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By Ahmad Hassan “The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other… Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: ‘I feed on your energy.’” When Frank Herbert wrote those words in his novel Dune Messiah, he observed that elaborate euphemisms are often used by the state to conceal the raw mechanics of power. In Pakistan, August 5 is observed as Youm-e-Istehsal to condemn the 2019 revocation of Article 370 and its supplementary provision, Article 35A. This act of the Indian government removed Kashmir’s separate constitution, its flag and its control over its own affairs. Last week marked seven years since that day. What began as a dramatic constitutional rupture has now, by design, become quietly normalized. Jammu and Kashmir joined India in 1947 on defined terms. The Maharaja handed over defence, foreign affairs and communications. Everything else stayed with the state. The United Nations later called for a plebiscite. It never happened. Instead, over decades, the protections that were supposed to stand in its place were worn down piece by piece, until August 5, 2019, when the government removed what remained in a single stroke. The method deserves more attention than it usually gets. Article 370 was not directly changed. First, the government reached for Article 367, which was intended to aid in the interpretation of the Constitution, and used it to redefine one phrase: “Constituent Assembly” became “Legislative Assembly.” Kashmir had no sitting assembly at the time, and the state was under President’s Rule. So, the government’s own appointee, the Governor, signed off on the change. India’s Supreme Court had already ruled, in 1959 and again in 1969, that Kashmir’s constitutional status could only be changed after the approval of the Constituent Assembly of Kashmir. When that body no longer existed, no institution had the standing to give that consent on Kashmir’s behalf. New Delhi decided that its own Governor could stand in for the people he had not been elected by. That is not consent. It is a government consenting to itself. The Indian government argued that Kashmiris had lived for decades under an insurgency that killed tens of thousands and emptied the Valley of its Pandit community in 1990. It left the region isolated from the investment and policing coordination. That argument would carry more weight if the method had matched it. What followed the revocation was not the language of integration. It was a total communications blackout, landlines and mobile networks and the internet all cut at once. Independent estimates put the troop presence at 600,000 to 800,000, roughly one soldier for every ten Kashmiris. Even pro-India politicians, former chief ministers among them, were placed under detention. Perhaps a security argument can justify counter-insurgency operations. It cannot by itself justify dissolving a state’s constitutional status, its legislature and its statehood in one move. That too with no elected Kashmiri voice given the chance to object. Jawaharlal Nehru warned Parliament about exactly this shortcut in 1952, while Article 370 was still being drafted. No clause in a constitution, he said, could substitute for the will of the Kashmiri people. Real integration, in his words, comes from the mind and the heart, not from a clause imposed from outside. Actually, there is a longer, quieter project behind the legal manoeuvre. Article 35A once barred outsiders from buying land or settling permanently in Kashmir. Since its removal, more than 3.2 million domicile certificates have gone to outsiders, most of them non-Kashmiri Hindus. This alarming thing is that wherever a disputed territory’s demographics are reshaped before its people are asked what they want, the eventual vote, if one ever comes, no longer reflects the population whose future was originally in question. None of this required an invading army, or an open declaration of intent. It required a redefined word, a signature from an appointee, and a great deal of time. The convoluted legalisms that Herbert warned about have become policy in Kashmir: development, integration, correction. Each euphemism has quietly done the work that an honest admission of purpose could never have achieved. Seven years on, Kashmir’s assembly has voted decisively against the BJP that carried out the revocation, and passed its own resolution demanding the restoration of its special status. New Delhi can easily ignore them. Yet, that very power to ignore an elected legislature proves, beyond any doubt, that the “consent” obtained seven years ago was always a legal fiction.

Since Ashura, the mothers of Sindh have been sitting in at Babarloi Bypass through suffocating heat and humidity, with one demand: return our missing and abducted children. For a mother, a child is her entire universe — and for years these women have lived in psychological anguish searching for theirs. Fazila Sarki of Thul vanished nearly seventeen years ago; her father named the local Wadero he says orchestrated it, yet she was never recovered. Priya Kumari of Sangrar is entering her fifth year missing — committees formed, updates promised, and still nothing, as if the earth or sky simply swallowed her. Sindh’s landlords and chieftains have built a parallel state, one that operates above the law. If not, why would fourteen children currently be missing, why would the soil be stained with young blood over trifles, why would mothers go blind from weeping and cemeteries keep expanding? Innocent young women are still declared Kari and honor-killed — denied even a ritual bath, shroud, or funeral prayer, sometimes dumped in rivers. The law exists on paper; hundreds of thousands of officials draw salaries and perks from public taxes to enforce it — yet ordinary people have no protection at any level. The papers are full of these stories daily. The law exists, but it is locked away in books. Are the hands meant to enforce it helpless, or simply indifferent? Sukkur Civil Hospital — the teaching hospital for Ghulam Muhammad Mahar Medical College, and once a lifeline stretching from Balochistan’s Sibi, Nasirabad, and Bhag Nari to Kandhkot-Kashmore, Shikarpur, and Ghotki — has sunk to the level of Shikarpur’s Rai Bahadur Udhodas Hospital. Department heads sit in name only; real control rests with a handful of favorites who have run these institutions into the ground. Road accidents are a daily occurrence on the highways, and while the Orthopaedic Department stays busy, its facilities inspire only regret. With Nasir Shah and veteran politician Khurshid Shah both present, this hospital ought to be a model for Northern Sindh — instead it is anything but. Law and order, and justice, are the pillars any civilized society rests on. Where they hold, life, property, and honor are protected, and social harmony follows. Where they fail, fear, distrust, and unrest take their place — and our own society is proof enough of that; little more needs saying. An educated person lifts not just himself but his society; where ignorance and social ills grow instead, it is education that has failed first. Healthcare here tells the same story: women give birth in Qingqi rickshaws, medicine is scarce, and families buy even a disposable syringe out of pocket — though the budget for it exists. Doctors draw government salaries while absent, some working in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, others running private clinics. A friend recently told me PPHI, on taking over a government health unit, found a stockpile of medicines for heart disease, diabetes, and stomach ailments — worth a fortune, and only months from expiry. What tyranny is greater than this: medicine sitting unused while the needy go without? It is nothing short of an atrocity against the public. Hunger, disease, unemployment, lawlessness, and ignorance have battered Sindh until its people’s capacity for critical thought is paralyzed. The state, along with conscious citizens, politicians, and the well-off, must turn to this crisis — urgently.

Many parents give smartphones to their children and a major reason behind this behaviour has now been identified. Parents who experience stress tend to give their children devices to keep them occupied or calm while also being less likely to enforce limits on screen time. A study conducted by the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University included 822 parents raising children between the ages of 4 and 8. The participants provided information through online surveys about their children’s behavior, parental stress and screen-time habits. The findings showed that parents tend to allow their children to use smartphones for longer periods when their children’s behaviour becomes difficult to manage. Researchers said parents should not hesitate to seek support for managing their own stress. They also advised parents to set limits on children’s screen time and provide them with purposeful, age-appropriate content. They emphasized that parents should establish appropriate boundaries and spend quality time with their children to promote a healthy environment. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on children’s excessive smartphone use. A study published in January 2026 explored links between online content and problems related to children’s development. Similarly, research published in BMC Public Health in October 2024 found that spending excessive time in front of screens can have negative effects on mental health. The risk of depression, anxiety, irritability and other problems was particularly higher among children aged 9 and 10. The research found that the more time children spent in front of screens, the more severe their symptoms of depression tended to be. According to the study, activities such as video chatting, watching videos and playing video games were associated with a greater increase in this risk.