Muhammad Ullah: On August 5, 2019, the President of India revoked the Special Autonomous Status of India Administered Jammu and Kashmir under Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution of India. India has over 600,000 troops in Kashmir. Movement of people and freedom of the press are restricted. India has cut off internet communications.
At the time of Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state with a majority of Hindus in Jammu and a majority of Muslims in Kashmir.
India took a dispute with Pakistan to the UN Security Council, which passed Resolution 47 of 1948.
It also called for a plebiscite to determine Jammu and Kashmir’s future. The plebiscite has never been held. In 1984, Kashmiri Muslim youth began demonstrations for Kashmiri indigenous self-determination that were crushed by Indian armed forces.
Human Rights Watch reported that 90,000 people were killed in Kashmir from 1989 to 2022.
The Kashmir State Human Rights Commission has evidence of 7,730 bodies buried in 100 mass graves. The Commission reported over 19000 disappearances. The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society said that by 2022, there were over 90,000 killings, most by Indian forces.
Amnesty International reports that disappearances, torture and rape by Indian Army units against Kashmiri Muslims are common.
Applying Prof. Barbara Harff’s risk factors for genocide, the following are early warnings of massacres in Kashmir:
1. Prior genocidal massacres and continuing impunity for such killings;
2. Continued armed conflict between India and Pakistan over border areas in Kashmir; 3. An exclusionary ideology of “Hindutva” – India as Hindu nation – by Modi’s ruling BJP;
4. Authoritarian military rule without legal restraints imposed by civilian Indian officials; 5. Rule by a minority military force (Hindus) over majority Muslim citizens;
6. Cut-off of communications and outside access by internet, media, and trade;
7. Widespread violations of basic human rights – torture, rape, 2-year detentions without charge, arbitrary arrests and deportations of Muslim political and human rights leaders.
