IOK: additional deployment

Local authorities insist it is routine deployment

At one trooper to 10 civilians, occupied Kashmir is already the most militarised part of the world, with Indian occupation forces in the troubled territory numbering five hundred thousand.

As if that’s not enough to suppress the indigenous freedom movement of Kashmiris, the Indian government has deployed at least 10,000 more paramilitary troops to the disputed Himalayan region, causing a noticeable rise in tension among the residents that have long been subjected to state terrorism. While the local authorities insist it is a routine deployment, there is a fair reason to see something unusual behind the move.

Seven separate petitions challenging the validity of Article 35A of the Indian constitution – which confers special rights to the permanent residents of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and impedes citizens from other parts of India from settling permanently in the occupied state, buying property there and taking up state government jobs – have been pending with the country’s top court for a final hearing.

The court has deferred hearings six times since October 2018, but that Narendra Modi, the hardliner, is now firmly in the saddle, it is quite understandable for him to pursue the cases fairly vigorously in order to come good on his election pledge to abrogate Article 35A – as well as the related Article 370 – and pave the way for changing the demography of the occupied state. That would be Modi’s remedy to the chronic Kashmir ‘headache’ and that comes in line with the BJP’s nationalist ideology to promote Hindutva.

That the additional deployment is intended to guard against the fallout over possible scrapping of the mentioned articles is a widespread belief in the occupied state. And the reactions from political players are strengthening this belief.

The National Conference, the Peoples Democratic Party, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement and other political parties have warned the Indian Prime Minister against tinkering with the two articles that give special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the words of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, it would be akin to setting a powder keg on fire.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2019.

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