Tag: Kashmir palestine

An Uneasy Quiet in Kashmir Is No Guarantee That All Is Well

The Valley is without disturbance as perhaps never before, but the people’s trust has been broken.

A little over a year ago, on 12 August 2019, the Indian Express carried an article that I had written on the annulment a week earlier of Articles 370/35A that the Supreme Court had several years earlier ruled as “permanent” features of the Constitution. My opening line said, “Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have just created a Palestine on our northern border.”

I have waited nearly 14 months for that to happen. But the Valley is without disturbance as perhaps never before. Jammu has largely welcomed the move. Ladakh was overjoyed to get Union Territory (UT) status and liberate itself from the stranglehold of Srinagar. A raft of development schemes was announced, as was a raft of youth employment schemes. Panchayat elections were held. With impunity, non-Muslims were put in every office of significance in a Muslim-majority state.

A massive wedge was driven between the electorate and the National Conference, in particular, and the old political establishment of the “three families” in general, to the extent that the Kashmiri-in-the street was mocking Sheikh Abdullah’s family with the cry, “Ab bolo, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’”. Pakistan had been rendered ineffective in fomenting trouble. The India-China border was so tranquil that President Xi Jinping arrived in Mahabalipuram in October 2019 to a welcome warmer than a fresh masala dosa. Was I totally wrong in my assessment?

So wrong that the satraps of the Central government had slowly retracted many of the restrictions imposed on the normal life of the population. Traffic jams returned to the city. Internet worked – at least in the 2G version. Educational institutions reopened. Shops did brisk business. A team of European Union diplomats issued individual certificates of “normalcy” being visible. The authorities were so confident that the people had learned to live without 370/35A that they even released Omar and Farooq Abdullah (but not Mehbooba Mufti, their erstwhile ally) and allowed them to meet other political “leaders” to issue a second Gupkar Declaration on 22 August 2020. So where was the intifada (an uprising), where was the “Palestine on our northern borders”? Apparently in limbo.

‘Completely disillusioned’

So effective was the Central government’s control of the narrative, they even allowed Farooq Abdullah to attend parliament. The speaker promised him time to speak. In consequence, he was granted one minute at the start of the session and one more at the end. Is this how a self-confident government works?

So, a frustrated Farooq took to the media and in an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, found some outlet for what he needed to tell the nation. His father, the Sher-e-Kashmir had repulsed Jinnah to join India, he said, although “religion (was on) that side, the roads that side, the rivers go that side. We went against the current”. Why? “We joined Gandhi’s India, not Modi’s India”. So, what had Modi’s India done? They had broken the trust that underlay “the unity of the Muslim-majority state with the rest of the nation”, leaving the people “sick of having to put up with a soldier with an AK-47 on every street, every village”, “their dreams gone” awry, their children deprived “of a future”, “completely disillusioned…If I speak of India anywhere, they don’t want to listen”.

A paramedic walks through a deserted street during curfew ahead of the first anniversary of the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy, in Srinagar August 4, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Danish Ismail

Then why are they so quiescent, so accepting of their fate, so reconciled to their deprivation as to not take to the streets? “Would you be able to protest here in Delhi if every street was filled with armed gunmen?” Perhaps not, but Delhi isn’t Srinagar. Why are people there so intimidated that they don’t protest? Farooq in reply “guaranteed” that “the minute you remove those soldiers, lakhs will be on the street”. And if the soldiers are not removed? “One day this volcano will blow”.

Perhaps, therefore, the intifada I had predicted will take time to erupt. I recall that for 40 years after Al-Naqba (‘The Catastrophe’ of 1948), there was no intifada. The Palestinians were relying on their Arab brothers to liberate them. The “Arab brothers” spectacularly failed them. Worse, one by one, they began deserting the Palestinian cause and listing to the siren song of Israel. It was only when the Palestinians realised that they were alone that they started the intifada. No intifada can be made overnight. They have to be driven to it. Are Modi-Shah driving them to it?

