NEW YORK – India’s unilateral actions in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019caused enormous suffering and rights violations of the Kashmiri population,Human Rights Watch (HRW), a prominent international watchdog body, saidWednesday in its World Report 2020.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government revokedthe disputed state’s special constitutional status, an action which alsoviolated United Nations’ resolutions on the Kashmir dispute between Indiaand Pakistan.
Indian authorities also failed to protect religious minorities, useddraconian sedition and counterterrorism laws to silence peaceful dissentand invoked foreign funding regulations and other laws to discredit andmuzzle non-governmental organizations critical of government actions orpolicies, HRW said.
“The Indian government has tried to shut down Kashmir, hiding the fullextent of the harm caused there,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director atthe New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Instead ofaddressing growing attacks on minorities, Indian authorities bolsteredtheir efforts to silence critical voices in 2019.”
In the 652-page World Report 2020, its 30th edition, Human Rights Watchreviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries.
Prior to its actions in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the New Delhigovernment deployed additional troops, shut down the internet and phones,and arbitrarily detained thousands of Kashmiris, including politicalleaders, activists, journalists, lawyers, and potential protesters,including children, it was pointed out. Hundreds remain in detentionwithout charge or under house arrest to prevent protests.
Also, HRW said the Indian government failed to properly enforce SupremeCourt directives to prevent and investigate mob attacks, often led by BJPsupporters, on religious minorities and other vulnerable communities.
Since May 2015, extremist Hindu groups have killed 50 people and injuredover 250 amid rumours that they traded or killed cows for beef.
Muslims were also beaten and forced to chant Hindu slogans. Police failedto properly investigate the crimes, stalled investigations, ignoredprocedures and filed criminal cases against witnesses to harass andintimidate them.
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Nearly two million people from tribal communities and forest-dwellersremained at risk of forced displacement and loss of livelihoods after aSupreme Court ruling in February 2019 to evict all those whose claims underthe Forest Rights Act were rejected.
In the northeast state of Assam, it said, the government published theNational Register of Citizens, aimed at identifying Indian citizens andlawful residents following repeated protests and violence over irregularmigration of ethnic Bengalis from Bangladesh.
The list excluded nearly two million people, mostly Muslims, including manywho have lived in India for years, in some cases their whole lives. Thereare serious allegations that the verification process was arbitrary anddiscriminatory. The government plans to build detention centres for thosedenied citizenship after the appeal process.
The Indian government has also said that citizenship verification will beimplemented across the country and that the government will amend thecitizenship laws to include all irregular migrants from neighbouringcountries, but excludes Muslims from the list.
The Indian government’s actions in Kashmir have led to loss of livelihoodand access to education, HRW said.
The repression resulted in international criticism including in the UnitedStates’ Congress, the European Parliament, and the United Nations HumanRights Council. Throughout the year, UN experts have raised concerns over aseries of issues in India, including extrajudicial killings, potentialstatelessness of millions in Assam, possible eviction of tribal communitiesand forest-dwellers, and the communications blackout in Kashmir, HRW added.
