Changing Kashmir

The ultra-nationalist BJP government came into power in India promising to unite the entire country in a programme of economic power which would transcend religious and sectarian divisions. Things haven’t quite worked out as Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoped they would so he is trying to change the demography on the ground. His aim, as Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry claimed at a briefing of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation diplomats, is to turn Indian-held Kashmir into a Hindu-majority area. The effect of this will be to show that a referendum, as demanded by multiple UN resolutions, is no longer needed. The Modi government wants to end the special status Kashmir has under the Indian constitution not because it plans to give Kashmiris the rights they deserve but so that it can try and neutralise the disputed territory as an issue. Modi has been even more intransigent than the previous prime ministers in asserting that Kashmir is an integral part of India and not up for negotiation. This is in stark contrast to the hopes and desires of Kashmiri Muslims who have suffered under the weight of army occupation and are not allowed the most basic of freedoms. Making them a minority in Indian-held Kashmir may make the international community less interested in their plight but it will not reduce the moral weight of their quest for liberation.
For Modi’s BJP, this strategy of essentially disenfranchising Kashmiri Muslims has as much to do with their domestic electoral strategy as their Hindutva ideology. The BJP knows it has to rely on bringing out the Hindu nationalist vote to stay in power. That means alienating minorities, who number in the hundreds of millions, and turning India into a country which gives Gujarat more power and influence. The cost will be considerable. What Modi did in Gujarat as chief minister, where he presided over a pogrom against Muslims is already well-known. There is justifiable fear that he may try to replicate that on a national scale. That India will reject and undermine UN resolutions on Kashmir is already taken as a given. But India under Modi is not just repressing Kashmiri Muslims; he is making it hard for any minority group to feel welcome in the country. Pakistan will and must keep raising the issue of Kashmir at the UN. Our chances of successfully convincing other countries to hear our pleas will become more difficult with the BJP turning the Indian occupation into an experiment in demographic change. We will now have to do our utmost to convince the international community to condemn and take action against this trend for the sake of the repressed Kashmiris.