ILLUSTRATION BY KATE HAZELL 11
of the central government’s high-
handedness. The insurgency against
the Indian state that began more than
30 years ago continues to rage and is
likely to be emboldened by this latest
turn of events, which confirms what
Kashmiris have known for decades –
that, for India, Kashmir is a territory
devoid of people.
It’s difficult now to understand
how the BJP expects to resolve India’s
Kashmir problem – if that is evenpossible under such
conditions. Perhaps
its gambit is what
Kashmiri Muslims
have been fearing for
a long time: that the
repeal of Article 35A
could ultimately alter
Kashmir’s demographic
composition from a
Muslim-majority to a
Hindu-majority region.
It is the major reason that
Pakistan has registered a
protest against this move,
because its claim on the
region will not be valid if it no
longer has a Muslim majority.
The secular, federal consen-
sus with which India came into
existence seems to be a thing of the
past. With this latest move, it has
been decisively replaced by the
muscular, militaristic idea of India as a
centralised Hindu nation. Regardless
of the outcome of the challenges to
these particular measures towards J&K
in the courts, that idea appears to be
here to stay.Chitralekha Zutshi
is James Pinckney
Harrison Professor
of History at The
College of William
and Mary, Williams-
burg, VirginiaSubsequent state
governments in
the 1950s and
1960 s were w i l l i ng
to collaborate with
the central govern-
ment to erode Article- It nonetheless
remained a powerful
symbol of the pact
between India and one of
its constituent units – one,
though, against which the BJP
has consistently campaigned.
The recent presidential order
that extends all provisions of the
Indian Constitution to J&K has also
rendered unconstitutional Article 35A
of the Indian constitution. This article
was introduced into the constitution
through a 1954 presidential order that
gave the J&K state legislature the right
to define permanent residents of the
state. In effect, this article prevented
outsiders from settling in and buying
property in J&K.
The BJP’s explanation for its move is
that the special status has prevented the
state’s economic development and thus
encouraged disgruntlement among the
local population. In this logic, the BJP
is no different from earlier central
governments, which threw economic aid
at J&K in the hopes that its population
would be pacified. But this has not
solved the underlying political grievanc-
es of the Kashmiri Muslim population,
which has felt increasingly disenfran-
chised and alienated from India because