India’s decision to allow voting rights to any Indian citizen living temporarily in Indian-administered Kashmir has again ignited anger and fears of an attempt by the Hindu nationalist government to change the demography of its only Muslim-majority region.
The move, announced on Wednesday by the federally controlled territory’s top electoral officer, is expected to add about 2.5 million more voters on top of the 7.6 million existing voters – a whopping 30 percent increase.
The new voters would include Indians temporarily residing in the region, mainly Indian military personnel, government and private sector employees, and migrant workers.
“All those not enlisted as voters earlier are eligible to vote after the abrogation of Article 370,” Hirdesh Kumar said, adding that the provisions of the Representation of the People Act – the law that deals with the conduct of elections in India – also applies to the region.
Until August 2019, voting rights in Indian-administered Kashmir were restricted to its permanent residents only, guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave the disputed region – also claimed by neighbouring Pakistan – limited autonomy. The law forbid Indians from outside the region from permanently settling, buying land and holding local government jobs.
On August 5 that year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, two months after having won a landslide re-election, unilaterally stripped the region of its special status by abrogating the decades-old law and dividing the region into two federally controlled territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
It was only the beginning of a series of laws and government moves that residents say aim to crush a popular movement for either an independent state or a merger with Pakistan. Kashmiris say the scrapping of Article 370 and subsequent legal moves are aimed at changing the region’s demography.
In the years since, the Indian government has introduced a controversial domicile law that grants citizenship rights to every Indian living in the region for more than 15 years. New laws making every Indian citizen eligible to buy land in the region were also passed.
Kumar on Wednesday said there is no need for an Indian citizen to have a domicile certificate or to be a permanent resident to get enlisted as a voter in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“Any employee, a student, a labourer, or anyone else ordinarily residing in Jammu and Kashmir can become a voter now,” he said.According to the 2011 census, of the 12.5 million total population in Indian-administered Kashmir, Muslims comprise 68.31 percent and Hindus 28.43 percent. More than seven million of these residents live in the valley, 97 percent of them Muslims.
Pakistan on Friday categorically rejected deliberate Indian attempts of “pre-poll rigging” and “overt manipulation” in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
The statement comes days after the chief electoral officer in the occupied valley, Hirdesh Kumar, announced that non-locals living ordinarily could register their names in the voting list.
“Jammu and Kashmir is likely to get around 25 lakh additional voters, including outsiders, after the special summary revision of electoral rolls,” The Wire quoted Kumar as saying.
The report added that his remarks drew angry reactions from mainstream political parties in IIOJK.In a statement issued today, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said the latest announcement of “permitting even temporary residents in the occupied territory, including outside workforce and security personnel, to register as ‘voters’ is a clear manifestation of the treacherous Indian design to influence the outcome of ‘so-called’ elections in IIOJK.”
“Pakistan reiterates its complete rejection of India’s entire litany of steps aimed at turning the Muslim majority in IIOJK into a minority — including the formulation of the so-called ‘delimitation’ commission and its baseless report, the issuance of fake Kashmiri domiciles to millions of outsiders, and changes in the property laws.”
The spokesperson said that despite the “reprehensible measures” that followed the revocation of the region’s special autonomy in 2019, India would not be able to break the will of the Kashmiri people or mislead the international community.
“The government of India must desist from all actions in IIOJK that violate international law, the United Nations Charter, and the 4th Geneva Convention,” he said.
The FO spokesperson also urged India to release all political prisoners detained on “trumped-up charges”, halt human rights violations in the occupied valley, lift the brutal military siege, and let Kashmiris exercise their right to self-determination as stipulated in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
The FO further called upon the international community to take immediate cognisance of blatant Indian attempts at “effecting illegal demographic changes” in IIOJK and to hold India accountable.
