India's infrastructure push engulfs held Kashmir farmers land

HELD SRINAGAR: Farmers in Indian-held Kashmir say a major government infrastructure drive is taking their deeply cherished land, fearing it spearheads a push to “Hinduise” the disputed Muslim-majority territory.

Musadiq Hussain said that police “destroyed” his rice crop when a large chunk of his smallholding was expropriated to make way for a four-lane, 60-kilometre (40-mile) highway around the key city of Srinagar.

Hussain’s land was taken in 2018 but the process has intensified in recent years.The road, along with other highways and railways, is also swallowing swathes of orchards prized for their almonds, apples and other fruit in the disputed Himalayan region.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, which imposed direct rule in 2019, says that the multi-billion-dollar drive is bringing a “new era of peace” and “unprecedented development”.

Authorities say construction within 500 metres (yards) on either side of the highway around Srinagar is banned. But last year, authorities unveiled plans to build more than 20 “satellite townships” along the route, with drawings showing highrise developments it called a “Pearl in the Paradise”.

Kashmiri political parties are demanding to know who the housing is for, accusing Modi’s government of wanting to change Kashmir’s demographic makeup to create a Hindu majority—something the authorities do not comment on.

“Kashmiri farmers... are being dispossessed of their land and livelihoods in the name of Indian development as ‘a gift’ for Kashmir,” Osuri told AFP. She called the project a bid to “‘Hinduise’ Kashmir at the expense of Kashmiri Muslims”.

After New Delhi ended occupied Kashmir’s constitutionally enshrined partial autonomy in 2019, land laws also changed. That allowed all Indians to buy land in Kashmir for the first time. “This is a land grab in plain sight,” said Waheed Ur Rehman Para, a member of Kashmir’s local assembly.Many say that has undermined previous land reforms that granted ownership or farming rights to hundreds of thousands of people.