SYED QAMAR AFZAL RIZVI
IT is not uncommon that in time of war and natural disaster, the government do foster policies that may deliver relief to the general public but such is not the case that rests with Narendra Modi’s driven state policies amid growing dangers of Corona Virus pandemic in Indiaoccupied Kashmir. Despite the ongoing calumny via COVID-19, New Delhi is obsessed with its evil idee fixe on Kashmir where humanity is subjected to state-colonialism and oppression. The new domicile law introduced in the Vale is reflective ofModi’s era of black legacy in Kashmir. Yet it is not staged that for the people of Kashmir, the time since Modi came into power, it constantly remains a saga of successive betrayals, accompanied by the most horrific abuse of human rights. Needless to say, the fig leaf of democracy, “autonomy” and “special status” which New Delhi has had held up as its alibi for Kashmir, has been ruthlessly ripped away. All that remains is naked aggression against their bona fide will. In this new legacy of changing tapestry of the Vale ushered in by the post-August 5 phase, the central government in New Delhi seems to have fundamentally changed the geographical and political status of the India-occupied Kashmir while abrogatingArticle 370 – alawthat restricted rights overjobs, scholarships and land to the permanent residents of the IoK. As pertheWikipedia sources,the historianRamachandra Guha is of the view that the President of India had apparently acted in “haste” and the revocation is an “arbitrary misuse of state power”. Whereas, the constitutional scholar A G Noorani stated that the Indian government’s decision to abrogateArticle 370 through controversial means was “utterly and palpably unconstitutional”, even fraudulent. It is headed for a “showdown in India’s Supreme Court” The Indian government has currently orchestrated a new set of laws for Indian-occupied Kashmir, including domicile rights for Indian citizens, thereby marginalizing the KashmiriMuslims with such draconianinjunctionsthat experts and residents fear will drastically alter the demographic status oftheMuslim-majorityintheVale. The New Delhi Central Government recently issued a notification announcing a number of amendmentsto 138Acts of Jammu and Kashmir that include protecting jobs up to Group-4 for only those who are domiciled in the union territory. i. ‘’Among the laws amended is the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Decentralisation and Recruitment) Act .ii the government has inserted a clause for domicile category under which a person has to stay in the Union Territory for a period of 15 years. Children of all-India services personnel who have served there for 10 years also come under the category.iii The tweaked law says that no person shall be eligible for appointment to a post carrying a pay scale of not more than Group-4 (Rs 25,500) unless he is a domicile of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Group-4 is equivalent to the rank of constable in police parlance. vi A total of 28 of the 138 Acts have been repealed as the Union government has laid down a procedure for being a domicile of the Union Territory, which came into existence on 31 October 2019, after the Centre scrapped Article 370 which gave special status to the erstwhile state. It was then bifurcated into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. v-According to the procedure, anyone who has resided for 15 years in Jammu and Kashmir or has studied for seven years and appeared in Class 10 and Class 12 examinations in an educational institution located in the Union Territory is a domicile, viAnyone who is registered as a migrant by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) will also be deemed to be a domicile..’’ PM Imran Khan, in a number of tweets on the newly-enacted ‘Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order 2020’ denounced the new law and expressed solidarity with the people of occupied Kashmir. The Foreign Office also issued a statement condemning the Indian government move. “We strongly condemn the racist Hindutva Supremacist Modi government’s continuing attempts to illegally alter the demography of IOJK in violation of all international laws & treaties. The new Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order, 2020,is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention,” Prime Minister Imran Khan said. India’s rebuttal to Pakistan official stand on new law holds no logical connotation:”We have seen the intemperate remarks by Pakistan PrimeMinister Imran Khan on India. With regard to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, it is very clear that Pakistan has no locus standi whatsoever on any aspect pertaining to it,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said. Simply put, Modi’s government enacted law has doubled down the severity of HR violations in the occupied territory. Given the growing health emergencies owing to the Corona Virus, the residents of the valley fear the potentially disastrous consequences of the Corona Virus pandemic after the first case of infection was reported on last Thursday. The valley is not without impending apprehensions abound that this may be just the tip of the iceberg as several hundred people, most of whom had travelled to other countries, were placed under quarantine. Notably, in nearby Ladakh, which until August was part of Kashmir before it was separated and turned into a federally-administered territory, 13 cases are reported positive, and a majority of whom had travelled to Iran. And yet sadly, the fatal outbreak of the Corona Virus has intensified the plight of the Kashmir families of the detainees to double down on their pleas for their children to return home. In the current crises, human rights activists have justifiably urged the Indian government to release the Kashmiri detainees on humanitarian grounds, while Human Rights Watch contended that the epidemic could put the prisoners’ lives at stake. “Day in and day out we are living in fear following the Corona Virus pandemic. Only a mother knows what separation from a child means to her,” said the mother, whose son has been lodged in Ambedkar Nagar jail in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. —The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cumanalyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law
