Kashmir lockdown India reveals plan change state's status

[seemslikeadream]

Kashmir in lockdown as India reveals plan to change state's status
New Delhi (CNN) — Indian-controlled Kashmir was in lockdown Monday, with tens of thousands of new troops deployed into what is already one of the most militarized places in the world, as a number of prominent politicians were placed under house arrest and New Delhi announced contentious changes to the way the territory is administered.

A broad communications blackout left many people without access to the internet and phone services across the territory, with measures also in place to prevent public meetings.

The politicians under house arrest include at least two former chief ministers of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, according to CNN affiliate CNN-News18.
The state encompasses the section of the disputed territory controlled by New Delhi.

Kashmir is one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. Claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, it has been the epicenter for more than 70 years of an often violent territorial struggle between the nuclear-armed neighbors. A de facto border called the Line of Control divides it between New Delhi and Islamabad.
Tourists walk past Indian security forces in Jammu, India, on August 5, 2019.
Tourists walk past Indian security forces in Jammu, India, on August 5, 2019.

Extra troops have been moving up to Indian-controlled Kashmir in recent days, while a major annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountain shrine in the region was called off. Until last week, Indian authorities explained the move as a response to intelligence about a growing security threat in the region.

But on Monday, the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was moving to revoke a provision known as Article 370. In place since 1949, it gives Jammu and Kashmir the power to have its own constitution, flag and autonomy over all matters, save for certain policy areas such as a foreign affairs and defense.

The Modi government said it would introduce measures to modify Jammu and Kashmir's administrative status from a state to a union territory. In the Indian system, state governments retain significant authority over local matters. But New Delhi has more of a say in the affairs of a union territory.

The remote mountainous region of Ladakh, currently part of Jammu and Kashmir, will also be separated and turned into a standalone union territory, the government said.

Stranded Indian tourists walk to a railway station during restrictions in Jammu on August 5, 2019.
Stranded Indian tourists walk to a railway station during restrictions in Jammu on August 5, 2019.

Modi's interior minister, Amit Shah, announced the measures in parliament, prompting an uproar from opposition parties.

"We stand by the constitution of India. We will give up our lives for the protection of the constitution of India. Today, the BJP (Prime Minister Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party) has murdered the constitution and the democracy of the country," said Ghulam Nabi Azad, from the opposition Congress Party.

While anticipating opposition in the region, analysts said the security crackdown would -- for now -- restrict the ability of ordinary Kashmiris to react.

"They've put the state under a heavy security lock down and will shoot at sight anyone who tries to come out on the street," said Ajai Shukla, a New Delhi-based defense analyst and former military officer.

"It will be difficult for Kashmiris to come out with the conditions imposed, which I expect to continue for the immediate future."

Manoj Joshi, from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank, said the announcement would come as a "psychological shock" to Kashmiris.

"The so-called autonomy has eroded over the years," he said. "It was more of a symbolic thing but symbols are important, particularly in the context of Kashmiri politics and we may see more alienation.

Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim-majority state in Hindu-dominated India.

"It's a dramatic step with huge political risks. But on the other hand, the BJP as a party has never denied that it wants Article 370 to be abrogated."

Ahead of Monday's announcements, the mood in Kashmir was already tense, as residents rushed to secure essential supplies.

"There is panic all around and no one knows what is happening," Manzoor Ahmad, a local government employee in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, told CNN.

"Kashmiri weather and politics you should never trust," Shaheena, a teacher in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, told CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/asia/ind ... index.html

[Elvis]

An American friend who spends most of the year in India sent me these news bits. He's 82 years old btw. First he sets some context:

Perhaps you remember from our first meetings, in Muherjee's class, that when India became independent, Kashmir was divided between Pakistan and India--with the provision by the UN that a plebiscite was to be held by the people of East Kashmir to decide which country they wanted to belong to. India never held that plebiscite, assuming, probably correctly, that the area would choose Pakistan. In the last decade or two, Muslims have chased most Hindus out of the region. Two wars have been fought and violence continues to grow. Now Modi wants its special status revoked. this may lead to another war.

https://qoshe.com/theprint-in_en/shivam ... l/45286202
Panic in Kashmir helps Modi deflect attention from sinking economy, even if fear is real

Why do we not want to believe that it is genuinely a terror alert?