Farooq says they are fighting for “the honour, dignity, the respect that the people lost on the 5th of August last year”. They want the Government of India to “start trusting Muslims instead of denigrating them…They (Centre) still hold the land, with force, but they have lost the people”. And that is why “sentiment for Kashmiri independence has grown sizably”. People are still are not interested in joining Pakistan but, notwithstanding Chinese treatment of Uighur Muslims, Farooq believes “they would rather have the Chinese coming in!”

This is the extent to which Modi and Shah have driven seven million Kashmiris up the wall. And with the new domicile laws endangering the demographic composition of both UTs, fear and apprehension have overtaken all three regions of the erstwhile state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, including both Muslim-majority Kargil and Buddhist-majority Leh. If the situation is not rectified, intifada and worse can overtake the trijunction of India, China and Pakistan, the “crown” of our nation. This was not the situation on August 4, 2019. It is the position today. That is the measure of what the Modi-Shah regime has wrought in Jammu and Kashmir. The nation’s unity and integrity are under threat as never before.

Withdraw troops and restore Kashmiriyat

Is there a way out? Child’s play, really. Just revive the permanent constitutional status of J&K; return to them their statehood as it existed till last year (subject to consultation with Leh); restore to the country the values of Gandhi’s India; start again trusting the Muslims; stop branding Kashmiris traitors; play fair with the Kashmiris who stood by us not only at Independence and Partition in 1947 but also at war in 1948, then again in 1965 in facing down Bhutto’s Operation Gibraltar, and twice again in 1971 and 1999; stand by those who have stood by us at the United Nations in New York, Geneva, Vienna; restore democracy and fundamental rights; and revive Vajpayee’s formula: Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat, Kashmiriyat (humanism, democracy, Kashmir’s legacy of amity). That is all we have to do to draw down the army and eventually send it back to guarding our borders.

“Bring back yesterday, bid time return” (Shakespeare, Richard II). Otherwise, doom and gloom await us.

Mani Shankar Aiyar is a former minister for petroleum and natural gas, a former member of the Lok Sabha, and a member of the Congress party

Throughout History, Demographic Changes to J&K Have Only Deepened Conflict

The domicile law denies peoples’ efforts for rights, recognition and justice its true place in history. It could possibly end up alienating residents further.

On August 5, 2019, the Narendra Modi government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and statehood, dividing it into two union territories. In this series – ‘One Year in a Disappeared State’ – The Wire will look at what the last year has meant and what the region looks like now.

The story of historical injustices in Jammu and Kashmir is a never-ending saga.

The most recent chapter to be appended to the series is the new J&K grant of domicile certificate procedure rules, 2020. Proposed amidst lockdown, the new domicile rules are another form of the NRC exercise for the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir who hold the permanent resident certificate (PRC).

All mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir including Apni Party, which is often perceived to be party representing the interests of the central government in Kashmir, has voiced opposition to the domicile law. Meanwhile, recent reports on the issuance of domicile certificates to over 25,000 individuals (non-locals) that would allow the entry of nonresidents – as per Article 35A – into the state have further precipitated chaos in the region.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

The new law replaces ‘permanent resident’ (based on the 1927 notification) with ‘domicile,’ extending eligibility to persons who have resided in Jammu and Kashmir for 15 years, or have studied for a period of seven years, or appeared in Class 10 or Class 12 exams, and refugees from West Pakistan – mostly Hindus who have migrated from Pakistan – registered as migrants by the Relief and Rehabilitation (R&R) Commission-Migrants. The law also includes punitive action in case the domicile certificate is not issued within a period of seven working days – a recovery of Rs 50,000 from the salary of the competent authority (tehsildar or R & R Commission-Migrants).

There is a famous Machiavellian quote: “Whoever wishes to foresee the future, must consult the past.” While changes are being made to erase Kashmir’s history, it is important to learn from the history of people’s struggle for recognition of their very existential citizenry rights in the region.

In the year 1886, Dogra ruler Maharaja Gulab Singh ‘bought’ the state for Rs 75 lakh from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar. The Dogra Ruler was a monarch of Jammu, he owned the proprietorship hereditarily. Once Kashmir was purchased by the Dogra monarchy, the proprietorship rights belonged to a Darbar consisting of closed relatives, courtiers, and top officials (mostly Kashmir Pandits).

