Kashmir remains paralyzed by lockdown as resentment simmers

[Dubious]

By Swati Gupta, CNN

Updated 1448 GMT (2248 HKT) August 16, 2019

A Kashmiri man rides a bicycle through a deserted street during security lockdown in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on August 14, 2019.


(CNN)Eleven days after the Indian government suspended all communications in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the disputed region still has no contact with the outside world.

Millions of residents in the Kashmir Valley -- one of the most militarized regions in the world -- are living behind a virtual curtain. Unable to access the internet, send letters, or even make calls using a fixed line, India's most volatile region has vanished from the modern world.
"No telephone lines are working, no internet is working, no broadband is working. There is a virtual clampdown. There is no communication link... My own office is not functioning and I am not in touch with a single bureau member in Srinagar," said Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Kashmir Times.
In an unprecedented move, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi cut off the entire Jammu and Kashmir region at midnight on August 5. Kashmiris living outside the territory have not been able to reach friends and family.

An Indian soldier on a deserted road during lockdown in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Thursday, August 15.

The move was preceded by tens of thousands of Indian troops moving into the valley, establishing check points every few hundred feet and laying down coils of wire at every corner to restrict the movement of vehicles.
A curfew has forced residents to mostly stay inside their homes, stepping out only to buy medicines or basic groceries.
Officials have repeatedly said that the lockdown will be lifted in phases over the next few days but have not provided a definitive timeline, leaving the entire region in confusion. Most newspapers have been unable to report or publish information across the region, especially from rural areas.
Less than 12 hours after the lockdown, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah announced in Parliament that the government was scrapping a constitutional article affording the state of Jammu and Kashmir special status.
Article 370 provided the state with semi-autonomy, which included a separate state constitution, its own flag and control over internal matters except for certain policy areas such as foreign affairs and defense.
Shah's announcement was succeeded by the passage of a law reorganizing the state by downgrading it to a union territory.
In the Indian system, state governments retain significant authority over local matters but New Delhi has more of a say in the affairs of a union territory. The remote mountainous region of Ladakh, currently part of Jammu and Kashmir, will also be separated and turned into a standalone union territory.

Anger and confusion
Claimed by India and Pakistan in its entirety, Kashmir is one of the world's most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints.
In 1947, after India's independence from British colonial rule, the erstwhile ruler of Jammu and Kashmir was given an option to accede to either Pakistan or India and, in exchange for protection, chose the latter. But special provisions were added to the Indian constitution, under Article 370, to protect the rights of the territory's residents
The only Muslim-majority state in India, Jammu and Kashmir has erupted with violent protests over the past few years. Demanding accountability from New Delhi, protestors have stormed the streets, pelting Indian soldiers and police personnel with stones.
Activists who have recently visited the region say its residents are now angry both at what has happened with the scrapping of Article 370, and the way it was done.
"The manner in which it was done means that the Indian government is not willing to make any kind of concession. It will just have its way no matter what and they are prepared to enforce it. That is a big defeat," said Jean Dreze, an economist who visited the region with a group of activists.
Fears of what may be happening in the valley, behind the latest blackout, have steadily increased with apprehension over the future.

An Indian soldier stands guard as Kashmiri Muslims offer Friday prayers outside a Srinagar mosque on August 16.
"For now, protests are virtually impossible. Without communications, without any movement, people cannot gather and individual protests can be extremely dangerous... But I think people are waiting for a chance to protest although they know it may not be possible for some time," said Dreze.
A report, published by Dreze and three other activists, describes an "intense and virtually unanimous anger" in the Kashmir Valley over the Indian government's decision to abrogate Article 370, and the way it was done.
"It is very humiliating. The timing of it just before Eid. The people feel that they have been tied down and behind their backs this was done. Even though the entire purpose of that article was to prevent a unilateral takeover," Dreze told CNN.
While the Kashmir Valley is familiar with internet blackouts, the latest all-encompassing ban on broadband, landlines and even cable TV has not been enforced before.
There have been 59 blackouts here so far this year, far more than anywhere else in India, according to the Software Freedom Law Center, India, an NGO.
It was never clear how long previous shutdowns would last. The longest blackout went on for 133 days in 2016, after Indian forces gunned down Burhan Wani, the 21-year-old leader of a militant separatist group.
"The economy is totally paralyzed right now. There is no employment, no income generation and I don't think that that can go on for very long without consequences," said Dreze.

