Kashmiris worried about their future after one year under India’s lockdown
A woman looks out from a window in Srinagar during the beginning of India’s lockdown on Kashmir in August 2019. Photo by Avinash Giri.
Gadkhud village, 30 kilometers from Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, is home to hundreds of carpet weavers, part of the Himalayan region’s multi-million-dollar carpet industry who have not been able to loom or sell rugs for a year now. Many weavers remain jobless or have migrated to urban areas where the lucky ones have taken menial jobs.
The Muslim-majority region’s economic uncertainty is compounded by the coronavirus pandemic but started much before, on Aug. 5, 2019, when India stripped the region of its autonomy that had been part of the constitution since India’s independence in 1947.
One year later, Kashmiris are living under various restrictions to everyday life, with more added to control the coronavirus. They face excessive force from police and security forces, arbitrary detentions, religious discrimination and restrictions of movement, free speech and free press.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned on a promise to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy before winning reelection in May 2019. The move was celebrated by many Indians, particularly those with Hindu nationalist sentiments, for its aim to squash Pakistani terrorism, and condemned by many international human rights groups as a threat against democracy and its potential to trigger violence. Modi promised economic progress in the region and better education, healthcare and welfare. Eventually, he said at the time, Kashmiris could elect their own leaders.
Almost immediately at the time of the decision, the Indian government blocked communications and placed Kashmiri political leaders under house arrest in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Days before, Indian military troops had added to the ranks already present. They would for the next several months quell protests and enforce a curfew.
Religion Unplugged covered the initial lockdown as well as peaceful protesters fired on with pellets by security forces, the ongoing Internet restrictions, arbitrary detentions of young boys and gun battles that left many homeless during Eid. The stories of everyday Kashmiris show the impact of the Modi administration’s lockdown of the region for one year and counting.
A fraying carpet industry
Nazir Ahmad and five of his family members are carpet weavers at a handloom they have set up in their house. Carpet weaving has been their source of livelihood for generations. The industry has been in Kashmir for 700 years. But with hardly any buyers in a depressed economy, the family has stopped making them. A half-knit carpet hangs on the loom inside a room in their house, with the lights turned off.
"We have stopped working on the loom,” Ahmad said. “In absence of any buyers there is no point making carpets."
Ahmad's son Hussain travels to Srinagar to work as a daily wage laborer in construction after giving up his traditional craft of carpet making. Hussain earns just six dollars a day, which isn’t enough to meet his family’s expenses.
"I have no choice," says Hussain. “My father is an old man; somebody in the family has to take charge.”
According to estimates, about 100,000 people worked in carpet making in Kashmir before the lockdown on about 30,000 handlooms.
“We are at the verge of committing suicide,” said Ghulam Hassan, a carpet trader. “Tourists stopped coming to Kashmir after the lockdown following the abrogation of Article 370. The coronavirus pandemic just made things worse, greatly impacting our trade.”
Part of Muslim-majority Kashmir acceded to the Hindu-majority India at the time of subcontinent’s partition in 1947 rather than merging with the Muslim-dominated Pakistan under the constitutional provision, Article 370, that allowed semi-autonomous rule. Part of Kashmir joined Pakistan and is still administered by Pakistan.
Out of nearly 7 million people who live in the Kashmir Valley, 97% of them are Muslims. About 47,000 people have been killed in armed conflict in the last three decades, mainly between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militant separatists, according to government figures. In early 1990’s, many Kashmiri Hindus fled for their lives and settled outside Kashmir in places like Jammu, just south of the valley, and Delhi, the national capital.
Since the time of Kashmir’s lockdown in August 2019, the right to assembly has been banned and hundreds of political leaders, including some journalists, have been detained. Thousands of youth were rounded up. Some of them were arrested and sent to jails outside Kashmir under a colonial-era law called the Public safety Act (PSA) by which anybody in Kashmir can be detained up to two years without a trial.
Tourism at a standstill
The lockdown has hit the tourism industry the hardest. Thousands of tourists, migrant workers and students fled Kashmir in panic after the government issued an advisory urging visitors to leave Kashmir just two days before Article 370 was revoked.
The exodus of half a million tourists and the blackout of phones and Internet connectivity created unprecedented problems for Kashmir’s economy.