Also read: J&K’s New Domicile Order: Disenfranchising Kashmiris, One Step at a Time

After a long period where the people struggled for full proprietary rights to Kashmir peasants, the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act passed in the year 1950 finally abolished the large chunk of jagirdars, including the Kashmiri Pandits who were the revenue officials in the darbar of Dogra monarchy. It transferred a large amount of land to the tillers. Later, the Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972 (later modified in the year 1976) provided proper ownership rights to the cultivators and abolished the system of absentee landlordism.

The years of a spate of people’s struggles for recognition of their rights also involved the demand for justice and recognition of the Muslim community in government jobs and education. They were finally recognised as ‘permanent residents’ under the notifications of 1927 and 1932. The rights and privileges (state government jobs, scholarships in education, and land ownership) under the two notifications were later conferred under the Delhi Agreement of 1952 (signed between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah). This, later provided a basis for provisions relating to the ‘permanent resident’ in the Jammu Kashmir constitution of 1956.

The definition of ‘permanent resident’ could be incorporated after a long process of efforts and struggles by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The fresh law denies the historical significance of peoples’ efforts for rights, recognition and justice and could possibly end up alienating the residents further.

The process of bringing the new domicile policy has been shrouded in secrecy without involving consultations with relevant stakeholders. There is angst among the critics and residents, who have compared the new domicile law with settlements in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

A Kashmiri woman walks past an Indian security personnel as he stands guard in front of closed shops during restrictions, after scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government, in Srinagar, August 22, 2019. Picture taken August 22, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/File Photo

As per a recent report by the Indo Pak Conflict Monitor, the reading down of Article 370 has emboldened the longstanding conflict in the region and the situation of Kashmir’s security has gradually worsened, raising a question mark over the Union government’s non-consultative and hard-line Kashmir policy.

Also Read: J&K Govt’s New Domicile Certificate Rules a Move to Undercut Resistance from Kashmiri Officials?

The new domicile law is turning out to be another reason for conflict in the region. At present, there are over seven lakh migrant labourers residing in the Valley. There are an estimated six lakh security personnel deployed in Kashmir. As per recent reports, the government is opening up a 6,000-acre land bank to woo major corporate houses and traders to invest in the region.

The fresh law manifolds the fears of people of Jammu and Kashmir. They are already very small in number – around 12.5 million. It provides ample scope to ‘outsiders’ in terms of resources and jobs in the region.

There is a famous couplet by Muzaffar Razmi:

Wo daur bhi dekhe hain tareekh ki ankhon ne,
lamhon ne khata ki thi sadiyon ne saza payi.“

‘History is witness to such times too
When moments made a mistake and centuries had to pay for it.’

In the year 1947, the region of Jammu was the first region to witness the most horrific episodes of violence during Partition, in which thousands of Muslims were massacred and others sent to West Punjab (later to form a part of Pakistan) by mobs and paramilitaries led by the army of then Dogra ruler Hari Singh. As per the August 10, 1948 report published in The Times, London, 2,37,000 Muslims were systematically exterminated – unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border – by the forces of the Dogra state.

The historians claim that the killings were carried out to change the demography in the region of Jammu as the Maharaja preferred to remain independent of the new dominions. This had been disputed by some of the Muslim groups in Jammu region. After the horrific months, the demography of Jammu was completely changed – Muslims who constituted more than 60% of the population of Jammu region, were reduced to a minority.

The violence in Jammu region became one of the major reasons of conflicts in Kashmir – the valley that had remained peaceful during the time of partition. An effort to change the demography of a region by the then Maharaja Hari Singh ignited violence that became a perpetual source of conflict in the region, even when the documents related to the Jammu massacre were mostly destroyed by the then Dogra monarch. Demographic changes have often pushed regions and their people to the brink.

When seen together, another question rises from the history of land conflict in the region of Jammu and Kashmir and the new domicile law: Whether the provision for mostly Hindu west Pakistan refugees in the new domicile law is indeed a humanitarian gesture or another partial step to appease a specific section of religion or community.

