Kashmir’s Dark Year

In August 2019, the Indian government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy – a status enjoyed by the state under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution after its merger with the Indian Union in 1947. The region was also stripped of its statehood and bifurcated into two new union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Ladakh – under the direct rule of New Delhi. Nearly a year later, the Kashmir Valley is still grappling with this momentous change even as it stares down further uncertainty stemming from the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as in other parts of India. 

In the lead-up to the unilateral decision and subsequent announcement of these extraordinary steps from New Delhi last summer, a fear psychosis had swept across the region, with panic and chaos ruling the streets. People made a beeline to shops to stockpile essentials, while tourists fled after an alert from the authorities about a potential terror attack. Even the annual Hindu pilgrimage, Amarnath Yatra, was abruptly ended. These unprecedented developments, along with the rapid   deployment of additional 10,000 troops in the region, indicated that something serious was afoot.

Amid a total communications blackout and curfew, Kashmiris woke up to a new reality on August 5, 2019 – their region’s special status was history, along with its statehood. The news reached them through TV channels, the only communication available to Kashmiris at the time. Yet almost a year later, nothing seems to have changed in Kashmir, proving the age-old adage that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” The lockdown and curfew have continued as people have been forced to stay at home – first in the aftermath of the August 5 situation and now due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has catapulted the region to further precariousness. 

The removal of Article 370 was perceived by locals as a significant loss, as the constitutional provision allowed Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution, a separate flag, and independence over all legislative matters except foreign affairs, defense, and communications. It also defined permanent residentship in the former state under Article 35A, which barred nonresidents from buying or owning immovable property or applying for government jobs or scholarships. 

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had time and again proclaimed that Article 370 was a major hindrance for development in Jammu and Kashmir and a fundamental cause of corruption. But the regional mainstream party, the National Conference (NC), counters the claim, saying that the BJP built up a narrative that Article 370 or 35A were in place exclusively to protect Muslims. 

“It was as protective for Muslims in Kashmir as it was for Hindus in Jammu or Buddhists in Ladakh,” Imran Nabi, spokesperson for the NC, told The Diplomat. “Article 370 was never a barrier for the development in J&K. In the pre-militancy era, we had a lot of multinational companies operational in Kashmir. With the onset of militancy these companies had to vacate because of the unfavorable situation and not Article 370.”

One thing that has worked in India’s favor is that no major public rallies or open protests against the abrogation of Article 370 emerged. However, locals attribute this to the communication ban, the arrest of mainstream and separatist leaders, and heavy security deployments. 

Absence of Political Activity 

Since the scrapping of the article, New Delhi has attempted to stir up mainstream pro-India political activity in the region, but with little traction. Prominent mainstream political leaders belonging to the NC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been released, including former Chief Ministers (and father and son pair) Farooq and Omar Abdullah. Farooq was booked under the Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law under which a person is taken into custody to prevent them from acting to harm “the security of the state or the maintenance of the public order” – a law that, ironically, Farooq’s own government had introduced to Kashmir on April 8, 1978. Since the Abdullahs’ release, they have maintained a conspicuous silence on political developments. 

However, the NC, of which Farooq is the chair, filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India against the abrogation. “We have challenged the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A in the Supreme Court, and we are fighting it legally,” Nabi, the NC spokesperson, told The Diplomat. 

Some other prominent politicians remain in detention, including former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Sajjad Lone, both former allies of the BJP. As a chief minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti had warned the Indian government against fiddling with Article 370. On one such occasion in July 2017, Mufti said that “there would be no one in Kashmir to carry the tricolor [Indian flag] if the Article 370 is tinkered with.”

Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para, youth president of PDP, told The Diplomat, “PDP is firmly in opposition to the abrogation of Article 370 and will fight it democratically, politically, and legally. We have been living with the Constitution of India for 70 years where Article 370 was a part of it, and they suddenly say that the constitution was wrong along with our 70 years of identity and existence.”  

Setting aside their political differences, all the regional parties have united against the abrogation of Article 370. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) has vehemently opposed the government’s move. “This is unconstitutional, illegal, and authoritarian. They constitute an attack on the principle of unity in diversity. It is not just an abrogation of special status under Article 370 but an abrogation of democracy itself,” senior CPI(M)  leader and former Member of Legislative Assembly from Kashmir Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami told The Diplomat.  

Amid this, the government has attempted to revitalize grassroot-level local governments by holding the Block Development Council (BDC) elections in October last year. The NC, PDP, and the Congress boycotted the elections in protest against the move on Article 370. Still, many insisted that all the three parties had proxy candidates in the elections. The government claimed a voter turnout of 98.3 percent, with elected village heads and Panchayat members (not the general public) voting under tight security. 