Shivam Vij Updated: 3 August, 2019 5:36 pm IST

Everybody’s calling up everybody else, asking the same question: What on earth is happening in Kashmir?

The speculation is endless. Is the government planning to abrogate Article 35A overnight, thus leading to likely protests and violence in Kashmir? Is the government planning to abrogate Article 370 overnight, which gives J&K state a special status under the Indian Constitution? Is the Modi government planning to trifurcate the state overnight, making Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh three different states, which most people think will further alienate Kashmiris and won’t be in India’s national interest? Or, is this to sanitise the state so that Modi can shift his Independence Day address from Red Fort to Lal Chowk?

It’s interesting that nobody who’s not a Modi supporter is willing to believe the given reason: a terror alert. That’s because anti-Modi people don’t trust Modi’s word.

That is how deep the polarisation in India today is.

Consequently, anti-Modi people are again falling into a national security trap. By Monday, the Modi government will likely declare victory, claiming to having averted a major terror attack, saving lives of Hindu pilgrims.

Perhaps, the government has an imprecise terror alert of a possible attack on tourists or Amarnath pilgrims. If a terrorist strike were to happen, won’t Modi critics blame the government for an intelligence failure? Now that the government is acting on an intelligence input, the critics are still unhappy.

Hindu khatre mein hain, Hindus are endangered species, and Modi and Amit Shah are the saviours of Hindus. What about this doesn’t make sense? It’s the conspiracy theories – trifurcation of state, abrogation of Articles 35A and 370, and delimitation.

Remember that any constitutional change in J&K will need a “majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of the house present and voting” in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, which Modi doesn’t have. Even most allies won’t support crazy ideas.

The poor communication by the Modi government on the situation in Kashmir is also likely a deliberate strategy. Panic and conspiracy theories will give Modi fans a booster shot that Modi is about to carry out the Hindutva agenda in Kashmir. This is how Modi government handles the politics of waiting. It raises expectations of its own Hindutva constituency only to change the subject. This keeps their emotional state at a permanent high. Remember how there were rumours last winter of a Ram Mandir ordinance? The rumours were allowed to float for days before they were scotched.

The panic and alarm in Kashmir, with people bracing for a possible security shut-down, won’t affect the Modi government. These are people who support militants and don’t vote for the BJP, so why care about them?

The state’s governor, Satyapal Malik, has already clarified that a change to Article 35A is not on the cards. Yet, the BJP as a party will continue to make noise about it and political parties in J&K need to do their own posturing to be seen as holding off New Delhi against changing any constitutional provisions regarding J&K.

Another rumour is that Kashmir Valley is being ‘sanitised’ so that Modi may give his 15 August speech from Srinagar rather than Red Fort. Who spreads these rumours? Who comes up with them? We know that if there’s a rumour, the Modi government will do the opposite. Rarely do these rumours come true. This government prides itself at surprising and keeping people guessing.

Keeping a nation on tenterhooks has its advantages for the government. Most crucially, it will help deflect our attention from a sinking economy and the Modi government’s failure to save the day. That does not mean the terror alert is unreal.

With Pakistan PM Imran Khan having successfully made US President Donald Trump offer mediation in Kashmir, this is just the right time when militants and their masters in Rawalpindi could do with a terror attack in Kashmir. What else do you need to make the international community sit up and take notice? ‘Internationalising’ Kashmir is always on their agenda.

Also read: Amarnath yatris completing their 45-day pilgrimage is a matter of prestige for Kashmir

Views are personal.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indi ... SKCN1UV0EA
UPDATE 4-India scraps special status for Kashmir in step Pakistan calls illegal

* India revokes special status, property curbs

* Ruling party believed laws hurt integration with India

* Security crackdown in Kashmir, phone lines blocked

* Pakistan says to exercise all possible options to counter move


By Aditya Kalra, Sanjeev Miglani and Danish Ismail
August 4, 2019

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, Aug 5 (Reuters) - India on Monday revoked the special status of Kashmir, the Himalayan region that has long been a flashpoint in ties with neighbouring Pakistan, moving to grasp its only Muslim-majority region more tightly.