The new domicile law is another project aimed at creating homogeneity in the region, turning its residents (primarily Muslims), into a minority. It will further deepen the conflicts with demographic flooding of people based on scant documentary proof. The taking over of jobs, opportunities and resources from Kashmiris, quashing the legal rights and privileges after years of people’s struggle for justice, rights and recognition in the region, is certain to make things worse.

Without any wider consultation and proposed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the country is under lockdown, the domicile law has proven to be yet another blow to Indian democracy.

Also read: J&K: IAS Officer Becomes First Bureaucrat to Be Granted Domicile Rights

A Kashmiri poet Amir Wani wrote:

“Main khamosh hoon, bezubaan nahi
Laraz uthoge tum, jab lab khulenge mere.”

One who remains quiet carries a thunderstorm within.

Shweta Tripathi has been working with the social sector for over 16 years.

J&K’s New Domicile Order: Disenfranchising Kashmiris, One Step at a Time

The changes are an erasure of Kashmir’s history and a project in creating homogeneity – so that there is no legal difference between a Kashmiri and someone from any part of India who has lived in Kashmir for a specified period.

In the absence of any representative government in Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre has exercised undiluted and direct control in the region through a bureaucratic administration since June 2018.

Nine months ago, India’s parliament, acting on legislation moved by the Narendra Modi government, unilaterally terminated Jammu and Kashmir’s unique constitutional position, ending its autonomous status within the Indian Union.

Last week, the Jammu and Kashmir administration notified the Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (procedure) rules, 2020. These rules provide a fast-track procedure for issuance of Kashmiri domicile certificates, within 15 days, to people from any part of India. The sense of urgency to legalise the region’s new status is further underscored in the new rules since non-compliance with the time frame provided therein attracts a penalty of Rs. 50,000 from the salary of an errant officer.

The domicile certificate has been made mandatory for employment in Kashmir following amendments to the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services rules. Eligible individuals from any part of India will also be granted the right to purchase immovable property in J&K, something that has not been possible till now in J&K and is still not possible in those parts of India governed by special laws and provisions.

Over the past one year, we have observed a grotesque, euphoric celebration by a broad cross-section of people across India on the disenfranchisement and dispossession of Kashmiris through these legislative changes. In response, Kashmiris have realised that we cannot indulge in the luxury of despair and despondency. We need to, and will continue to, engage in the persistent labour of resistance and hope, despite the reckless violation of our rights, and of democracy, by the Indian state.

The new ‘domicile’ rules are a major departure from an established body of historical precedent, law and jurisprudence. This position was guaranteed to Kashmiris under the Delhi Agreement of 1952, the Presidential Order of 1954, Article 35A of the constitution of India and Part III Section 6 of the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

Also read: J&K Govt’s New Domicile Certificate Rules a Move to Undercut Resistance from Kashmiri Officials?

These instruments and articles recognised the right of Jammu and Kashmir to define its citizens, known as “permanent residents” or popularly called “state-subjects” based on a 1927 notification by the erstwhile king of Jammu and Kashmir. Through the new rules, with retrospective effect, a “permanent resident” has now been replaced with “domicile” even though no instrument has ever granted such power to the Indian government.

The rules grant eligibility of domicile to new classes of people, including migrants, Central government employees, Indian armed forces personnel and their children who meet the eligibility criteria.

It is pertinent to add that in this new arrangement, there is no space for a diaspora Kashmiri whose parents do not have an existing certificate of permanent residence, to obtain domicile without living in the region for 15 years or serving the Indian government for 10 years. Effectively, the child of an Indian citizen from any part of the country is eligible, even if the child has never lived in Kashmir, but the child of a diasporic Kashmiri may not be eligible if the parent does not possess an existing certificate of residence.

Despite the Indian state being overwhelmed with the economic collapse, migrant labour crisis and  COVID-19 pandemic, the desire to subdue the Kashmiris has been funnelled with astringent and virulent zeal. It drives home the message to the people of Kashmir that nothing, not even a medical emergency, can prevent the Indian state from doing what it wants to do in J&K.

