Ironically, it was the decline in violence and the improving relations between India and Pakistan that, in many ways, made such agitation possible.
During the blood-soaked years of militant attacks and army reprisals, there was no space for a popular grass-roots movement. Now, civil society has begun cautiously to bloom.
With the land protests, "the movement became again purely indigenous, purely Kashmiri," said political scientist Gul Mohammed Wani. "It was quite unprecedented. . . . Suddenly the people took it on their own shoulders."
That so many of those shoulders belonged to the young was due in part to demographics. In the Kashmir Valley, more than two-thirds of the population is younger than 35.
But beyond that, experts detect a rising sense of political and economic discontent among Kashmiri youths. About 400,000 young people are unemployed, half of them with bachelor's degrees. Many complain of discrimination when they apply for jobs in other parts of India, where human rights groups say police routinely detain and harass young Kashmiri men.
The pent-up resentment and anger helped drive young people out to protest and to support the demonstrations from behind the scenes. On the university campus, students organized blood drives as the number of people injured in clashes with security forces grew.
After the government reversed itself, they celebrated along with millions of other Kashmiris, and hoped it would be a sign of things to come.
"Surely India will take heed of what the Kashmiri people are demanding," said Lon, the mass-communications major. "Kashmiri people are not to be taken for granted. . . . They were trying to push [us] to the wall, but Kashmiris bounced back."
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henry.chu@latimes.com
