India’s Supreme Court Upholds Government’s Decision to Remove Disputed Kashmir’s Special Status

SRINAGAR, India—India’s top court on Monday upheld a 2019 decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to strip disputed Jammu and Kashmir’s special status as a semi-autonomous region with a separate constitution and inherited protections on land and jobs. The five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the region’s special status had been a “temporary provision” and that removing it in 2019 was constitutionally valid. The unprecedented move also divided the region into two federal territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, both ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of their own. It was the first time in the history of India that a region’s statehood was downgraded to a federally administered territory....