The rules do not merely grant people from all parts of India a right of residence in Kashmir. They also engineer a situation where Kashmiris must submit a certificate of permanent residence for verification of domicile if Kashmiris want the jobs where a domicile certificate is now required.

The certificate of permanent residence was a constitutionally valid document and has been held by numerous judgments to be a “conclusive proof of residence”. Under the new rules, it merely carries evidentiary value for residence. Therefore, if a Kashmiri fails to meet the new criteria, whether by malice, manipulation or by design of the new rules, the revocation of residency rights will inevitably lead to their involuntary transfer from Kashmir in search of shelter and employment. All these initiatives have sparked fears of demographic change, militarised settlements, dispossession and alienation of land in Kashmir.

Also read: Centre Backtracks, Amends Domicile Order to Reserve Govt Jobs in J&K for Residents

It is relevant to mention that since 1995, Israel has been escalating the use of residency revocation as a punitive measure when the Israeli interior ministry started reinterpreting the 1952 Law of Entry. In 1952 Israel enacted its own Nationality law and repealed the Palestine Citizenship Order of 1925.

Israel uses three discriminatory (and illegal) criteria to forcibly transfer Palestinians:

  1. If they have been living abroad for an extended period.
  2. Based on a 1995 high court judgment, Palestinians need to establish that their “centre of life” is in Jerusalem in order to maintain residency rights.
  3. Accused of breaching “allegiance” or “minimum loyalty” to Israel. In 2006, this provision was first used against four Hamas members elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. International humanitarian law explicitly forbids the occupier, in this case, Israel, from demanding the allegiance of an occupied population.

The revocation of residency forms part of a widespread and systematic policy to transfer the protected Palestinian population, and may amount to a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, to which Palestine is a party.

For Kashmir, the new domicile rules are just another reminder that the Indian government can alter its position at any point to suit the circumstances. Earlier, Prime Minister Modi had given an assurance to a delegation of members of a pro-India political group that the interests of J&K residents would be protected in government jobs and land laws. However, by these changes, all eligible Indians can compete against J&K residents for jobs and benefits, indicating how much respect the prime minister has even for pro-India politicians, as well as how much he values his own words. While earlier, a total of 480,000 government jobs were only for permanent residents, the new law opens the field for any Indian citizen who has been living in the state for a certain period.

This is especially disconcerting at a time when the 2016 Economic Survey Report had pegged a quarter of J&K’s population between 18 and 29 as unemployed. The diminution of our rights is set to increase the levels of unemployment as well as hasten the disenfranchisement of Kashmiris while setting the stage for demographic changes. With the dilution of their ‘domicile’ status, Kashmiris will find it difficult to obtain work in most sectors of employment. While the rules are silent on this aspect, there are fears that through incremental displacement of rights, Kashmiris could also lose benefits from welfare schemes for food, health care, children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Also read: It’s Been 9 Months. What Did the Revocation of J&K’s Special Status Achieve?

These changes are an erasure of Kashmir’s history as a princely state that was not under direct British rule, and a project in creating homogeneity – so that there is no legal difference between a Kashmiri and someone from any part of India who has lived in Kashmir for a specified period.

Kashmiris were once state-subjects of a princely state. We were then made permanent residents of an autonomous state within the Indian Union. Today we are being made ‘domiciles’ of a Union territory, that too, without our consent. Extrapolating from the developments taking place, it is not hard to imagine the Kashmiri landscape seeded with predatory militarised settlements similar to Palestine. The implications can only be calamitous.

The threat of demographic change, loss of livelihood and increased competition for scarce resources is bound to electrify an already incensed population. In any sensible democracy, this situation would be alarming but authoritarian and xenophobic actions seen over the last year suggest that Modi’s government is neither sensible nor democratic.

Mirza Saaib Bég is a Kashmiri lawyer and an alumnus of NALSAR University of Law. He is a candidate for Master’s in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford as a Weidenfeld-Hoffman scholar.