Violence and censorship rife among citizens and the media, as push to reclaim state land belies Indian government’s claims of peace in disputed region
uhail Ahmad Shah stood despairingly before the wreckage that for two decades had been his livelihood. Just hours before, he had been busy at the workshop when he heard an ominous crunch above him and the tin roof began to cave in. He barely made his escape before a bulldozer flattened the entire place.
But in Kashmir, the drive has been condemned as having a more sinister purpose. Many have decried it as part of a wider agenda by the Hindu nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party , led by prime minister Panic spread in Kashmir that the BJP’s so-called “bulldozer politics” were being deployed against its Muslims. Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Kashmir, termed the demolition drive “a ruse to further push people to economic margins by demolishing their homes and livelihood”.
Successive governments struggled to bring the violence under control. But in August 2019 the Modi government, fulfilling a long-held promise to its rightwing base, took unilateral action against the state, stripping it of its long-held autonomy andunder central government control. Thousands of troops were moved into the state, the state government was dissolved, local politicians were imprisoned and the world’s longest internet shutdown, lasting 18 months, was imposed.
But those in the state tell a very different story – one of systematic oppression under increasingly authoritarian laws and where democratic freedoms, including free speech, political representation and the right to protest, have been crushed. Kashmir is now one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world, with more than half a million troops to watch over just 7 million citizens, with army checkpoints every few miles on the roads.
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