Integrity at the Patwar Khana Will Decide Kashmir’s 2026

Letter to Editor

- Mohammad Amin Mir

na frozen winter morning in south Kashmir, a farmer stood outside a Patwar Khana before the office opened. He held a faded folder tied with string. Inside were land papers passed down from his father. He had come for a simple mutation.

The poor peasant had already been told, off the record, what it would cost to move the file. The office door was still shut. The transaction had already begun.

This is why 2026 matters.

Corruption in contemporary India is often discussed in abstract numbers and high-profile cases. It begins with land records and the Patwari in Kashmir.

A single entry decides ownership of a field, entitlement to compensation, the right to sell or borrow, and whether a family spends years in court. No official meets citizens more frequently at the State’s first point of contact.