Updated Dec 30, 2020 | 15:58 IST This is not a verdict that allows for any sweeping claims made by the competing political parties to hold completely true. File image | Photo Credit: PTI Free and fair elections are a necessary condition in any democracy, though not a sufficient one. Since August 5 last year, when the decision to virtually abrogate Article 370 was taken, many opposition leaders were detained or jailed, communication lines were snapped, and movement severely restricted, in Jammu and Kashmir. This, the government said, was done in the larger interest of protecting the people from the evil designs of terror outfits, and that restrictions would eventually be lifted. Rendering Article 370 virtually inactive, doing away with the discriminatory Article 35A, and the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, including Ladakh, was a larger collective and national good, many supporters of the move believed, that could only be achieved peacefully through the curtailment, even if temporarily, of fundamental rights and freedoms – this was, in simple terms, what was done. Those who defend the government's actions do so by saying that this was the only way out, as there’s no shortage of people in the Valley, including mainstream parties, who would not hesitate to stoke violence as a response. Their detention was imperative, they say, in the larger interests of national security. Their statements, they add, had done nothing to convey the opposite.