Silencing the Valley: India’s Demographic Coup in Occupied Kashmir

Silencing the Valley: India’s Demographic Coup in Occupied Kashmir


By Nizalia

August 5, 2019 will always remain etched in the memory of the people of Kashmir under Indian occupation. That day, Indian government through BJP government of Narendra Modi unilaterally acted and abrogated two articles of the Indian Constitution, Article 370 and 35A, stripping autonomy given to the region.


The next step was not simply legal or political, but a calculated and risky transformation one that was, in fact, meant to take away the powers of Kashmir as a Muslim majority state, to quash any form of opposition and in a systematic way, repeat the demography of the valley. It was not reform that took place. This was the regime of the cover-glass of constitutional words.

 

Tens of thousands of troops were moved to an already militarized area in the run-up to the abrogation. Local officials were put in jail or even under house arrests. Internet was blacked down; telephones were cut and media gagged. This is not what a democracy that is practicing constitutional adjustment would have done; this was a siege. Kashmiris are not consulted. People did not listen to them and they were unwelcome. They lost trust in a government that was locking up their homeland and lawmaking in laws that they never voted into.


 In claiming that the move was to achieve development and integration, India justified the move. However, after four years, the situation is pitiful. Advancement did not come into being. What was substituted was an eradication programme - not eradication programme of personhood, but eradication programme of tradition, eradication programme of rights.


The integration India managed on August 5 was not only the legal one; it was the official start of a demographic campaign, one, that will forever change the Muslim-majority nature of Kashmir and turn its inhabitants into political outsiders in their country.


To comprehend the scale of things that have occurred since 2019, it is crucially important to know what Articles 370 and 35A safeguarded. These articles gave a special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian union, enabling it to make individual definitions of rules on residency, land possession and local privileges. Specifically, Article 35A also did not allow outsiders to purchase the land or settle permanently in that area. It was a law to protect the demography and culture of the locality.


When these articles were removed the floodgates were opened. In 2020, domicile laws were unveiled, which gave non-locals, including Indian bureaucrats, military personnel and their families, the opportunity to obtain Kashmiri residency permits after only 15 years residence.


Up to 2023, more than 3.4 million domicile certificates have been granted with most going to outsiders. This does not happen by chance. It is manufactured. The strategy is obvious: to alter the demography of the, weaken the Muslim majority and redraft the political future of Kashmir without its inhabitants.


The fact that this is occurring in the face of military boots and censorship makes this even more disturbing. The area has turned out to be an experiment of surveillance and oppression. They have conversely arrested thousands under draconian laws such as the Public Safety Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and based on these acts, people can be detained without trial. The risk of being arrested or worse is on journalists, the students, lawyers and anyone speaking out.


Fahad Shah, also a Kashmiri journalist was arrested because he wrote about excesses of the government. Khurram Parvez, a leading rights activist, was put in prison and also declared a terrorist. These cannot be some isolated cases, but they themselves identify a certain trend.


It is just a term used to mean zip or fork up. The valley is being gagged it has not only been silenced physically, with curfews and checkpoints, but also psychologically it has left a climate of fear to a point even mothers who have lost sons to disappearance are afraid of speaking about the loss publicly.


Actions by India have been described and labelled as wrong by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even UN rapporteur. The UN Special Rapporteurs raised their concerns in 2021 that in India, the new land and domicile legislations may result in the manipulation of demographics of this region.


The crackdown that took place after 2019 was also characterized by the amnesty as a crackdown of civil freedoms. But India sweeps all these fearful under the carpet as any criticism is labeled as the anti-national or terrorist sympathizing.

 

What has been happening in Kashmir has not been a problem of a local nature or a political catastrophe now it is a problem of existence. The Kashmiri people have always been afraid of becoming an ethnic minority in their homeland. It is the fear of what used to be in theory. It is beyond the real time. Land is being given to the Indian investors, reconstruction of the Hindu temples are being done as a symbolic cultural domination and even the electoral boundaries have been redrawn to a nature which dilutes and diminish the political power of the Muslim population.

 


The war that the Indian state has against the Kashmiri identity now went to cultural and demographic levels. It seems that, this is just part of the Hindutva vision that Modi has, the reconstruction of India into a Hindu majoritarian country with Muslims as second-class citizens.


And that is the objective, then Kashmir is the ultimate testing ground. By converting a Muslim majority state to a union territory under Delhi and throwing it open to non-Muslim settlement, the BJP is sending a scary message: the space of Muslim identity and aspirations does not belong in the new India.


And what will be the future? In case of such trend, the outcome will prove to be disastrous. A nation that has been deprived of their homeland and has been disenfranchised will not just take it as it comes. There is some form of resistance that is inevitable.


The Kashmiri youth are already becoming disillusioned. As Indian government continues to crack down on peaceful protest, the more it is risking to drive a new generation to despair, anger and even militancy. On quietness and compliance there is no foundation of soundness to be established. It needs justice, dignity and dialogue that are not provided nowadays.


According to India, Kashmir is an internal issue. Yet, human rights abuses, demographic manipulation and ethnic disenfranchisement are never internal affairs. They are international problems. The world cannot afford to be in a blind watching pattern anymore as Kashmir has been rather mercilessly flattened by the barbed wires and bulldozered to the oblivion by the demographic policies.


The UN and the international civil society should make India change its colonial attitude and come to terms with the people of Kashmir- not as subjects to be governed by India but rather a people with rights and identity and their own destiny.


The longer this goes on, the more this tragedy becomes permanent. And silence is what the occupation craves after. As journalists, scholars and world citizens, it is upon us to speak up when they erase voice, it is upon us to remember when they erase memories and it is on us to resist when justice is not possible. Since it is not simply the invasion of a territory that case is in Kashmir. It is an act of war against the concept of justice and dignity, and democracy rights.

 

The writer is student at the International Islamic University Islamabad and currently serving as an intern at Kashmir Institute of International Relations Islamabad. 

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