According to the Preliminary Economic Assessment Loss Report released by a local business body, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), in December 2019, Kashmir’s economy suffered a loss of over $2 billion and close to half a million jobs between August and October 2019. Tourism took the biggest cumulative hit of $1.2 billion dollars and 140,500 job losses. Agriculture, manufacturing and construction were the next hardest hit.
A man rows a canoe on Dal Lake in Srinagar. Photo by Zaffar Iqbal.
The scenes of tourists leaving Kashmir last year continue to haunt Mohammad Ismail. He lives among hundreds of boatmen on the picturesque Dal lake in Srinagar, without work for the last year. He has been rowing boats since his childhood. Every day he goes to the lake with his boat in the hope of finding some work but returns home in the evening empty-handed without earning anything.
Though the government advisory was withdrawn after three months, it failed to attract tourists back to Kashmir. The lockdown announced in March to fight the COVID-19 pandemic then deepened the economic crisis and ended all hopes of thousands like Ismail.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, the government announced financial assistance of a monthly $14 for each of the boatmen for three months. The boatmen say it is extremely inadequate.
“This is a big joke,” Ismail said. “The money is clearly not enough even to meet our basic needs. We have suffered major losses since last one year, but now there is no tourism and our earnings have also dropped to a zero.
Before last year, the boatmen would earn $400 to $500 dollars per month.
The Houseboat Welfare Trust, a charity, provides monthly aid to 600 boatmen whose incomes were dependent on tourism. Tariq Ahmad, who works as a volunteer for the charity, said the situation is grim.
“Our charity is supported by our community members and some Kashmiris who are settled outside,” he said. “Every family listed with us is identified by a code number for delivering food kits to them.”
He said there are families who are apparently well-off living in big houses, but in reality, they are broke and don’t ask for help. “We are helping such families,” Ahmad said. “We take relief materials right to their doorsteps during the night for maintaining confidentiality.”
Schools closed
The lockdowns have also meant that the educational institutions have remained mostly closed for the last year. Students couldn’t attend schools and colleges throughout the fall due to a curfew after the August 5 move. The students returned to classes in March, but then the pandemic caused all educational institutions to again close. The schools started online classes, but due to a continued ban on high-speed Internet, the classes are nearly impossible.
Muneer Alam, a teacher, has come up with a creative method to return students to classrooms by running open air classrooms for students in the Eidgah grounds of Srinagar. He said online classes are just not possible on low-speed Internet.
Checkpoints with security officers, barricades and barbed fences are a normal site in Kashmir, where travel is restricted, especially after dark. Photo by Zaffar Iqbal.
“Education has suffered the most in the lockdown, the mental health of the students has been greatly impacted,” he said. “There can’t be a bigger joke than conducting online classes on 2G Internet network. On low speed Internet, students can’t comprehend the lectures nor do the teachers have any idea what students want. The online classes on 2G Internet is spreading confusion in the name of education.”
Article 370 had helped to preserve Kashmir’s identity and Muslim-majority culture by barring outsiders from buying land and applying for government jobs in Kashmir to prevent demographic change. But a new domicile or residency law brought by the Modi administration has opened up the region for outsiders to settle.
The law does not define domicile as residency based on identity. It entails the domicile status for anybody who has stayed in Jammu and Kashmir for 15 years or has studied in Jammu and Kashmir for seven years and appeared in the high school examination records.
The new laws have created anxiety among Kashmiris that floodgates will open for non-Kashmiris to settle in Kashmir and alter the Muslim-majority character of the region to be more like North India’s Hindu-majority culture.
Syed Mujtaba, a lawyer from Kashmir, said the government can’t make any laws as the abrogation of Article 370 stands challenged in the Supreme Court.
“When the basic foundation is subjudice [under judicial examination], whether Article 370 was revoked constitutionally, or the constitution was bulldozed by Supreme Court, there is a question mark on the subsequent legislations as well,” he said. “It is an exercise just meant to change the demography of Jammu Kashmir.”
Zaffar Iqbal is a journalist based in Kashmir India. He has reported for 18 years on armed encounters, environmental issues, crime, politics, culture and human rights. He’s formerly the bureau chief of Jammu and Kashmir for NDTV.