J&K: More than a year since the abolition of Article 370

–Kakali Das |

On 5^th August, 2019, Article 370 was abrogated in Jammu and Kashmir. It’s been more than a year since the creation of Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The Kashmir Valley went into lockdown and still in confinement, firstly for the security reasons and thenfor the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been multitudinous challenges and one amongst them is that the 4G internet is stillunattainable in the Valley, yet operating with the 2G services despite appeals from doctors, teachers etc. Schools are concerned that if children are to really study online then how are they going to do it without internet! Supreme Court has reserved order on pleas seeking restoration of 4G internet services in J&K.

One of the primary reasons behind government’s decision for the abolition of Article 370 was to consolidate the mainstream Jammu & Kashmir into India and to bring down the number of terror attacks. Has there been a drop in the number of terror attacks in the last 1 year? Even as a UnionTerritory, obviously, J&K has the right to political representation like that of Pondicherry, Delhi, Chandigarh, who elect their representatives, but in Kashmir we have political leaders who are still in detention – Mehbooba Mufti, for instance, is still in captivity. Why is that the case? For how long will it go on?Where is the larger plan for the unwinding of this? Kashmir has been in lockdown now for a year, what impact has this had on the lives of the citizens of Kashmir, their businesses, to the tourism sector? Art and Tourism is actually the largest industry in Kashmir. What has happened to the artisans who make the carpets, shawls, who row and make the boats? And how are they continuing to live their lives without the economy that supports them?

Along with Article370, Article 35Awas also scrapped which provided special rights and privileges to the ‘permanent residents’ of Jammu & Kashmir and empowered them, right from the year 1927 (the period of the Maharajas). Withdrawing of all these crucial Articles demonstrated how major a decision the Government of India had taken. “The people of Kashmir has gone to the level of having psychiatric problems, large scale depression. The conditions in Kashmir foryears haven’t been normal but they have steadily become worse now. We have now reached a point of acute depression and there’s no hope, nothing to look forward to.Children are living in conditions far worse, suffocated”, Saba Naqvi, Journalist said..

The entire day was spent publicising the ‘land worshipping’ by the Brahmins and laying of the foundation stone of the Ram Mandir by our Honorable PM for nearly 24 hours, even by thenews channels which were once considered as rational. Not one in the mainstream media emphasized on the date, 5^th of August as a day which completed a year since the abolition ofsuch crucial and important Articles (read right to freedom)out of the lives of Kashmir. Children have been struggling with their education, businesses are at the death’s door,entire political class is in detention. Interestingly, Mehbooba Mufti, who was an ally with the BJP is still in detention but the Abdullahs (Omar Abdullah and others) who, at one point, had worked with the central government and its politicians and had been active in every sense of the Indian experiment have already been released.The government, at some time, needs to have some point of logical explanation or at least a plan for winding down of this detention.

There was a two-day curfew imposed on 4^th and 5^th August in the Valley as J&K completed one year of Union Territory move. The administration might have expected some disturbances, protests due to which they had imposed a curfew. The claims made by the government that normalcy would be restored after the abrogation of article 370 was deceptive. Had it been the case, people would have been witnessed celebrating or being happy for it and there would have no need for the imposition of the curfew.

In terms of the drop in the number of terror attacks, according to an article in THE WIRE by Manoj Joshi, Observer Research Foundation, quoted the South Asia Terrorism Portal, “Back in 2012, which had almost the lowest points of deaths caused by terror attacks, there were 19 civilians, 18 security personnel and 84 extremist or terrorists who were killed that year. As of 2020, 17 civilians, 34 security personnel, 154 terrorists have been killed so far”.

“There is not even half a percent of development taking place which was once declared by the Government of India when it revoked all the articles in Kashmir. Even the projects which were already there in the pipeline couldn’t be executed because of the situations taking place. Even when we talk of the normalcy, every time there have been attacks on the militancy and the people getting killed, tensions on the borders, seize fire violation etc.; there is hardly anything which has changed, rather it has alienated people more than earlier. This is what I see things happening here in Kashmir”, Ahmed Ayaz, Political Analyst in Kashmir said.

One of the major reasons for the great level of celebrations that came in from Kashmiri Pandits last year was due to the verbal promise madeby the government that they would be given protections they require in order to go back to their homes, which is still overdue. The manner in which the Kashmiri Pandits were made to leave their homes overnight and live in Camps away from their homelands for so long is intolerable.

Many people living in Kashmir said that they were unable to manage a single sanitary helper from the nearby districts to enter in their areas even though there had been trucks of filth accumulated on the streets; they had to request the DC concerned to help remove it. The people of Kashmir is extremely frightened. It has become utmost difficult for people living in J&K to speak and survive with freedom. Kashmir has exasperated; it has dried-up. The government and the media doesn’t discuss the North East, but Kashmir only if it gets politicised because of Pakistan.

At the end of the day, the belief that Kashmir is part of the country is also included with the belief that all Kashmiri citizens are Indian citizens and we should be invested in the well-being of all the peaceful citizens of Kashmir. There are children who haven’t been able to study or attend schools for the last one year. We have to be concerned for the people growing the Apples, whose entire crop went to waste because of being unable pick owing to the lockdown. The doctors aren’t able to treat Covid-19 patients since they don’t have any access of it; they have been stopped on the roads by the police, some of them beaten up in fact. The government will continue to make decisions but ultimately we must be invested in the well-being of every citizens in its entirety.