Indian citizens’ group punctures government claims on Kashmir

Under the banner of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, a citizens’ group that includes retired judges, military officers, and top civil servants, in a report, urges New Delhi to address fears of demographic change. 

By Iftikhar Gilani

Even as four years later Indian Supreme Court began hearing on the revocation of special status to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, an informal group of concerned Indian citizens that includes former judges, top officials, and even military officers has called Indian government to restore the democratic process, release prisoners, stop media crackdowns, and address fears about demographic changes in the region.

Under the banner of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, the citizens’ group said that since Aug. 5, 2019, when India revoked limited autonomy and divided the Muslim-majority region into two centrally administered areas, a barrage of laws is being imposed day after day, stoking mistrust and fears.

Presenting its fourth annual report, the group, which includes five senior retired judges, four retired army and air force officers, former Home Minister Secretary Gopal Pillai, former External Affairs Secretary Nirupama Rao, and former government interlocutor Radha Kumar, disputed New Delhi’s claims that the region has progressed after its incorporation into the Indian Union.

“The facts, however, suggest otherwise. In its three annual and two thematic reports, the forum has documented more than three dozen economic, political, and social rights violations between August 2019 and July 2022, including economic losses of more than 50,000 crore rupees ($6.078 billion), if conservative estimates are made,” the report said.

The group noted that Jammu and Kashmir had the most licensed gun owners among all centrally-administered areas and the most gun owners per capital city among all Indian states in 2023.

In December 2016, there were 369,191-gun license holders. Later the government banned the issuance of gun licenses. But when it lifted the ban in January this year, 130,914 new licenses were issued in the first six months. In smaller regions like Jammu and Kashmir, this number is staggering.

The concerned citizens’ group said that while the government claims the security situation has improved from 2019, it is considerably worse than before 2019, especially in the interregnum years from 2012 to 2015, and that the security situation in Jammu division has also deteriorated recently, especially in the border areas.

The report mentioned that the revival of village defense committees, in the mountainous Pir Panchal region in the Jammu Division, has led to further insecurity. The government has formed these committees constituting mostly Hindu villagers and providing them arms and training to take on militants. The group recalled that this mechanism was tried out in 2002 by then Home Minister L.K. Advani. However, it proved counterproductive and these armed men without any accountability started targeting local hapless villagers.

The report also noted that 5,000 people, including political leaders, journalists, and civil society activists, were arrested in the aftermath of August 2019, including 144 minors. In addition to these arrests, another 1,071 arrests were made between 2019 and 2023. Despite instructions to limit the use of draconian laws such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) on preventive detention, they continue to be used, including against the media.

In December 2022, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai reported to Parliament that there were 830 pending investigations related to UAPA arrests at the end of 2021. Jammu and Kashmir recorded the highest number of criminal cases after Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Assam, with 284 cases. Of 668 people arrested for crimes against the state, 651 were charged, none were convicted, one was acquitted, and 26 were acquitted.

In March 2023, journalist Irfan Mehraj was arrested by the NIA under the UAPA as part of an ongoing investigation into Kashmiri nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), foundations, and societies allegedly funding “terrorist activities.”

Mehraj was a close associate of prominent human rights defender Khurram Parvez and worked for his organization, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS). Mehraj left the JKCCS in March 2022. Shortly after his arrest, Parvez was re-arrested in the same case. He has been behind bars since November 2021 after being arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for terror financing and conspiracy.

-Overcrowded prisons

The forum also drew attention to the overcrowding of jails in Jammu and Kashmir. There are 14 jail complexes in the region, including two central jails, 10 district jails, one special jail, and one sub-jail. Together, these complexes have a total capacity of 3,629 inmates, but as of June 2023, they housed 5,300 inmates.

“As of December 2022, Kot Balwal Central Jail housed 1,016 inmates, although its approved capacity was 902; Srinagar Central Jail housed 722 inmates, although its capacity was 509; and Jammu District Jail housed 688 inmates, although its capacity was 426,” the report added.

The report points out that Jammu and Kashmir have not had an elected government for five years. While the government itself claims that peace has returned to the region and even organizes international events, its hesitation on the issue of holding assembly elections seems curious.

Local politicians claim that the ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is not sure it can get enough members into the assembly in the Muslim-majority region, despite last year’s amendment to the electoral constitution.

The report said the delimitation commission, which submitted its final report in May 2022 has also raised concerns of disempowering the majority Muslim community.

It initially recommended expanding the assembly from 107 to 114 members. But of the seven new seats to be added, six were allocated to Hindu-dominated Jammu and only one to Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley.

“This deviated from the basic democratic principle of equal representation by disadvantaging some constituents over others, which affected different regions and/or religious communities,” the report added.

With 56.15% of the state’s total population, the Kashmir Valley was allocated 47 seats in the assembly, while Jammu, with 43.85% of the population, was allocated 43 seats. These recommendations of the Delimitation Commission, which are now being implemented, are symbols of electoral apartheid.

The state’s former finance minister, Haseeb Drabu, told the group that this meant that one voter from the Kashmir Valley was equivalent to 0.8 voters from the Jammu region. Moreover, the redrawing of constituencies was done in such a way that the Hindu minority will exercise political dominance in the upcoming assembly.

In Jammu, new Hindu-majority constituencies were created, such as Padder with a population of just over fifty thousand, while three times as many Muslim regions, such as Surankote in Poonch district, were not given seats in the assembly. A similar procedure was followed to add the Muslim-majority districts of Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu to the Lok Sabha constituency of Anantnag in Kashmir.

Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti described this as tactical manipulation ahead of the elections, converting the majority into a minority to gain political advantage. “We rejected the delimitation commission from the beginning. For us, it does not matter what the verdict is,” she said.

-Manipulations and gerrymandering

The citizens’ body report added that before 2019, the right to vote and own property was restricted to permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 35-A of the Constitution of India and Article 140 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. Persons who resided in Jammu and Kashmir but were not permanent residents were eligible to vote only in parliamentary elections and were classified as non-permanent voters.

Article 35-A disappeared with the abolition of Article 370, and Article 140 of the state constitution disappeared when it was replaced by the Reorganization Act, after which any person who had lived in Jammu and Kashmir for some time became eligible as a voter.

In March 2020, a new definition of residency for Jammu and Kashmir was introduced under which (a) any person who has resided in Jammu and Kashmir for more than 15 years, (b) any person who has studied in Jammu and Kashmir for more than seven years, and (c) any person who has been registered as a migrant by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir can be considered a permanent resident.

After territorial delimitation, the electoral rolls were revised twice. A special summary revision added 770,000 new voters. The number would have been even higher if the 2022 order of the Jammu deputy commissioner and chief electoral officer had been applied throughout the former state, authorizing tehsildars (revenue officials) to register as voters any person who had resided in the Jammu district for more than one year. The order was withdrawn a day after it caused widespread outrage.

Two seats for Kashmiri Pandits who had migrated to the Jammu region in 1990, including one woman, and one seat for refugees who had come from Pakistani areas in 1947 and the 1965 war were also reserved in the assembly. But in a departure from the norm that they are nominated by the elected government, the lieutenant governor was empowered to nominate them. This appears to be another attempt to help the ruling BJP come to power in Kashmir by hook or by crook.

Another proposed law to include the Pahari community and the Paddari, Gadda Braman, and Koli tribes in the list of scheduled tribes in Jammu and Kashmir and give them the right to reservation of jobs and admission to professional educational institutions will reduce the chances of the Kashmiris. This will also lead to the two Muslim communities of Gujar and Pahari confronting each other as has happened in Manipur between Meitis and Kukkis. Previously, Gujars and Bakarwals were the only tribal communities in the region.

Paharis can now contest in Gujjars and Bakarwals constituencies, which are reserved for tribals. Most affected is the Pir Panchal area, which includes Rajouri and Poonch, where Paharis are in the majority in seven of eight assembly segments. There, four seats are reserved for indigenous peoples.

The second bill seeks to include the Valmiki community in the list of Scheduled Castes in Jammu and Kashmir. The third bill renames “weak and underprivileged classes (social castes)” as “other backward classes” (OBCs) and adds 15 more communities to the OBC list, including West Pakistani refugees and Gorkhas.

The impact of these bills on elections will be most noticeable in Jammu, which has the largest number of “scheduled castes” and OBCs. They will increase caste-based voter mobilization,” the report says.

-Economic woes

In March 2023, the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) reported that unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir was 23.1%, compared to the Indian average of 7.8%.

“Home Ministry data shows that investment in the region has declined by over 50% in the last four years. Total investments in 2021-2022 declined to Rs. 376.76 crore ($45.8 million) from Rs. 840.55 crore ($102 million) in 2017-18,” the report added.

In 2021, the Jammu and Kashmir administration received only 5-6 external applications out of a total of 2,500 applications for land allocation for industrial development. These figures suggest that outsiders continue to shy away from investing in the region despite the incentives allegedly offered by the administration, which appear to include illegal land seizures.

According to the Economic Survey 2022-2023, Jammu and Kashmir’s per capita income (PCI) at constant prices remains well below the national average, by nearly 31,000 rupees (US$376). In all India PCI, it was 172,000 rupees ($2,090) at constant prices, while in Jammu and Kashmir, it was only 132,806 rupees ($1,614). The growth rate of Jammu and Kashmir PCI is only 13.9, while the national growth rate is 15.8.

The report also indicates that as many as 199,872 college graduates will be unemployed in the region by May 31, 2023. The total number of unemployed youth was 563,984.

Citizens said that a program to provide 5 marlas of land (0.031 acres) and build 199,550 houses for landless poor under a central program is causing concern in the region rather than being considered a welfare measure.

“As laudable as the provision of land for the landless is, the large discrepancy between the numbers for the landless and the allocation of housing makes one suspicious. According to official figures, there were 19,047 landless people in the region in 2021,” the report continues. So the question is, for whom are the houses being built? Assuming five people live in a household, the local population increases by 997,750 people.

Permanent residents fear that this could be another way for a large number of non-residents to gain the right to domicile under the Domicile Act of 2020, which allows anyone who has lived in Jammu and Kashmir for 15 years or studied there for seven years to apply for a domicile certificate that entitles him/her to apply for land and jobs.

According to the report, residents are also shocked by the sudden introduction of the 2022 land grant rules by the Jammu and Kashmir administration, replacing the 1960 land grant rules, which had a liberal lease policy of 99 years that could be extended further.

The Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation told the team that about half of all businesses in Srinagar, including 2,000 small businesses, were operating under these lease terms, as were all hotels in the tourist resort of Gulmarg.

However, the new rules stipulate that all leases granted under the old rules will not be renewed and will lose their validity. The administration is now planning to hold a new online auction to lease these properties, amid fears that local businessmen will be passed over.