On August 5, 2019, the Indian government revoked the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution. Although many saw Article 370 as largely symbolic, Article 35A of the Constitution had a practical function for preserving Kashmiri identity. Article 35A vested Kashmir’s legislative assembly with the sole authority to define “permanent residents.” Significantly, the local government was able to affix special privileges — such as the ability to purchase land — to permanent residents. The effect was that only Kashmiris could own property in a region that India has long claimed as its own. In revoking Article 35A, the Indian government unearthed a fear that Kashmiris had been wrestling with since Independence: that India would recruit non-Kashmiri settlers to dilute the region’s ethnic and religious makeup.
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Before launching their legal attack on August 5, the Indian government waged a familiar psychological one. It began with the further militarization of the region. Then, the government evacuated thousands of Hindu pilgrims and tourists on August 3, citing a Pakistani-backed terrorist attack. Non-Kashmiri students attending Kashmiri universities were also ordered to leave. When pressed, Indian officials explicitly assured state political leaders that abrogating Articles 370 and 35A was not in question; any reports otherwise were “rumor mongering.” Their assurances, later exposed as lies, launched Kashmiris into a familiar cadence: canceling family events, moving ill family members near hospitals, and stockpiling essentials.
By August 5, the siege was in full swing. India imposed a curfew and officers patrolled barbed-wired streets. Former heads of state and pro-freedom leaders were arrested. Both internet and cell phone services were suspended. Before India even made its incendiary attack, Kashmir and its people were left in the dark.
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On August 15, 2019, India would simultaneously celebrate its seventy-third Independence Day and forcibly hold Kashmiris under lockdown. What seemed like a sinister irony became the norm. In the seven months that followed, Kashmiris would spend Eid, weddings, medical emergencies, and funerals in an eerie blackout. The economic loss — an estimated $2.4 billion — would pale in comparison only to the human one. Kashmiri lives were inundated with reported army-instigated torture of children, sexual violence against women, disappearing of young men, and arbitrary detention of civilians. Twenty-three petitions challenging the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A are pending in the Supreme Court of India, but the Court’s pattern of avoidance on the Kashmir issue does not bode well for Kashmiris.
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