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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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