Five years after Modi’s coup, a test election in Kashmir

In Srinagar, during local elections, October 1, 2024. MUKHTAR KHAN / AP Under the watchful gaze of a paramilitary armed with an automatic pistol, Shahid Farooq leaves a polling station in the village of Asham, in the Bandipora district, Kashmir, Tuesday October 1. “Kashmir has had enough of Modi. We need a change, which will only happen if we have our own government,” asserts this engineer, who remembers the empty promises of peace and jobs for young people made by the Indian Prime Minister. Kashmir voted for the first time in ten years, thanks to the intervention of the Supreme Court, to elect its regional assembly and the vote which ended on October 1 was a test for the five-year-old Indian Prime Minister after its brutal takeover of the Himalayan region. On August 5, 2019, ten million Kashmiris woke up deprived of all modes of communication – Internet, telephone, mail – with columns of soldiers deployed in the streets. Narendra Modi had just unilaterally repealed Article 370 of the Constitution which conferred broad autonomy on this region, the only one with a Muslim majority in India. In the days that followed, arbitrary arrests and disappearances increased. The revocation of the special status was coupled with a change in status: Kashmir was divided into two distinct administrative entities, on one side Jammu and Kashmir, to the west, and Ladakh to the east. . Both were downgraded to Union Territories of India, rather than states, directly administered by the Delhi government. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In India, separation of powers and secularism are shattered Add to your selections The repeal of Article 370 has been on the agenda of the Indian far right for decades. Nationalists dream of “Hinduizing” this region by encouraging the settlement of populations from the rest of the country. The government thus lifted the ban on non-Kashmiris acquiring land, applying for jobs and voting, with the aim of changing the demographic composition of the Himalayan region. For five years, the authorities have pursued a systematic policy of modifying land rights. Development of Hindu religious tourism The International Federation for Human Rights, which published a voluminous report on the situation in Kashmir on Tuesday, October 2, believes that the land confiscation campaign, on the grounds of “illegal encroachment”, launched by the The administration of Jammu and Kashmir, in 2023, will cover an area equivalent to the area of ​​Hong Kong. Thousands of Kashmiris were expelled and their property destroyed. Land has also been grabbed to develop Hindu religious tourism, through pilgrimages, and the authorities plan to acquire new spaces to double the population of Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir, by 2035. It You have 46.09% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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