The Economist UK - 10.08.2019

42 The EconomistAugust 10th 2019

1

A

t one fellswoop, India’s central gov-

ernment has ended the special status

enjoyed by Jammu & Kashmir and abol-

ished it as a state. For 70 years it had grant-

ed the bitterly disputed Muslim-majority

region a modicum of autonomy within In-

dia. Late at night on August 4th phone

lines, television and internet access were

cut and leaders of its political parties put

under house arrest. The next morning In-

dia’s home minister carried a package of

legislation into the upper house of parlia-

ment. It proposed a radical reorganisation

of the territory. It took the house just 90

minutes to strip it of statehood and divide

it into two parts to be ruled from Delhi.

Kashmiris had been warned, as had the rest

of India. It still caused shock.

The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata

Party (bjp) led by the prime minister, Na-

rendra Modi, had long argued that Jammu

& Kashmir’s special status was an error,

dating from soon after India’s indepen-

dence. Mr Modi’s re-election in May, with

an overwhelming majority in parliament,

gave him the confidence to correct it—

knowing that doing so would anger Paki-

stan (which also claims the territory) and

enrage many Kashmiris. Pakistan duly ex-

pelled India’s high commissioner and sus-

pended trade. A curfew imposed on the re-

gion on August 5th has kept Kashmiris

quiet, for now, as has the presence of thou-

sands of additional Indian troops who have

been pouring in since late July, ostensibly

to prevent terrorism.

The former state of Jammu & Kashmir is

composed of three main parts: Hindu-ma-

jority Jammu, in the foothills; the arid

highlands of Ladakh, which has a large

Buddhist population; and a sprawling ba-

sin with Srinagar at its centre that is home

to ethnic Kashmiris, most of whom are

Muslims (see map). In 1947, when British

rule of the subcontinent ended, the Hindu

maharajah of Jammu & Kashmir hesitated

to join either of the new countries, Paki-

stan and India. Those countries soon went

to war over the area. A stalemate ended

with India occupying two-thirds of the

state, and Pakistan controlling the rest. In-

dia and Pakistan have kept on fighting over

the region. The most recent eruption of

large-scale hostilities was in 1999.

Mr Modi has gutted an article of India’s

constitution, which was introduced in the

1950s to secure the state’s acquiescence to

Indian control. This had decreed that the

central government would be responsible

only for Jammu & Kashmir’s defence, for-

eign affairs and communications. Long be-

fore Mr Modi came to power, however, In-

dian governments began whittling away at

the state’s autonomy. However it did retain

an important privilege: the right to bar

non-residents from buying land. That, too,

has gone.

In theory, changing this part of India’s

constitution requires a two-thirds parlia-

mentary majority, which the bjpdoes not

quite have. So the party devised an easier

way: their man in the president’s chair sim-

ply issued an order annulling Kashmir’s

special status. That should have required

assent from Jammu & Kashmir, too. But

since June 2018, when the bjpwithdrew

from a coalition there, the state had been

under direct rule from Delhi. So the rest of

India assented on Kashmir’s behalf. That

Kashmir

A state no longer

DELHI

Narendra Modi scraps the rules in a bid to remake a troubled territory

Delhi

Kabul

Islamabad

Line of Control

Jammu & Ladakh

Kashmir

AFGHANISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

CHINA

INDIA

PA KI STA N

200 km

Kashmir

valley

Pakistan-

administered

Kashmir

Srinagar

Asia

43 Dismantling Uzbekistan’s gulag

44 Abe’s constitutional struggle

44 Race relations in Singapore

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