View from Srinagar: An uneasy calm under the Centre's jackboots

Inside a wooden gazebo on the banks of Srinagar’s Dal Lake, a popular destination for tourists, Mohammad Amin, 55, a boatman, regrets the day when New Delhi revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Even on a bad day, I would return home with ₹300-500 in my pocket,” says Amin, father of three children dependent on him. “It has been a year now, but I have not seen a single tourist. Is this the prosperity promised by the Modi government?”

On August 5, 2019, when the Narendra Modi government revoked the special status of the erstwhile state, one of arguments proffered in its favour was that it would change the financial fortunes of people like Amin. The outcome has defied the stated intention.

Tourism sector contributes eight per cent to the region’s GDP, but in periods of turmoil it becomes a victim of the simmering tensions in Kashmir. The lockdown to prevent protests against the August 5 move has worsened the slump in not just tourism, but other sectors too.

As economy faltered, thousands of industrialists, entrepreneurs and small traders have turned bank defaulters. A recent report by The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir (TFHRJK) claims that around 70 per cent people associated with the tourism industry have lost jobs since August 5 last year.

In July 2020, the unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir at 17.9 per cent was nearly double the national average of 9.5 per cent, according to the report.

Another study by the Kashmir Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the region’s largest conglomerate of business leaders, said one lakh people became jobless and more than $2.4 billion were lost in revenue in the first four months of the security lockdown. The Covid-19 lockdown has only worsened the situation.

Related news: How Aug 5 move mainstreamed separatists, discredited politicians in J&K

But it is not just the economy that has suffered by what the leaders of the ruling BJP had termed a ‘big step’ towards complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. While New Delhi has effectively criminalised criticism of its August 5 move, a series of unpopular decisions has, according to experts, led to an erosion of trust in the government.

As spring arrived in Kashmir this year, the central government started drafting new domicile rules, according to which more than two million residents of other Indian states will become eligible to live in Kashmir. The rules were notified in June, sparking fears of demographic change.

In the ecologically sensitive Himalayan region, the government has tweaked rules that will now allow the armed forces to construct new camps and take over land in “strategic areas” without obtaining permission from the local authorities.

Last year, when Kashmir was reeling under internet shutdown, the government invited bids for sand and mineral extraction from riverbeds in the region. For the first time, not one Kashmiri could participate in the bidding and the contracts were all awarded to non-locals.

Despite the lack of environmental clearances, companies that won the contracts have started mining the riverbeds, according to Jammu Kashmir Expert Appraisal Committee, a government agency. The government, instead of halting these illegal activities, ordered all departments on July 30 to speed up environmental clearances.

“A truckload of rocks used to cost no more than ₹1,200,” says Ghulam Nabi, an apple farmer in Shopian. “Now it is being sold to us for ₹7,000.”

Nabi, 65, says rampant and unchecked extraction of rocks has reduced the level of water in the stream that flows adjacent to his apple orchard. “At times, there isn’t sufficient water for the trees. This has happened for the first time,” he said.

Reports of torture, incarceration and intimidation have become new weapons for the state apparatuses to flex muscles against critical voices. The silence found in Kashmir’s graveyards has overtaken the disquiet of recent years on the streets.

At least two journalists have been booked by the J&K Police under anti-terror laws and 10 have been questioned for their reportage. Those who speak up do so at a grave risk to themselves and their families.

Related news: J&K police defend FIR against 3 scribes, tell media to check facts

“The government wants to discredit our work and it has caused a lot of fear and anxiety among the journalists in Kashmir, which has led to self-censorship,” said Naseer Ganai, a senior journalist with the Outlook magazine.

Kashmiris allege, in the restive south Kashmir, youngsters suspected of having links with militants are routinely detained by police and army, often without charges, and tortured in custody.

Some detainees narrate horrifying tales of torture. They say they were gagged and clubbed with bamboo sticks, given electric shocks, tied by their feet to ceilings of detention centres and assaulted.

“At one point, there were over 40 detainees with me and most of them were tortured. I was set free only after the wounds (due to torture) on my body had healed completely,” said a youngster in Pulwama, who wished to remain anonymous. He was picked up by the police in June, and was released when the investigating agencies couldn’t find any proof of his alleged links with the militants.

Even pro-India politicians in Kashmir, who used to swear by the Indian Constitution, are finding it difficult to defend the government. “My father laid down his life defending the idea of India,” says Waheed Parra, a Kashmiri youth leader of the Peoples Democratic Party. “After what happened in the last year, the humiliation we went through, I am having second thoughts.” He was recently set free after spending six months in preventive detention.

The Concerned Citizens’ Group led by former Union minister Yashwant Sinha visited Kashmir twice to document the changes that have taken place in the past year. “Since August last year, the Centre’s actions has led to shock, trauma and humiliation amongst Kashmiris. Their anger against New Delhi still persists,” said Sinha, who served as India’s former foreign minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government.

But this anger hasn’t deterred the BJP from implementing its agenda. The party has replaced Muslims at key positions in Kashmir’s bureaucracy and police with Hindu officers. The top administrator, GC Murmu, a Modi loyalist, his deputy, BVR Subrahmanyam, the region’s chief justice Gita Mittal, and police chief Dilbag Singh are all Hindus.

These decisions have made people apprehensive about their future, sparking fears of a demographic change. Even as most pro-India Kashmiri leaders arrested last year are out of jails, their freedom is conditional; they have signed a bond that criminalises dissent.

With the political process in cold storage and the Kashmir streets in the tight grip of the security forces, fear has become pervasive and the trust of the people in the government has eroded, since their consent was never asked before the autonomy was revoked.

Related news: One year of revocation of Article 370: What has changed in J&K

“Kashmir is a place about which we can be never sure of. It can have a phase of calmness and then suddenly erupt,” said Dr Aijaz Ashraf, who teaches political science at the University of Kashmir.

When New Delhi allegedly rigged local elections in J&K in 1987 to favour its chosen candidates, the erosion of trust kindled an armed insurgency, which has, in its forth decade, killed thousands of Kashmiris, most of them civilians.

“We are at the crossroads of history,” Aijaz said, “There is simmering anger against New Delhi and if this is not addressed, there will be a reaction. What form it will take, we will get to know soon.”