Daily Times

The Modi Government’s imposed change– while revoking the Kashmir status– also made the state flag, the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir 1957 and hundreds of state laws redundant—thereby rendering the Kashmir present governance to a political, administrative and judicial standstill. In addition, ‘the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019), unjustifiably and illegally extended the entirety of the Indian Constitution to the state of Kashmir, admitting of no exceptions. Recall that Art. 370 contained a set of safeguards and limitations requiring the express consent of the state of Kashmir with respect to any extension of Constitutional provisions, beyond what was originally agreed.

New Delhi’s attempt to redefine the Kashmir special status via legal unilateralism is absolutely based on Modis new Kashmir policy clearly endorsed by the Modi government’s hegemonic shenanigan to revoke the article 370 accompanied by the undemocratic amendment in the Article 367 of the Indian Constitution by adding: “In the proviso to clause (3) of Article 370 of this Constitution, the expression ‘Constituent Assembly of the State referred to in clause (2)’ shall read ‘Legislative Assembly of the State’.” The trail of constitutional modifications is unconstitutional because Kashmir was already under ‘presidential rule’ and there was no possibility of acquiring state agreement as claimed in Order 2019.

And yet ironically, one of the deviously abiding myths of the right-wing in Indian politics (RSS) has been that Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed some sort of unwarranted constitutional status and that the problems there stem from the special treatment Kashmiris receive thanks to Article 370 of the constitution. Not only has Union Home Minister Amit Shah stripped Article 370 of its essence, he has gone one step further and abolished the entire state as well, replacing it with two ‘Bantustans’ – grandly called ‘union territories’ – in which key decisions on a range of issues like law and order and land will be taken not by the people and their elected representatives, but by bureaucrats from the Centre in New Delhi. On 1 April, the BJP-led government issued the ‘Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order, 2020–thereby replacing the old domicile laws for the newly created Union Territory of J&K–expanding the scope of J&K domicile provision to non-indigenous populations.

Obviously, the overt and covert motive of revoking Article 370 has been none but to illegally settle outsiders in the occupied Kashmir thereby changing the demographic nomenclature of the state. Make sure that the Modi government’s installed presidential rule in the India-held Kashmir is by no means acceptable to the Kashmiri inhabitants/leadership nor acceptable to the people of Pakistan, the Government of Pakistan who are the stakeholders of the internationally accepted disputed grounds of Kashmir. And arguably,  the evident relationship that is glaringly built between systematic human rights violations or lack of representation within an existing state and the desire for secession clearly supports calls for prompt international intervention in order to serve the interests of stability and peace in accordance to the charter of the United Nations in Kashmir. By revoking the Kashmir status, the Modi Government expansionist intentions are clear as New Delhi wants to have full control over Kashmir-Ladakh. By trying to annex the China-affiliated Kashmir into India’s Union area, has triggered a neo-cold war between Beijing and New Delhi, thereby making a call back to the memory of the events taking place in 1959 (at the height of the Cold War) escalated tensions between the two states as China blamed India for giving asylum to Dalai Lama in April of 1959. In March, the Tibetan uprising in Lhasa had put a strain on China’s control over Tibet and India’s forward patrolling along the McMahon line had agitated China. Notably, on September 8, 1959, China’s Premier Zhou Enlai responded to an earlier letter by Prime Minister Nehru. Zhou’s letter is widely cited by scholars to reference China’s claims over parts of Ladakh.

“Between China and Ladakh, however, there does exist a customary line derived from historical traditions, and Chinese maps have always drawn the boundary between China and Ladakh in accordance with this line,” Zhou Enlai said in the letter Zhou went on to add, “Later British and Indian maps included large tracts of Chinese territory into Ladakh. This was without any legal ground, nor in conformity with the actual situation of administration by each side all the time”. The seed of the 1962 war between India and China was laid in the events of 1959. Presently, the Indo-Chines tensions encircle around Demchok, Daulat Beg Oldie and around Galwan river as well as Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh). A section of the Tso lake approximately 20 km east from the Line of Actual Control (informally established in the post-Indo-China war in 1962, albeit formally established in 1993 via an Indo-Sino agreement) is controlled by China but claimed by India. The eastern end of the lake is in Tibet.

“The Hindutva Supremacist Modi Govt with its arrogant expansionist policies, akin to Nazi’s Lebensraum (Living Space), is becoming a threat to India’s neighbours. Bangladesh through Citizenship Act, border disputes with Nepal & China, & Pak threatened with false flag operation,” PM Imran Khan tweeted. While India is inflaming its border tension with Nepal, New Delhi is also creating tensions along the LOC with Pakistan and also across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. India‘s disdain for international law over Kashmir disputed territory has rendered justified concern for both Islamabad and Beijing. It is clear that the 72-year unresolved Kashmir question is accepted as an internationally recognised territorial dispute between India, Pakistan and now China. When India took the Kashmir dispute to the UN in 1948, the international community through various Security Council Resolutions – such as SCR 91 and 122 – clearly accepted that the future shape and affiliation of the whole or any part of Kashmir should be decided via UN’s sanctioned right to self-determination by the Kashmiri people rightly endorsed by the UNGA Resolution 2625 (XXV): ‘the territory of a colony or other non-self-governing territory has, under the Charter, a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it’. There is an established consensus that Kashmiris should be given an opportunity to exercise their right of self-determination.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has rightly denounced India’s news domicile law in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK), calling it a violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention holds that it is a war crime. The BJP leadership must stop pandering evil plans: the Modi’ government’s plan to redraw the LOC or to establish a new tactical territorial advantage over Pakistan will be a fatal mistake. Kashmiris as a freedom-fighting nation will not bow down before the Indian occupation forces.

Concluded

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan