Five years ago marked one of the darkest days in the history of the Kashmiri struggle. On August 5, 2019, India unilaterally revoked Article 370, stripping Kashmir of its special status, its legal protections and any pretense of autonomy.
It was a ruthless display of power. The region was locked down overnight – troops surged in, communication lines were cut, leaders were jailed and laws were rewritten without consent. Kashmir was silenced – punished for existing.
Five years later, Kashmir remains brutalised, militarised, traumatized and relentlessly silenced. Modi has tried to manufacture the illusion of normalcy, but the reality is etched in the silence of shuttered media houses, in the eyes of pellet-blinded children, in the stories of women subjected to sexual violence and in the absence of those who simply disappeared. The region has become a digital and physical prison, governed by surveillance, fear and impunity.
The so-called elections of 2024 and 2025 were not a return to democracy. They were a public relations stunt designed to fool the world while the machinery of repression roared on. Constituency boundaries were redrawn to favour non-Muslim regions, resistance leaders were jailed or banned and dissent was criminalised under draconian anti-terror laws. At the same time, thousands of domicile certificates have been issued to non-locals since 2023, a calculated demographic assault intended to dilute Kashmir’s Muslim majority and dismantle its political identity from within.
Over the past five years, credible international reports have documented a cascade of human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir. These include extrajudicial killings, torture in custody, arbitrary arrests without trial, sexual violence, mass surveillance, the enforced silencing of journalists and the systematic erosion of freedom of expression. Journalists such as Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul have spent years behind bars for reporting uncomfortable truths. Prominent human rights defender Khurram Parvez and journalist Irfan Mehraj, arrested under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, remain imprisoned. Homes have been demolished as collective punishment. And women continue to pay an invisible price, humiliated at checkpoints, widowed by fake encounters and left without recourse to justice.
Entire families are blacklisted, their movements tracked, their phone calls tapped. Mass graves remain uninvestigated. Enforced disappearances are met with silence. Mothers search for sons they may never see again. Survivors of rape and torture are denied justice while their abusers wear uniforms and medals. What is unfolding in Occupied Kashmir is institutionalised cruelty, inflicted daily and with complete impunity.
Since August 2019, Kashmir has also been routinely turned into a digital and informational dead zone. The government imposed a communications lockdown that swiftly became the longest in the world, lasting over 240 days, with landlines, mobile calls and the internet all suspended. Though partial restoration followed under pressure, connectivity remains fragile and deliberately throttled, especially for journalists, human rights defenders and families of the disappeared. Access for international media, UN observers and independent human rights monitors continues to be denied. Delegations are either blocked or stage-managed. Occupied Kashmir remains one of the most heavily surveilled and least accessible conflict zones on earth.
The world has wept for Ukraine and voiced outrage over Gaza, yet when it comes to Kashmir, the same capitals fall eerily silent. Global institutions that claim to defend human rights shrink behind trade deals, arms contracts and diplomatic choreography when the abuser is India. There have been no sanctions, no fact-finding missions, no high-level condemnations, just silence masquerading as neutrality.
Pakistan has championed the cause of Kashmir for over seven decades through sustained diplomatic engagement, unwavering international advocacy and a principled stand at every global forum. Since 1948, it has taken the Kashmir dispute to the UN Security Council, invoked every relevant resolution, and consistently upheld the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
From Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s thunderous defiance at the UN to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s bold denunciation of Narendra Modi as the Butcher of Gujarat, Pakistan’s stance has remained morally unflinching. The message is clear: Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris, and their right to choose their future is absolute.
This moment demands courage. Pakistan must go beyond restating its principled stance and reinvigorate its global campaign for Kashmir. We must amplify Kashmiri voices in exile, strengthen international legal advocacy, support independent investigations, and push for a UN-led fact-finding mission. The demographic engineering underway must be exposed as a violation of international law. Our embassies must act as diplomatic frontlines. Our media must remain relentless. And our political leadership, regardless of party, must treat Kashmir as a national responsibility and a moral imperative.
The international community must, at a minimum, demand the restoration of civil liberties in Kashmir, the release of political prisoners and journalists, the lifting of communication blackouts and unimpeded access for international observers. The denial of these basic rights cannot be reconciled with the image of India as a secular, democratic power.
Modi’s government has mastered the art of distraction, glossing over atrocities with spectacle and ceremony. The opening of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya is broadcast across state-run television while the families of disappeared Kashmiris cannot even access a working phone line. The G20 meeting held in Srinagar last year was a grotesque attempt to rebrand occupation as opportunity. A playground built atop silence remains silent.
To the people of Occupied Kashmir: you are not alone. Your pain is real. Your history is not forgotten. Your right to decide your future is not an illusion. It is an international obligation.
To the world: you cannot remain indifferent. The right to self-determination is not a regional footnote. It is the foundation of a just global order. When you stay silent in the face of such systemic violence, you endorse it.
Kashmir is not a border dispute. It is not an internal matter. It is the unfinished business of decolonisation. And it is a litmus test for the moral integrity of the international community. History is watching. So are the people of Kashmir.
The writer is a member of the National Assembly. She holds a PhD in Law, and serves on the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Kashmir.