In the absence of mainstream political parties, a new political formation has been propped up by bringing together disgruntled former leaders from the PDP and the NC in the new Jammu Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP). Its formation is seen as an attempt by the BJP to fill the political void in the valley. The party was formally launched on March 8, 2020 and is headed by the former finance minister in the erstwhile PDP-BJP government, Altaf Bukhari. Its core agenda is the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood and domicile rights on land and jobs for its residents. While the JKAP is currently New Delhi’s favorite in Kashmir, it will be a litmus test to see if the party can retain the center’s favor. Another hurdle will be the fact that regional politics have long been dominated by the PDP and the NC, and not many other parties have been able to carve out space for themselves. Just last year, Shah Faesal, a former civil servant, launched the J&K Peoples’ Movement with much fanfare, but soon the party sank without a trace.

Apart from mainstream politicians, separatist leaders have steered the major protests in the Kashmir region – for instance the protests in 2008, 2010, and 2016 – by issuing strike calls and calendars. However, at the time of abrogation, the top separatist leaders were languishing in Indian jails, preventing them from political activity. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) started a crackdown on these leaders after the February 2019 Pulwama attack in connection with hawala money transactions, putting them on the backfoot. Lower-rung separatist leaders were arrested in August last year, leaving Kashmiri separatism in disarray. 

A ‘Demographic Change’ in the Offing? 

While the JKAP fights for the restoration of domicile rights on land and jobs for locals, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has proceeded this year to change the decades-old domicile laws amid the coronavirus outbreak. Under the amended laws, citizenship will now be given to anyone who has resided in Kashmir for 15 years. For central government employees posted in Jammu and Kashmir, the time is reduced to 10 years and seven years for high school students. Pertinently, thousands of refugees from what had been West Pakistan, who migrated to the Jammu region during partition in 1947, were barred by Article 370 from getting official residency status. However, the amended law grants them domicile rights. On May 18, the Jammu and Kashmir administration released a notice on the process of granting new domicile certificates. The certificate has to be issued by a Tehsildar, an officer from the Department of Revenue, within 15 days of application. If that deadline isn’t met, the officer will be penalized 50,000 rupees ($662). 

This move from the Indian government has worried many, raising fears that a “demographic change” is afoot in Kashmir. 

“It is aimed at the change of the demography of Jammu and Kashmir for which India has been aspiring for a long time and now they have started practically doing it after the abrogation of Article 370” Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a political science professor from Kashmir, told The Diplomat. “This domicile law... is the inception of the process of converting the population ratio of Jammu and Kashmir in favor of those who support India.” 

Political parties in Kashmir have opposed the law, saying that it is aimed at disempowering the people. 

“The demographic change and disenfranchisement will further complicate the J&K issue, which has claimed thousands of lives so far. This will be resisted through all democratic, peaceful means,” the PDP said in a tweet. Talking to The Diplomat, NC spokesperson Nabi said, “As a Kashmiri it is unacceptable.” 

Nabi raised two main objections, one “legal” and one “operative.” 

The legal question, he said, is that “when Article 370 is being heard in [the] Supreme Court, it makes no sense to introduce something which is very much related to it.” 

The “operative” objection “is that, as a Kashmiri, I am being asked to stand in a line and prove again that I am a citizen of J&K… Why can’t they just accept my state subject as proof of my citizenship?” 

Many locals have also taken to social media to question the timing of the domicile law when the whole world is busy tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. As one Twitter user, Mohammad Dawood, wrote in a tweet “Sighs: Pathetic. While the whole world is fighting with coronavirus, they are busy in oppression. Take this domicile law from Jammu and Kashmir as it is unacceptable.” The PDP echoed the same views in another tweet: “Even a pandemic is no deterrent for the GOI [government of India] to continue with its disempowerment project for JK. Orders like the one on domicile certificates don't settle anything, neither do they cover up the August 5 fraud.” 

The Security Situation

The revocation of Article 370 came against the backdrop of an intensified security drive by the government targeting militants in the region. The security situation had remained a significant pain point for India with the resurgence of homegrown insurgency after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s death in 2016. His killing by Indian security forces brought Kashmir to a standstill for five whole months, with widespread protests and an outpouring of support for militancy. People would gather at the sites of encounters to shout anti-India slogans and throw stones at security forces to help free the trapped militants. 

The Indian government toughened its stance on militancy and started “Operation All Out” in 2017, hoping to quell the proliferation in militant ranks. As per reports, 213 militants were killed in 2017, 257 in 2018, and 160 in 2019. There has been a surge in militant attacks as well, from the minor to deadly operations like the Uri attack in September 2016 (in which four heavily armed militants attacked an army base, killing 19 Indian soldiers) or the Sunjwan attack in Jammu in February 2018 (in which seven soldiers died and scores were injured). However, the Pulwama attack on February 14 of last year was the deadliest in three decades of insurgency, and it brought two nuclear nations to the brink of war. India retaliated by carrying out surgical strikes on February 26 on alleged terror camps based at Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The airstrikes were followed by aerial combat between the air forces of both nations. India has always accused Pakistan of supporting and harboring terrorists, which Pakistan has denied. 

