The War in Kashmir

Since 1947, the Kashmir region has been subject to territorial conflict, predominantly between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict stems from the countries' shared colonial past. From the 17th to the 20th century, Britain ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, first indirectly through the British East India Company, then from 1858 directly through the British Crown.

When British rule in the Indian subcontinent ended in 1947, two states were created: India and Pakistan. However, under the hasty process of partition, more than 550 princely states within colonial India that were not directly governed by Britain could decide to join either nation or remain independent. Hari Singh, the governor of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, wanted independence for the state.

However, a train of events, including a revolution among his Muslim subjects along the western borders of the state and the intervention of Pashtun tribesmen, led to him signing an Instrument of Accession to the Indian union in October 1947. This was the signal for intervention by both Pakistan (which considered Kashmir to be a natural extension of Pakistan), and by India (which intended to confirm the act of accession). Localised warfare continued during 1948 and ended, by intervention from the United Nations,

in a cease-fire taking effect in January 1949]. This however, was not the end of the conflict.

Years of conflict, including three Inda-Pakistani wars, came to a head in recent years. In 2014, another cycle of unrest began after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the majority in elections across India. The party began pushing policies nationwide to promote Hindutva( 'Hindu-ness'), and this entailed strong favour for the union of Kashmir with India. In February 2019, Kashmir experienced its greatest friction in decades with the bombing of 40 members of India's Central Reserve Police Force. BJP faced pressure from its supporters to take forceful action and days later Indian fighter jets were sent across Kashmir's line of control for the first time in five decades. Pakistan retaliated. BJP continued its forceful push in Kashmir, and in August of the same year, military presence was increased and within days, action was taken to formalise direct control there. Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy was suspended with the exploitation of a constitutional provision and India's constitution was applied to the territory.

But what has this meant for the people of Kashmir? Since 1947, they have been stuck in a war between two different countries who care not for the citizens of Kashmir, but for their own gains in power; they have been ruthlessly killed and have had blatant abuses of their human rights. In a 1993 report, Human Rights Watch stated that Indian security forces 'assaulted civilians during search operations, tortured and summarily executed detainees in custody and murdered civilians in reprisal attacks'; according to the report, militants had also targeted civilians, but to a lesser extent than security forces. Rape was regularly used as a means to 'punish and humiliate' communities. A 2010 US state department reported that the Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir had carried out 'extrajudicial killings' of civilians. In 2010, statistics presented to the Indian government's Cabinet Committee on Security showed that for the first time since the 1980s, the number of civilian deaths attributed to the Indian forces was higher than those attributed to insurgents' actions.

Arundhati Roy writes that, after the ferocious crackdown in 2019, she sees the region facing 'nothing less than a cultural erasure'. This might not be out of the question - 2019 saw the removal of the rights of Kashmiri citizens on an unprecedented level. At midnight on 4th August 2019, phones in Kashmir went dead and internet connections were cut. On 5th August 2019, 7 million people were locked into their homes under a strict military curfew. Up to 10,000 people were arrested and put into preventative detention, where many of them still remain. This has not ended this year, Kashmir remains under dense military deployment, and the Indian judicial system has for a whole year allowed the internet siege to continue and ignored the 600 habeas corpus petitions by distraught citizens seeking the whereabouts of relatives.

The people of Kashmir have been ignored in this conflict, it is time for governments across the globe to take a stance on the ending of this conflict and on freedom for Kashmiri citizens.