Kashmir: The Forgotten Occupation
Kashmir has been disputed since 1947. The Muslim majority population of the Kashmir Valley has been subjected to decades of Indian military occupation, documented human rights abuses, and since 2019, the revocation of its autonomy and a demographic engineering project designed to change the Muslim majority.
The Dispute
When British India was partitioned in 1947, the Muslim-majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu maharaja who initially sought independence. Following a Pakistani-backed tribal incursion, the maharaja signed accession to India in exchange for military assistance, a decision immediately contested by Pakistan. The UN Security Council passed resolutions calling for a plebiscite to determine Kashmir's future. That plebiscite has never been held.
The Occupation
Indian military presence in Kashmir has been accompanied by documented human rights abuses over decades:
- The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in force since 1990, gives Indian military forces immunity from prosecution for actions taken in Kashmir
- An estimated 70,000–100,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began in 1989
- Mass graves containing thousands of bodies have been documented by the State Human Rights Commission
- Enforced disappearances, custodial torture, and extrajudicial killings are documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Indian civil society organisations
The 2019 Revocation
On August 5, 2019, the Indian government under Narendra Modi revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which had guaranteed Kashmir's special autonomous status. Kashmir was divided into two union territories governed directly from New Delhi.
The revocation was accompanied by:
- A complete communications blackout: internet, telephone, and mobile services cut for months
- Mass detention of Kashmiri politicians, activists, and community leaders, including those who had cooperated with Indian governance
- A military deployment that made Kashmir the most heavily militarised region on Earth
The Demographic Project
Since 2019, India has changed land ownership laws in Kashmir to allow non-Kashmiris to purchase land, opening the Muslim-majority region to demographic change through settlement. This is a documented process of demographic engineering consistent with the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank, though it has received a fraction of the international attention.
The plebiscite called for by the UN in 1948 has still not been held. The Muslim population of Kashmir remains under military occupation without the right to determine their own political future.
Scholar References
- Human Rights Watch, Torture in Indian-Administered Kashmir
- Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission: mass graves documentation
- UN Human Rights Office, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir (2018, 2019)
- Angana Chatterji et al., Buried Evidence: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-Administered Kashmir