Eid Under Occupation: India’s Permit Raj on Faith

Eid Under Occupation: India’s Permit Raj on Faith

There is nothing more revealing about an occupying power than its fear of prayer. In Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian state does not stop at deploying over 900,000 troops armed with draconian black laws and blanket impunity. It extends its iron grip into the sacred rituals of Eid ul Adha itself.


Habib ur Rehman 


While the world is fed lies about “normalcy,” eight million Muslims are forced to seek government permission simply to transport animals for Qurbani, to gather for Eid prayers at the historic Eid Gah, or to mark a festival that has defined their identity for centuries.


On one side of the Line of Control, Eid arrives as a celebration of faith and freedom. On the other, it arrives under the shadow of house arrests, denied access to mosques, and criminal threats for obeying religious duty.

 

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the respected religious and political leader of the valley, was placed under house arrest once again this Eid. His voice, which has long called for justice and the right to worship, was silenced by the very machinery that claims to protect “peace.” Eid prayers were banned at the Eid Gah and other historic sites where generations of Kashmiris have gathered.


Instead of the call to prayer echoing across Srinagar, the streets were patrolled by troops whose presence serves only to intimidate. Meanwhile, the District Magistrate’s order of 19 May 2026 made it illegal to move bovine animals across districts without written permission, turning a core religious obligation into a potential criminal act under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. A family seeking to fulfil Qurbani could face arrest for crossing an arbitrary administrative line.

 

This is not security. This is the calculated suffocation of a people.  Muslim festivities in occupied Kashmir faces same  restrictions and surveillance.India’s occupation has long relied on more than bullets. It uses permits, bans, raids, and selective enforcement to break the spirit.


Educational institutions run by Muslim organisations are banned. The government of India also imitated complete profiling of mosques and Imams. Homes have been demolished, movement restricted, and identity itself criminalised. While as far any Hindu festival is concerned it is full patronising and protected.


Foreign journalists are barred, local media outlets shuttered, and books on Kashmir’s history banned. The National Investigation Agency raids continue even days before Eid, ensuring that fear, not festivity, fills the air.


Over a million social media posts have been removed, and journalists languish in jail under anti-terror laws. The pattern is unmistakable: every expression of Kashmiri Muslim identity must be licensed, monitored, or crushed.

 

Contrast this with Azad Jammu and Kashmir, where the same crescent moon was sighted on 17 May. There, the government declared a three-day public holiday. Families performed Qurbani, offered prayers, and celebrated without permits, without fear of arrest, and without troops at their door.


Same people. Same faith. Same moon. Yet only on the Indian side of the wire does Eid require official approval. The hypocrisy is staggering.


A state that stations nearly a million soldiers in one of the world’s most militarised regions, equipped with laws that shield perpetrators of abuse, now claims that animal welfare or “law and order” justifies restricting religious practice. These pre-Eid orders are not new; they are part of a systematic campaign that has seen cow vigilantism fuel attacks on Muslims and turned festivals into battlegrounds.

 

The world is told Kashmir is stable. It is not. It is a land where even the act of prayer is policed, where religious leaders are jailed, and where the simple transport of an animal for sacrifice can invite criminal charges. This is not governance; it is the raw exercise of colonial control.


India’s actions reveal a deep insecurity: a fear that allowing Muslims in occupied Kashmir to celebrate Eid freely would expose the lie of normalcy. The wire does not merely divide territory. It divides dignity, faith, and humanity itself.

 

The people of IIOJK ask for nothing extraordinary. They ask only for the same unfettered right to worship and celebrate that their brothers and sisters enjoy across the Line of Control. Behind every permit, every house arrest, every banned prayer, and every troop deployment lies the same brutal truth: in Indian-occupied Kashmir, even Eid is held hostage.

The occupation does not merely occupy land; it occupies the soul. Until the world confronts this reality, the permit raj on faith will continue, and the suffering of eight million will remain invisible behind the wire.


The author serves as a Research Assistant at the Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) and is the founder of HEAL Pakistan, an initiative focused on educationempowerment, awareness, and young leadership. He can be reached at habibmail.1947@gmail.com

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