A new government has come to Jammu and Kashmir after its first election in 10 years, shifting some powers from the Union government's nominee lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha to the cabinet. This is good news. Much has been made of the fact that this was the fairest election in decades. This is also a positive development, but it should be expected that democracies progress rather than regress electorally over time.

Along with free elections and a partial return to self-government, the claim has also been made that Kashmir is now safer than before. This is a complex issue and we need to examine the data here.

Militancy began in Kashmir in the late 1980s. The South Asia Terrorism Portal maintains data on violence across the region. In 1989, a total of 92 people were killed in Kashmir. The next year, violence exploded and took 1,177 lives, of whom 862 were civilians, 132 security forces personnel, and 183 militants.

The number increased in 1991 (to 1,393) and 1992 (1,909) and in 1993, 2,567 people were killed. Of these, the number of civilians (1,023) and security forces personnel (216) remained about the same as before, but the number of militants killed shot up to 1,328. This remained the case for the next few years, though there was also a gradual increase in the number of deaths in the security forces, which reached 441 in the year 2000 when........

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