Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is a politician

who has returned to the job that he had a decade ago, but in very different circumstances.

Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is from a family with a claim to be the leading political dynasty in the

mountainous land which sits on the border with Pakistan and which was the only Muslim majority

state in India's vast federal union. I use the past tense because Jammu and Kashmir is not

currently classed as a state by the Delhi government.

Its statehood and special autonomous powers were revoked in 2019.

Instead, it became a union territory directly controlled from Delhi.

Now, that was a hugely contentious move by the Modi government,

tested and upheld in India's Supreme Court.

Last September, elections were held for a new legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir,

and having said he wouldn't run, Omar Abdullah changed his mind.

His National Conference Party won, and he is back in the Chief Minister's residence, albeit with a level of authority that is

at best ambiguous. In a territory which has seen decades of political violence and which is

the subject of constant tension with Pakistan,

is there any likelihood that the current political arrangement can deliver stability?

Well, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah joins me now.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you.

You are back.

Here you sit with me as chief minister, a job you had 10 years ago, and yet I'm very mindful that just five years ago, you were in detention. You were

being held by the Indian authorities. What does it feel like now to be back as chief minister?

...