Since then, the security situation in the region has remained fragile, with increased encounters and a surge in militant attacks. However, the communication blackout from August to October last year saw a lull in security operations, ostensibly because of the lack of human intelligence. From November 2019 on, the pace of encounters resumed, as security agencies carried out many operations in which the top leadership of the insurgent groups was eliminated. However, the elimination of top leaders has shown little effect on the insurgency. 

In a new headache for the security establishment, a new group called The Resistance Front (TRF) has appeared in Kashmir. Led by Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group was mostly limited to social media in its initial days, but it has now carried out attacks on security forces in the past few months. The security establishment claims that the formation of the group is the result of international pressure on Pakistan, which wants to escape blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force for backing terrorist groups in the region. While most of the existing militant groups are under international scrutiny, the TRF has as yet evaded attention.  

According to Sameer Patil, a security analyst, Kashmir’s security situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon. “As the emergence of The Resistance Front has shown, both Pakistan’s deep state and the local insurgent groups will continue to innovate to assert their presence against the security forces,” Patil said. “While South Kashmir has remained the hub for the local insurgency, we will now see attempts to initiate violence in North Kashmir, which due to its links with the LoC remains the gateway for foreign militants to sneak in the Kashmir Valley.” 

On May 30, a core group security review meeting was held among top army commanders, police, and civil administration officers – including Jammu and Kashmir Police Chief Dilbag Singh – to discuss the prevailing security situation across Jammu and Kashmir. According to a statement, the core group focused on the need for a high level of synergy among agencies in addressing the security concerns of Kashmir as “intelligence inputs indicate that Pakistan had intensified its efforts at increasing infiltration and ceasefire violations across the Line of Control.” It is pertinent to mention that infiltration generally intensifies in the summer as the cross-border routes are blocked by snow in the winter.  

“There is also an effort to calibrate an increase in terrorist actions in the hinterland. Pakistan and its proxies are also active on social media to launch disinformation campaign in J&K,” the statement said. 

Education Suffering  

The education sector is one of the worst affected by the turmoil in Kashmir. After August 5, educational institutes remained closed, which has undermined the education of around 1.2 million students in the region. The situation cost students an academic year. First, they were kept at home from August almost until the exams in October 2019, which is also the end of the academic session in Kashmir. After their exams, the schools were shut for winter vacation from December 21 to February 24. Then schools opened for around two weeks, only to be closed again due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“I am very much worried about the future of my children. You have schools closed for most of the time in Kashmir due to the ongoing situation,” Basharat Ahmad from South Kashmir told The Diplomat. 

Ahmad had sent his son to Srinagar, some 60 kilometers from his home, for studies in 2019 with the hope that he would not only prepare to clear his secondary examination but also prepare for the national-level competitive exam. His son left the coaching midway through due to the post-August lockdown. Like Ahmad’s son, many had to leave their schools (and tuition fees) in the middle of their coursework.  

Low-speed internet is a double whammy for the students, who now have to attend online virtual classes instead of physical ones. The internet shutdown in Kashmir ended in late January and the internet was restored to 2G speeds. But such speeds are a bane for online classes. At a time when students across the globe are taking online classes, students in Kashmir are fighting for high-speed internet to prevent themselves from further academic losses.  

“When the teacher is teaching the class, you can only see a blurred image and broken voice due to lack of proper internet connection. When you miss the lecture most of the time, how is that going to help?” questioned Shoaib Yaseen, a student from North Kashmir.  

Teachers, too, complain of miseries faced due to the low-speed internet. 

“I teach the class from my mobile phone only because it gets comparatively slower on the laptop. I had to repeat and speak louder as [my] voice breaks and reaches delayed to the students due to the 2G internet,” Jameela Khursheed, a teacher from North Kashmir, told The Diplomat. 

The Economic Toll

The Indian government has vowed to bring development to Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370. However, that seems to be a distant dream. Kashmir’s economy mostly depends on agriculture, particularly fruit orchards, and tourism. These sectors have been severely affected post-August 2019.

Horticulture is the backbone of Kashmir's economy. There are 144,825 hectares dedicated to apple-growing in Kashmir, producing nearly 1.7 million tons of apples. Kashmir’s horticultural exports have been valued at 60 billion rupees ($826,860,000). Yet the region witnessed two natural calamities in a row in the past two years, wreaking havoc among the orchards. Lockdowns have added to the woes of already distressed fruit growers. 

