Pakistan’s madrassas churning out terror recruits by the hundred, it is only Indian Army that stands between Kashmir’s towns becoming versions of Raqqa and Mosul under IS occupation.

Article 370 was a cancer that fed on J&K and brutalised everyone. A relentless spiral of violence numbed the national mind while trapping the local population between terrorists and security pickets. In this crushing reality, truth was the casualty and every narrative an escape from the present.

Just before the strike on Article 370, India’s commentariat occupied itself with cautionary tales on the economy. Indeed, fixing growth and investment remain an urgent task for Modi. But secure borders and internal peace are the best pills for sustained economic growth. Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh have the chance to work out a better and more equitable future. Article 370 was a worn-out bargain well past its use-by date.