India, Feb. 15 -- Post-independence, public imagination, political passions and administrative prioritisation in the "Crown of India" were fronted by the Kashmir Valley, followed by the uber-strategic Ladakh (literally, the "land of the passes") and thereafter by the Duggar Jammu region. This hierarchy of importance was recalibrated in the revised status of the Union Territory (UT) to retain "normalcy" in the Valley (the foremost concern), address the Kashmiri Pandit issue (a matter of urgency) and relegate the Jammu region (the last priority). This hierarchy sustains still. This continued diminishment of the erstwhile land of the Dogra Kingdom in the pre-independence era, which held sway in swathes of Jammu & Kashmir, including Ladakh an...