The Peninsula Foundation

Category: Reports

  • Five Years without an Elected Administration: Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir

    Five Years without an Elected Administration: Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir

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    The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir comprises an informal group of concerned citizens who believe that, in the prevailing situation in the former state, an independent initiative is required so that continuing human rights violations do not go unnoticed.

    This is the fourth annual report issued by the Forum, which has also issued two midterm and/or thematic reports). It has largely been compiled from government sources, media accounts (carried in well-established and reputed newspapers or television), NGO fact-finding reports, interviews, and information garnered through legal petitions. The various sources listed have been fact-checked against each other to ensure the information is as accurate as possible, and only that information has been carried that appears to be well-founded. Where there is any doubt regarding a piece of information, queries have been footnoted.

    Executive Summary

    In an additional counter-affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in July 2023 against petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Presidential Orders of August 5, 2019 (reading down Article 370 of the Indian Constitution), as well as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act of August 9, 2019, the union Ministry of Home Affairs claimed that that the changes wrought by the two actions had ‘brought unprecedented development, progress, security and stability to the region.’

    The facts, however, suggest otherwise. In its three annual and two thematic reports, the Forum has documented over three dozen economic, political and social rights that have been violated between August 2019 and July 2022, including economic losses of over Rs. 50,000 crores at a conservative estimate, vitiation of land and domicile rights, marginalisation and even purges of local personnel in the civil and police services, questionable arrests under draconian legislation, communication bans, media intimidation, and routinised curbs on the freedom of expression and movement. Equally glaring, the right to representation has been denied for five years, as of June 2023.

    This report on the state of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir between August 2022- July 2023 finds that while there has been improvement on some parameters, human rights violations continue on most. Its findings are as follows:

    1. Civilian insecurity persists. Targeted attacks on Pandits and migrant workers – both Hindu and Muslim – continue. While the number of lives lost due to armed attacks and counter-insurgency operations was lower than in the previous year, the number of police personnel who died, including Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF), continues to be unacceptably high. 71 CRPF troops were killed in the four years between 2019-2022, twice as many as in the previous four years, 2014-2018, when 35 died. By comparison, in the four years between 2012-2015, which can be categorised as an uneasy interregnum between the post-peace process years and the rise of conflict in the BJP-PDP coalition, 27 CRPF troops were killed.

    2. A high volume of small arms. In 2023, it was found that Jammu and Kashmir had the largest number of licensed gun holders amongst union territories and the highest per capita amongst states as well as union territories, at 500,105 in June 2023, or four per hundred people.

    3. Resurgence of militancy in Jammu. After decades of peace, the bordering areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts in Jammu division are re-emerging as a locus for militancy with cross-border support from Pakistani-held territories of the former state. The 2022 delimitation of fresh legislative constituencies, adding Poonch and Rajouri to Kashmir’s Anantnag, may have added to the alienation that these Muslim-majority areas face with the sharpening of communal divides in Jammu. Increasing weaponisation through Jammu’s village defence guards, a problematic policy that the Forum highlighted in its 2022 report, has added further insecurity in the region. As has the 2023 Jammu and Kashmir Scheduled Tribes (Amendment) bill, which has pitted Paharis against Gujjars and other listed scheduled tribes of the region.

    4. Continuing civil rights abuses. There has been no improvement in gross violations of the freedom of expression and movement, especially the rights of the media to a safe working environment. Arrests under draconian legislation such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA) continue, despite judicial attempts to limit their application. Along with Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir has the highest rate of undertrials as a proportion of its prisons population, at 91 percent, considerably higher than the national average of 76 percent.

    5. Custodial deaths and overcrowded prisons. The Jammu and Kashmir courts have flagged overcrowding and negligence as causes of custodial deaths. The region’s prisons can house a total of 3,629 inmates, but they lodged 5,300 as of June 2023.