Escalating geopolitical tensions
Pakistan, lying to the east has responded to India's policy changes aggressively, with Prime Minister Imran Khan likening the ideology of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to that of Nazi Germany.
This "ideology of Hindu Supremacy, like the Nazi Aryan Supremacy, will not stop" in Indian-controlled Kashmir, "instead it will lead to suppression of Muslims in India and eventually lead to targeting of Pakistan," he tweeted.
China, which shares a part of Jammu and Kashmir's western border and controls 20% of the Kashmir region also protested India's actions, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry accusing New Delhi of encroaching on Chinese territorial sovereignty.
Beijing warned India to "strictly abide by the relevant agreements reached by both sides, and avoid taking actions that would further complicate the boundary issue."

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/16/asia/kashmir-11-days-of-lockdown-intl/index.html

 

[Dubious]

‘News From Here Doesn’t Go Out’: Kashmir Simmers Under Lockdown

There have been daily protests since August 5, when the Indian government revoked the region’s special status.

FAHAD SHAH8:19 AM ET

Kashmiri women shout slogans at a protest after Friday prayers in Srinagar.DANISH ISMAIL / REUTERS

SRINAGAR, India—A loud voice brings a speaker installed on a mosque’s minaret to life, calling for the young to come out of their houses and stop the police from entering the neighborhood. Within minutes, a crowd gathers in the narrow streets of Soura, which lies on the banks of Anchar Lake here in the capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

This has been the scene every night since August 5, when the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s special status, downgraded its position as a state, and gave New Delhi a more direct role in its governance.


Amid the anxiety, the Kashmir valley is under an official lockdown: The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has suspended all communication channels, including the postal service. The streets are manned by paramilitary forces. Violence has been mostly restricted to dozens of stone-throwing incidents, though many protesters have been injured by pellets fired by security personnel. Kashmiris are anxious and enraged by the situation—and the communication blackout that has left them cut off from the rest of the world for the past 14 days.

In Soura, after the entreaties made on the mosque’s speakers, young men emerged from their multistory mud-brick houses to prepare their own cordon. They set up barricades at all entry and exit points. Overnight, they gathered logs, tin sheets, stones, and bricks; a few roads were dug up to stop police vehicles from entering. Residents took turns to keep vigil at night. On Monday, when Eid was marked, and then on Friday, residents marched around the local shrine and dispersed peacefully. A few days earlier, a similar protest march was met with tear-gas shelling and pellets.



The Hindu, a respected Indian newspaper, reported 140 incidents of stone throwing in the first eight days following the abrogation of Article 370, the provision of the Indian constitution that granted Kashmir special status. But reports of protests from other parts of the region are difficult to ascertain because of the government-imposed communication blackout.

“News from here doesn’t go out,” Shabir Ahmad, 28, who runs a business selling handicrafts, said. “They [the Indian media] are showing whatever they want to. People outside don’t get to know about the situation here … Parents don’t know whether their children are safe or not.”

Many Kashmiri Muslims fear that New Delhi wants to change the demography of the region by moving in more Hindus. (The state’s once robust Hindu minority was driven away in the 1990s by militants.) They believe that this decision, rather than drawing Kashmir more deeply into India, will alienate it further.

“They will soon start settling non-Muslims in Kashmir,” said Muzamil Bashir, a 23-year-old college student, in downtown Srinagar. “We won’t have any choice—and we can’t oppose it either. We are slaves now.”

