The Guns Are Quieter. The Trauma Isn't

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24 Apr 2026

Srinagar heard drones in the night. Children in Pahalgam watched strangers bleed on a meadow they had played on all their lives. Families in Poonch counted mortar rounds instead of sheep. And then silence. Official silence. One year after Pahalgam. Months after Operation Sindoor escalated, the Valley's skies shook. Not a single structured public mental health emergency protocol has been activated in Jammu and Kashmir. Not one. The Government of India funds NIMHANS. It funds AIIMS Jammu. It funds district hospitals across the Union Territory. Where, precisely, is the post-conflict psychological rehabilitation framework that should have accompanied every security announcement made since April 22, 2025? This is not grief-writing. This is an institutional audit. The questions are administrative, not emotional. Which department owns mental health rehabilitation in J&K's post-conflict governance architecture? What is the designated budget line? How many school counsellors have been deployed to Pahalgam, Rajouri, Poonch, and Kupwara, the belts that absorbed the loudest shocks? Why has no public-facing trauma-response helpline been formally operationalised at scale? The suggestion is direct: J&K needs a formal Mental Health Rehabilitation Policy, NIMHANS-anchored, district-executed, school-embedded, and independently audited. Not a committee. Not a press conference. A policy with a timeline, a budget, and a compliance report that answers to Parliament. Security without psychological recovery is an architecture built on fractured ground. Fix the foundation. The silence is not peace; it is pressure accumulating.