    6. Denial of political rights. Two issues of political rights dominate this year’s report. The demand for an assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir; and the demand for a legislative assembly in Ladakh, along with rights under the sixth schedule of the constitution of India.

    Elections. It has been nine years since the last legislative election in Jammu and Kashmir. The union administration accepted the delimitation commission’s report a year ago and it is eight months since fresh electoral rolls were prepared. All the preparations for an election have thus been completed, but the election commission has yet to announce dates for it. Despite their valid criticisms of the delimitation commission’s report, Jammu and Kashmir’s political parties have demanded that the election be held this year (2023). Fresh reservations to woo new constituencies through four bills scheduled to be introduced in the monsoon session of parliament will, if enacted, entrench caste-based voter mobilisation. One of them was debated on July 26.

    Ladakh Kargil and Leh, the two districts of Ladakh, have united around the demand for an elected administration with substantive powers over economic and social development such as those provided under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution, or, alternatively and it seems preferably, the grant of statehood. The union administration has repeatedly promised to discuss the inclusion of Ladakhis in the sixth schedule, but little has resulted. Given Ladakh’s geo-strategic location, bordering both Pakistan and China, the union administration might prefer to govern the union territory directly. However, direct administration has resulted in alienating Ladakh’s elected councillors as well as its people, both of which impact negatively on Indian democracy as well as national security.

    7. A record year of tourism in 2022 boosted the economy, but it still lagged behind the national average on per capita income and rates of growth. The multidimensional poverty index for 2023 showed an impressive reduction in the proportion of its population living in poverty from an estimated figure of 12.56 percent in 2015-2016 to 4.8 percent between 2019-2021, but it ranked sixth out of eight union territories on the sustainable development goals (SDG), with Ladakh at seventh. Its forest cover decreased from 39.66 percent to 39.15 between 2020- 2021.

    8. Unemployment and drug abuse. At 23.1 percent in March 2023, unemployment was almost three times the national average of 7.8 percent. According to the union ministry of health, Jammu and Kashmir are among the top two states and union territories for drug abuse, with an estimated 900,000 habitual drug users, roughly 1 in 130.

    9. Data scarcity. There is a paucity of readily available figures for the former state. Though the 2023 budget presentation for parliament forecast a NSDP growth rate of 14.9 percent for Jammu and Kashmir in 2022-2023, the economic survey of 2023 said that figures for its per capita NSDP were not available from 2019 to date, as did the 2022 Reserve Bank of India statistics on states.

    Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (Retd) is a Distinguished Fellow and a member of the Governing Council of The Peninsula Foundation (TPF). He is a member of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir.

    Disclaimer: The views represented herein are those of the Forum and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Peninsula Foundation, its staff, or its trustees.

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  • Right to Work: Feasible and Indispensable for India to be a Truly Civilized and Democratic Nation

    Right to Work: Feasible and Indispensable for India to be a Truly Civilized and Democratic Nation

    Executive Summary of
    Report of People’s Commission on Employment and Unemployment
    Set up by Desh Bachao Abhiyan

    Introduction

    When society faces a problem and is unable to resolve it, it implies that something basic is wrong. One needs to look for its basic causes to solve the problem. The causes may lie in the system that has evolved over time and which conditions the dominant social and political thinking in society. The onus of finding the solution and rectifying the problem is on the rulers. Their failure to do so over time implies a lack of motivation/commitment to solve the problem.

    All this applies to the issue of employment generation and unemployment in India which has been growing over time and affects the vast majority of the citizens.

    The Basic Issue

    Gandhi said that India is the only country capable of giving a civilizational alternative. The time has come to take this seriously since unemployment has become a critical issue that needs to be urgently tackled. The issue is multi-dimensional since it is a result of multiple causes and has widespread implications. It impacts the growth of the economy, inequality, poverty, etc. It has a gender dimension and impacts the marginalized sections adversely reflecting a lack of social justice. It is entrenched among the youth. The more educated they are greater the unemployment they face. Consequently, it has political and social implications, like, social relations.

    The rapidly growing incomes of the top 1% in the income ladder indicate that the economy has the resources but they are mal-distributed. The rich at the top has created a system that enables them to capture most of the gains from development with little trickling down to the rest.

    This Report presents a framework that spells out the causes, consequences, and possible remedies. Further, it looks at the historical process underlying the evolution of policies so as to understand how they can be changed.

    If any form of distortion persists over a long period, as unemployment in India, its origins lie in society’s perceptions and priorities. In India, these can be traced to the adoption of state capitalism and persisting feudal tendencies of the elite policy makers who in their own self-interest adopted a trickle-down model of development.

    Further, Capitalism has globally taken the form of marketization which promotes `profit maximisation’. But is it then legitimate to keep workers unemployed? It implies loss of output and therefore reduces the size of the economy which leads to a lower level of profits. So, by the logic of individual rationality, the system should create productive employment for all.

    The market’s notion of `efficiency’ is status quoist since it seeks to perpetuate the historical injustice in society. `Consumer sovereignty’ implies that individuals should be left free to do whatever they wish. The collectivity should not intervene in their choices no matter how socially detrimental they may be. It promotes the notion that if I have the money I can do what I like. The ratio of incomes is 10,000 times and more between the big businessmen and the poor workers. The market sees nothing wrong in this; in fact, society has come to celebrate it.

    Marketization is determining society’s choices through its principles penetrating all aspects of society. One of these principles is the `dollar vote’. The policy makers accept it and prioritize the choices of the well-off over those of the marginalized. The well-off dictate the social judgments of policy makers. Consequently, not only equality is not on the agenda even equity is not.

    With marketization stripping off the social aspect of life, individuals become automatons. Their individual distress and situation in life are no one’s or society’s concern. Unemployment becomes just a switching off of a machine. No social concern need to be attached to it. In fact, capitalists welcome unemployment as an efficient’ device to discipline labour and neo-classical economics considers it as natural. Inflation further weakens large numbers of workers as they lose purchasing power.

    In essence, whether or not society should aim to give productive employment to all reflects its view of individuals. Society needs to choose what is more important – profits or the welfare of the marginalized majority. The Gandhian view, largely rejected by the Indian elite, was `last person first’ which defined what the priority should be.

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    Disclaimer:

    The views represented herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Peninsula Foundation, its staff, or its trustees.

    The report’s executive summary is republished with the permission of the author.

    Feature Image:

    Economic and Political Weekly

  • Three Years as a Union Territory: Human Rights in J&K

    Three Years as a Union Territory: Human Rights in J&K

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    The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir comprises an informal group of concerned citizens who believe that, in the prevailing situation in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, an independent initiative is required so that continuing human rights violation do not go unnoticed.

    The aim of the Forum is to highlight, report and seek action. It will primarily focus on human rights protected by the constitutions of India and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as those identified in international treaties/instruments which India has ratified. It will research evident violations, and may take suo moto notice of any violation, irrespective of whether or not a formal complaint is received.

    The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir will receive information/materials on human rights violation to its email hrforumjk@gmail.com and through other means, and it may report/forward complaints to relevant authorities with recommendations for action. Please note that this is not an anticipatory body.

    This is the fourth report issued by the Forum. It has largely been compiled local first-hand accounts, governments sources, media accounts (carried in well-established and reputed newspaper or television), and NGO fact-finding reports. The various sources listed above have been fact-checked against each other to ensure the information is as accurate as possible, and only that information has been carried that appears to be well-founded.

    The members of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir take allegations of inaccuracy, bias, or any other criticism founded in fact, very seriously. Criticism of this nature will be considered and responded in real-time.

    Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (Retd) is a Distinguished Fellow and a member of the Governing Council of The Peninsula Foundation (TPF). He is a member of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir.

    Disclaimer: The views represented herein are those of the Forum and not necessarily reflect the views of The Peninsula Foundation, its staff, or its trustees.

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