In 2018, early snowfall gave a heavy blow to fruit growers. It snowed heavily in early November, when many growers were yet to pick their produce. In Kashmir, most growers borrow money from fruit merchants and repay the loans in the autumn after harvesting the fruit. However, many were unable to pay off their debts due to the damage they faced. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries said the loss to the fruit industry was more than 5 billion rupees ($69 million) in 2018. In 2019, though it snowed in December, the lockdown delayed the harvesting and packing. Restrictions post-August were an issue for many, and attacks from militants on apple traders and truck drivers in South Kashmir left growers in further fear and panic. 

Mohammad Ashraf is a fruit grower from South Kashmir who, like other farmers, faced massive damage to his orchard twice in a row. “It was devastating to see the apple trees fallen on ground and branches broken due to snow. The loss was very much, and compensation would have eased the miseries,” he told The Diplomat.  

Bashir Ahmad Basheer, the chairman of Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers and Dealers Union and president of Fruit Mandi Parimpora, told The Diplomat, “Instead of compensating, the government insulted fruit growers in the name of compensation by giving 1,500 to 2,000 rupees ($16-26) after snowfall damaged the orchards in 2018.” 

Every year the abundant availability of fruits in the markets in autumn brings prices low, so growers often store some produce in local cold storage houses. The produce is then sold with the onset of spring, from March onward. Basheer believes that “last year due to the lockdown people stored more fruit in these cold stores in a hope to sell at better rates in March, but the lockdown due to coronavirus has devastated those hopes as well and they couldn’t get more than the rent paid to cold stores.”

Currently in Kashmir, the fresh cherry crop is ready, which is usually sold in the markets of Mumbai. However, the lack of transport and the lockdown in Mumbai, which is badly hit by the coronavirus, has shattered the hopes of fruit growers. They foresee no market for the upcoming fruit production as well, which includes peaches, pears, plums, and apples. Meanwhile, fruit growers associations are making appeals to the local population to consume local fruit, which can bring some relief to the 1 million distressed families directly or indirectly associated with the industry.

The business community in Kashmir has also suffered a considerable loss as shops or small-scale industries have been shut. The Kashmir Chamber for Commerce and Industries (KCCI) estimates an overall loss of around 180 billion rupees in the four months after August 5 last year for Kashmir region. However, the lockdown due to COVID-19 has added a loss of more than 100 billion rupees this year.

The president of KCCI, Sheikh Ashiq, told The Diplomat, “We feel that our suffering and pain is different. It is not that we are under lockdown for the past two and a half months but almost 10 months. While the Indian government has announced the stimulus package for business enterprises, almost 80 percent of the business units can’t avail the benefits of this package due to its conditions. As our situation and problems are different, we need a separate and comprehensive package revival. We are in deep crises and we need support, otherwise there can be economic collapse anytime.”

When asked about the low-speed internet, Ashiq said that the “internet is integral to business. It has very low speed in Kashmir and we fail to work on [the] internet. The global working scenario has changed, everyone is working from home only but we are lagging behind in this way as well.”

The other vital sector that contributes to Kashmir's economy is tourism. The tourism industry had already been decimated by the Pulwama terror attack, in which around 40 Indian paramilitary forces were killed in February last year. Still, Kashmir saw a tourist influx with the onset of the summer season, until the announcement of a potential terror attack came from authorities on August 2, wiping out the hopes of people associated with the industry.  

Javid Ahmad runs a shop in Pahalgam, a tourist spot in South Kashmir. He recounted how there was panic in the area after tourists and pilgrims visiting the holy Amarnath cave left overnight. “There was a pin-drop silence in the area, which was bustling with people a day before. I had to dispose of some expired items around a month later and sold the rest to the local shopkeeper.” Since then Ahmad has been staying at home and surviving on what little savings he had. 

The annual tourist influx is always a blessing for the locals. It boosts the economy and provides livelihood to the thousands of people in Kashmir. As per IndiaSpend, a data and analysis website, Kashmir saw tourist inflows from August to December decline 86 percent in 2019, receiving 43,059 tourists as compared to 316,434 in the same period in 2018. That has cost 144,500 jobs in the industry. However, this year with the onset of spring the lockdown due to COVID-19 has further affected the sector, with no tourists visiting the valley at all.   

Mir Anwar, the president of Tour and Travel Operators Kashmir, told The Diplomat, “There were bookings for August and upcoming months, but those were cancelled. Hotels saw no occupancy at all and were hoping for tourism business this year, but coronavirus has brought everything to halt.”

Kashmir Valley is going through tough times at present, as the coronavirus lockdown has proved to be a double whammy for the locals. Already following close on the heels of the Article 370 revocation and associated restrictions, the COVID-19 lockdown is comparatively prolonged in Kashmir and people are uncertain about the foreseeable future. Farmers hope for relief and the business community is clamoring for a separate economic package, while students and the tourism industry are looking for high-speed internet and the promised initiatives to pull the region out of the morass. Many also hope that the Indian government itself will implement some confidence-building measures to generate much-needed trust among the people.