Authors: Kaisar Andrabi and Zubair Amin
Affiliation: Independent journalists based in Indian-administered Kashmir
Organization/Publisher: Foreign Policy
Date/Place: August 11, 2021 / USA
Type of Literature: Analysis
Word Count: 2200
Link:https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/11/modi-is-trying-to-engineer-a-hindu-majority-in-kashmir/
Keywords: Kashmir, Conflict, International Armed Conflict, Pakistan, India, Demography, Hindu nationalism
Brief:
This analysis gives a bird’s eye view as how India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which draws inspiration from Nazism, is redrawing electoral districts into a chess board in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir – a UN-designated disputed territory. The State of Jammu and Kashmir, which existed before the 1947 partition of the sub-continent, has held consecutive elections ever since India has occupied a larger part of it. Since the disputed region is a Muslim-majority region under Hindu-India’s forcible rule, the local chief administrator, known as chief minister, would be a Muslim. India has been exploiting such exercises in its favor, telling the international community that “Kashmiris are voting for India’s democracy.” However, the United Nations has clearly stated in several resolutions passed on the disputed territory that these elections held under Indian rule do not substitute the plebiscite or right to self-determination promised by the UN, India and Pakistan to the people of State of Jammu and Kashmir. India has been reluctant to hold the plebiscite – knowing well that it will fail to win over the population which has been under its illegal occupation since 1947, and which India has turned into the most militarized area in the world via its one-million-strong occupying troops. Despite this reality on the ground, the pro-India collaborators (irrespective of their political affiliation or ruling class) in Jammu and Kashmir who have been participating in these sham elections have a common desire— that the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir be a Hindu. That process has attained much more significance after India re-annexed Kashmir on August 5, 2019 by revoking provisions of its constitution that guaranteed to the international community that New Delhi would not alter demographics of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir. Unlike the universal rule of following population census to redraw electoral constituencies, the Hindu nationalists are demanding that a new electoral map be drawn on the basis of geographies. The process has already started, despite India putting a halt to such an exercise until after the 2026 census, but to fast track its anti-Muslim actions the BJP is going forward and allowing the installation of a Hindu chief minister who will allow India to further cement its control over the region and sell the international community another façade of democracy.
By: Riyaz ul Khaliq, CIGA Non-Resident Research Associate
