Mian Rauf
The entire world is battling the COVID-19 contagion but the Indian establishment, under Modi’s Hindutva rule, is busy stirring up mischief in the Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK). Delhi’s ill-advised August 5, 2019 move of annexing the IoK by changing its constitutional status under Article 370 and 35-A and the new domicile law are fuelling fears of another Palestine in making among the Muslim majority residents of the IoK. India is targeting Kashmiri civilians, and Israel is butchering the Palestinians.
With these developments, Modi’s unbridled governemnt wants Israel settlers’ style demographic change in the valley. As work has already begun on altering the Muslim demographics in the region by separating Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir and, in turn, carving out India’s Buddhist majority union territory. Following the abrogation of the special status of Kashmir and the new domicile law, India has moved to trans-mutate IoK from a bilateral usurpation of a people and their territory against their will.
New domicile rules guarantee a massive demographic shift in the region. It has been settled by the Indian central administration that anyone who has resided in the IoK for 15 years or has studied there for a specific period of time is eligible to call the IoC his or her place of domicile. It is further laid down that a person will also be deemed domiciled if he or she is registered as migrant by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in the union territory. Prior to this, the laws notified in 1927 and 1932 defined the citizenship, property rights and privileges of state subjects. These laws were preserved under Article 370 and 35-A of the Indian Constitution, which restricted local property rights and government jobs to permanent residents of Kashmir.
It remains to be seen how various political outfits of Jammu and Kashmir will navigate themselves in the midst of new political and administrative realties. But the new developments in the valley of Kashmir will have consequences. Threat to the survival of Kashmir as the Muslim majority region is fuelling among the locked Kashmiris. The central government has also re-named the Jammu and Kashmir property rights to Slum Dwellers Act by deleting the reference to permanent residents. This has made it clear that non-local dwellers can now gain property rights.
A growing number of outsiders are expected to qualify for domicile status in future. The new law has become a source of great anxiety for resident Kashmiris who fear that it is geared to bring about a demographic change through settlements of Hindus zealots. The new domicile rule makes all local government jobs available to non-natives, including those in police and administration, which means they will now be able to serve in positions such as station house officers and senior superintendents of police, besides heads of departments and professors in state-owned universities.
The new law is being viewed as a bid to execute the longstanding ideological agenda of India’s Hindu nationalist BJP for the region that begun by stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy last year
With the new domicile law, the demographic transition of Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir has begun. The delimitation exercise of political constituencies is next and is certain to aggravate widespread fears of conversion of the Muslim-majority state into a Hindu-majority one. Modi’s fascist regime is taking every opportunity and action to dilute the spirit of Kashmiris’ right to self- determination movement.
The immorality of India’s annexation of Jammu and Kashmir and subsequently, scrapping its special autonomous status and new domicile rules substantiate the argument that India is trampling international law and various UN Security council resolutions on Kashmir under its foot. The recent emergence of the so-called “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order, 2020 is another illegal step by India to settle non-Kashmiris in the IoC by changing the domicile laws. This is a blatant violation of international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention to which India itself is party.
The Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territory it occupies.” It further says: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motives.”
The new law is being viewed as a bid to execute the longstanding ideological agenda of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, inspired by RSS, for the region that begun by stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy last year. Realising the gravity of the situation in the region, Pakistan should continue with its diplomatic efforts of raising the cause of Kashmir and India’s blatant violation of international law before the world community, including the UNO. Daily Times