The outrage is simmering among Kashmiris, but hasn’t yet, barring few exceptions, found an outlet. Gowhar Nazir, 28, a lecturer at the University of Kashmir, said it stems from a sense of betrayal.

“We’ve been betrayed by the Indian government,” he said, adding, “It is a blot on democratic India, and the blackest day for India and Kashmir.”

Indeed, a few days before India’s decision, the government ordered all tourists and pilgrims in Kashmir to leave the state, citing an imminent security threat. Kashmir’s political leaders were taken from their homes to a temporary detention center, where they remain incommunicado.

With chaos and rumors filling Kashmir’s summer air, the communication blackout compounded the frustration and anger. Ahmad, the businessman, said everything was shut; there is no contact with family or friends, and no way to get help.

The crisis has hit Kashmir’s already fragile economy. Tourism, the lifeblood of the region, is at a standstill.

“They forced tourists to leave, so how can our business function?” Ahmad asked, looking at the shut doors of his handicraft showroom near Dal Lake. “They should have asked Kashmiris what they want. They kept Kashmiris silent at gunpoint and forced this upon us.”

Abid Ahmad Kuchey, 26, who had worked at Aegis, a call center, for three years, was fired. “They told 180 employees, all Kashmiris, to quit, and the reason given was that the company can’t function in the current circumstances.”

“The communication blockade has pushed us to the Stone Age,” Areeb Ashraf, 26, a civil engineer, said. One of his uncles was hospitalized, he said, but his family doesn’t know which facility he’s in. Another uncle, he was told at the hospital by a relative, had died four days ago.

“Whatever is happening in Kashmir right now is heart-wrenching,” he said. “This shouldn’t happen anywhere … This is not the way of integration. If you want to be my friend, you have to offer friendship. It doesn’t happen through military attacks and communication blockades.”

A government spokesman told reporters yesterday that the curfew is being eased in a phased manner, and that communication will be restored eventually. Primary schools and government offices will reopen tomorrow, he said.

The roots of New Delhi’s decision this month lies in the period called partition, when British India was cleaved into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority, but officially secular, India. Kashmir, which at the time was a Muslim-majority princely state ruled by a Hindu king, ultimately opted to join India with conditions. In return, it was offered special status that, among other things, barred Indians from the rest of the country from buying land or property in what became the Jammu and Kashmir state. Over successive decades, government corruption, political malaise, and support from neighboring Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, metastasized into a full-blown independence movement and insurgency in the late 1980s. India’s government, which is run by the Bharatiya Janata Party, believes that the main reason for this rebellion is Article 370. The government maintains that the provision’s removal will allow investment to pour into Kashmir and integrate it more fully with the rest of India. This position has broad support in the rest of India—even if the government has been criticized for the manner in which it is dealing with the region.

Paramilitary forces have set up concertina-wire barricades to limit movement. Kashmiris can be seen with ID cards, prescriptions, curfew passes, and expressions of helplessness. Among those detained was Irfan Amin Malik, a reporter with the local daily Greater Kashmir, who was picked up from his home on Wednesday night. No reason was given, though he was freed later that night, after paying a bond. Several journalists said they were beaten or disallowed from moving around during restrictions.

Still, journalists gathered in the Soura neighborhood Friday to cover a protest march. Some Kashmiri youths asked all the people with cameras where they were from, ensuring that they weren’t from Indian broadcast media, which is widely viewed as biased.

“I won’t tell you my name … You don’t need my name,” said one woman who took part in the protest. “There is oppression going on right now in Kashmir … Modi says he will give buildings, factories, jobs, but what do we do with that? … We want our children to live in a peaceful and free Kashmir.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/08/kashmir-india/596314/

 

[maximuswarrior]

There is no more free and peaceful Kashmir. There never was. Kashmiris need to embrace the new reality. RSS has landed in Kashmir and the aim is to change the demography.

 

[Black Bird]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1162935232544301058

 

[NoorAkhhter]

https://www.besturdushayari.com/kashmir-bane-ga-pakistan/

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