India grants IOJ&K domiciles to 25,000 outsiders

HELD SRINAGAR: Up to 25,000 people were granted domicile certificates in Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) since May 18, raising fears of the beginning of demographic changes in the Muslim-majority Himalayan region, foreign media reported.

Pakistan on Saturday categorically rejected the grant of domicile certificates of IOJ&K by the Indian authorities. The certificate, a sort of citizenship right, entitles a person to residency and government jobs in the region, which till last year was reserved only for the local population. Last year on August 5, when India revoked the semi-autonomous status of the region, it also scrapped the local special citizenship law, guaranteed under Article 35 (A) of the Indian constitution. The move has drawn parallel with the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden criticised New Delhi for excesses in occupied valley, "India should take all necessary steps to restore the rights of all the people of Kashmir." "Restrictions on dissent, such as peaceful protests or shutting or slowing down the internet weakens democracy," says a policy paper posted on his website.

"The decision to provide non-Kashmiri residents with a domicile certificate is certainly the beginning of the end. This is the beginning of Kashmir becoming another Palestine," Badar-Ul-Islam Sheikh, a 29-year-old resident of the main city of Srinagar, told a foreign media outlet. "It is sad. It is horrible. I fear that time will come that we will not even feel safe in our homes," he said. "We have been silenced." According to a census conducted by India in 2011, out of 12.5 million total population, Muslims comprise 68.31 percent and Hindus 28.43 percent in Kashmir.

On Friday, a picture of the domicile certificate issued to Navin Kumar Choudhary, a bureaucrat originally from the Indian state of Bihar, went viral on social media. In April this year, amid the coronavirus lockdown, the government notified domicile laws making an unspecified number of outsiders eligible for residency and jobs. According to the new law, any person who has lived in the region for 15 years, or has studied in the region for seven years and passed his class 10 or class 12 examination is eligible for domicile certificate. Also, children of Indian government employees who have served in the state for 10 years are eligible to settle and claim local residency rights. The law applies even if the children have never lived in Kashmir. Out of 66, top bureaucrats serving in the region, 38 are outsiders belonging to other Indian states. Many other outsiders serve in various central government institutions like banks, post offices telecommunication facilities, security institutions, and universities.

Khurram Parvez, a human rights activist based in Srinagar, said the move was "disastrous' for the whole region "It appears government is in some kind of hurry. Within weeks so many people applied," he told the media outlet. "All our misgivings about the new domicile rules in J&K are coming to the fore," tweeted Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, which was earlier a state and now a federally administered region. Speaking to Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity, a government official said, since May 18, when the rules were notified, 33,000 people had applied for the domicile certificates. Out of them, 25,000 people have been granted residency rights, he said.

As many as 32,000 applications were filed in 10 districts of the Hindu majority Jammu region in the south. The highest number of 8,500 certificates has been issued in the Doda district, which has a delicate demographic balance, with Muslims comprising 53.81 percent and Hindus 45.76 percent. Up to 6,213 domicile certificates have been issued in Rajouri district, which has 62.71 percent Muslim population. Authorities have distributed 6,123 residency certificates in Poonch, a border district comprising 90.44 percent Muslim population. In the Kashmir region, which is about 96.4 percent Muslim population, 435 certificates have been issued so far, out of the total 720 applications. The 25,000 new citizens also include Hindu refugees, who had settled in the region at the time of partition of the sub-continent in 1947. They had migrated from territories, now part of Pakistan. But due to Kashmir's residency laws and special status they were not granted local residency rights.

Parvez, the human rights activist, said the local government, which takes orders from New Delhi, has threatened to penalise officials Rs50,000 ($660) if a domicile certificate is not issued within stipulated 14 days, adding that it would be difficult to verify the claims of applicants within such a short period."[In Assam] people also had the right to object to anyone's application. But here neither officers nor anyone else has a right to object to domicile right," he said. "The government has already warned those who oppose will have to go to the jail." Parvez said people were not in support of the law but cannot oppose "under the pressure of gun and state violence".

Meanwhile, Pakistan on Saturday categorically rejected the grant of domicile certificates of IOJ&K by the Indian authorities to reportedly 25,000 Indian nationals. Also rejected by Kashmiris, the ‘bogus’ domicile certificates have been issued to non-Kashmiris including, among others, the Indian government officials under "Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure), 2020" were illegal, void and incomplete violation of the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and International law including the 4th Geneva Convention, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement issued in Islamabad.

She said the latest action was a vindication of Pakistan’s consistent stance that the major intention behind the Indian government's illegal and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019 was to change the demographic structure of IOJ&K and turn Kashmiris into a minority in their own land. “This has long been part of the RSS-BJP’s Hindutva agenda. “By changing the demographic structure of IOJ&K, the Indian government intends to undermine the exercise by the Kashmiri people of their right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nation as per the relevant UNSC Resolutions,” the spokesperson remarked.

She said through these reprehensible actions, along with continuing restrictions, excruciating military crackdown, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions and incarcerations, and unabated grave human rights violations, India sought to further perpetuate its illegal occupation of IOJ&K.

India should know that its suppression has not been able to break the will of the Kashmiri people in the past and it will not succeed in doing so in the future, she added. The spokesperson urged the United Nations and the international community to intervene to stop India from changing the demographic structure of IOJ&K by settling people from India in a territory that it has illegally occupied and the status of which remains disputed.

India must be urged to immediately cancel all the domicile certificates of IOJ&K issued illegally, revoke unlawful rules aimed at further disempowering and disenfranchising the Kashmiris by effecting a demographic change, and comply with its international legal obligations through implementation of the relevant UNSC Resolutions, she said.

The recipients of the domicile certificates must know that India has no legal authority to bring in and settle people from outside IOJ&K. The international law bars India from such illegal actions, the spokesperson remarked.