Original Article for Trax News by Faizah Haider
Imagine being born and living your entire life in a country where entire generations of your family were raised only to become a refugee in that very location; continuously being stripped of your rights and your home. As inconceivable as it sounds, I became familiar with this unjust concept when I visited the refugee camps in the occupied West Bank. Now under the influence of Israel – India is following the same strategy in occupied Kashmir.
Kashmir is a region in the Himalayas known for its beautiful meadows and lakes, but it has been under an ugly dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, until intervention by the United Nations led to a ceasefire in 1949. Both countries hold authority over territories of Kashmir. India has administration over Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh. While Pakistan has administration over Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; it is claimed both in full by these nuclear powers. A small territory of Kashmir – Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract is also administered by China.
On 05 Aug 2019, India revoked the local special citizenship law, guaranteed under Article 35 (A) of the Indian constitution, which reserved jobs only for the Kashmiris protecting their autonomy and demography. Now, India has granted (domicile) residence certificates to 25,000 non-Kashmiri Hindus which will allow them residency and government jobs, something that was exclusively reserved for local Kashmiris until now. Studies in 2011 showed the total population of Kashmir to be 12.5 million, which consists of 68.31 percent Muslims and 28.43 percent Hindu. This will drastically change the Muslim majority, Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, to a majority Hindu one.
The Muslims of Kashmir will be displaced, by revoking their rights to homes and livelihoods. These Kashmiri Muslims are facing a similar demographic shift to that of the Palestinian Christians and Muslims are facing in the West Bank, as it becomes Judaized welcoming foreign Jews to settle in the West Bank by the Law of Return. In both Palestine and Kashmir, the forced demographic changed have been controversially labelled as a ‘slow ethnic cleansing’ as the colonization continues. Netanyahu’s Jewish-Zionist agenda in Israeli occupied Palestine, is akin to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda in Indian-occupied Kashmir, and both leaders openly support each other.
Pakistan’s Foreign ministry has rejected India’s domicile certificates. Sardar Masood Khan, President of Pakistan Administered Kashmir, has proposed launching a boycott, “Divestment and Sanctions,” a movement against India banning all non-halal items. A non-violent resistance campaign modelled on BDS Israel used by Palestinians, inspired by the anti-apartheid movements in South Africa.