In the most far-reaching political move in one of the world's most militarised regions in nearly seven decades, India said it would scrap a constitutional provision that allows its state of Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws.

"The entire constitution will be applicable to Jammu and Kashmir," Interior Minister Amit Shah told parliament, as opposition lawmakers voiced loud protests against the repeal.

The government also lifted a ban on property purchases by non-residents, opening the way for Indians to invest and settle there, just as they can elsewhere in India, although the measure is likely to provoke a backlash in the region.

Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, said it strongly condemned the decision, which is bound to further strain ties between the nuclear-armed rivals.

"As the party to this international dispute, Pakistan will exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, convulsed by a nearly 30-year armed revolt in which tens of thousands of people have died, with hundreds of thousands of Indian troops deployed to quell it.

India blames that rebellion on Pakistan, which denies the accusation, saying that it backs the right to self-determination for Kashmir.

Hours earlier the Indian government launched a security crackdown in the region, arresting local leaders, suspending telephone and internet services and restricting public movement in the main city of Srinagar.

Regional leaders have previously said stripping Kashmir's special status amounts to aggression against its people.

The streets in Srinagar were largely deserted as travel curbs kept people indoors, said a Reuters photographer who found a telephone connection in a restaurant near the city's airport.

There was heavy deployment of security forces across Srinagar, but no signs of protest.

A top government source in New Delhi told reporters the restrictions were precautionary, adding that life was expected to return to normal fairly soon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pushed for radical political change in Kashmir even before he won re-election in May, saying its laws hindered integration with the rest of India.

"Politically, it's advantage BJP," said Happymon Jacob, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in the Indian capital.

"The scrapping of Article 370 of the constitution is likely to set off a slew of political, constitutional and legal battles, not to speak of the battles on the streets of Kashmir."

MUSCULAR APPROACH

Monday's move reflects Modi's muscular approach to national security. In February, he ordered war planes into Pakistan after a militant group based there claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a military convoy in Kashmir.

That step, in turn, prompted a retaliatory raid by Pakistan.

Introduced decades ago, the constitutional provisions reserved government jobs and college places for Kashmir's residents, among other limits aiming to keep people from other parts of the country from overrunning the state.

The government has also decided to split the state into two federal territories, one formed by Jammu and Kashmir, and the other consisting of the enclave of Ladakh, citing internal security considerations.

Turning the state into a federal territory allows Delhi to exert greater control.

"Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy," said one of the leaders placed under house arrest, Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

"It will have catastrophic consequences for the subcontinent," she said in a post on Twitter.

India's interior ministry ordered all states to put security forces on "maximum alert" to maintain public order and quash the spread of any rumours.

Ram Madhav, general secretary of Modi's BJP, hailed the government's actions as ushering in a "glorious day". In Modi's western home state of Gujarat, people shouted slogans of support on the streets.

In Pakistani-controlled areas of the region, however, there was anger at India, with protests extending to the capital, Islamabad and the southern commercial centre of Karachi.

In Muzaffarabad, 45 km (28 miles) from the two countries' contested border, dozens of protesters held black flags and burnt car tyres, chanting "Down with India".

Tension had risen in Kashmir since Friday, when Indian officials issued an alert over possible militant attacks by Pakistan-based groups. Pakistan rejected those assertions, but thousands of alarmed Indians left the region over the weekend.

On Sunday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said the tension had the potential to become a regional crisis and the time was right for U.S. President Donald Trump to mediate.

In July, Trump said Modi had asked him if he would like to be a mediator on Kashmir, but India, which has been staunch in its position that the issue can only be resolved bilaterally, denied that Modi sought mediation.


(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Sanjeev Miglani; Additional reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj, Neha Dasgupta and Zeba Siddiqui in New Delhi and Tariq Naqash in Muzaffarabad; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Darren Schuettler)