More Kashmir Land Deprivation
The denial of Kashmir’s land sovereignty has a long history. Since 1947, geopolitics has resulted in the partition of Kashmir and the country’s occupation by India and Pakistan, and, since 1963, China in the northeast, thereby denying the people of Kashmir the right to self-determination. Since August 2019, Indian Parliament’s Reorganization Act and the Narendra Modi Administration have intensified Indian colonization by legislating a constitutional ban on manipulating land tenure arrangements in its occupied Kashmiri territory. Widespread and grave human rights violations have ensued with increasingly militarized colonization and repressive governance.
Despite UN Security Council resolutions of 21 April 1948 and 2 December 1957, public reference to such resolutions or Kashmiris’ “right to self-determination” has recently been explicitly criminalized as “secessionism” under Indian law. On 11 September 2024, the Delhi High Court upheld the Indian government`s ban on the pro-self-determination political parties Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Bhat faction) and the Jammu and Kashmir People`s League (four factions) for their pro-self-determination stance.
Since the last update in Land Times/أحوال الأرض, Indian forces have escalated multiple human rights violations against Kashmiris that have increased the risk of genocide targeting Kashmiri Muslims and motivated by Hindu-supremacist ideology espoused by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The analogy with Palestine has proliferated in the media in the meantime.
By disintegrating Jammu & Kashmir (pursuant to the Jammu and Kashmir, 2019); gerrymandering constituencies to dilute the influence of Muslims; legalizing the denial of the right of return of Muslim refugees and political exiles from IAK; denying the right to vote for Muslims born in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; “indigenizing” non-local Hindus through new “domicile” rules; and registering hundreds of thousands of new, non-local Hindu voters as a kind of administrative population transfer as a “final solution” to “the Kashmir problem.” Among the essential purposes and effects of India’s laws and policies in the occupied territory is the deprivation of Kashmiri land, invoking the analogy with Palestine across the media.
On 2 July 2024, Indian authorities appropriated 53 kanals and three marlas of land (25.29285263 m2) of Kashmiri land to India’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Kitchama, Baramulla district. Indian authorities are allotting an estimated 8,607.59 acres (34,835,340 m2) of land in IAK to corporations aligned with the BJP government.
On 27 July 2024, the State Investigation Agency expropriated the land (48 marlas = 1,214.05692624 m2) of Mohd Liyaqat of Khari, Poonch district. The land has been transferred to the paramilitary force under the provisions of Rule 310 of the General Financial Rules (2017).
An order issued by the Revenue Department reads, “The CRPF must adhere to all provisions of laws relating to the Revenue/Housing & Urban Development Department, Forest, and J&K Water Resources (Regulation and Management) Act, 2010 before utilizing the land.” As per the terms and conditions, the CRPF must take possession of the land within 30 days from the transfer order and put the land to use within three years. Failing this, the land shall ‘revert’ to the occupation government.
Demographic Manipulation
Indian authorities have continued to escalate forced demographic change in the region. Authorities have issued new “domicile certificates” to at least 61,47,482 people, and expanded the resettlement of non-locals in IAK, including through the expansion of militarized colonies for families of Indian military personnel, the construction of at least 576 residences in settler colonies and 6,000 transit accommodations for BJP-aligned groups and a new policy to distribute land to 199,000 beneficiaries by 2024.
Since 2019, at least 185 non-locals have bought land in IAK. Indian authorities have also continued to allot land to corporations aligned with the Indian state, including an estimated 8,607.59 acres of land currently planned.
Land Allotments
By July, the Jammu and Kashmir administration had received 6,909 applications from various parties for land to set up new ventures. The Jammu division has fewer applications at 1,902, but they are generally larger scale industrial units, with a total land requirement of 4,935.61 acres (19,975,283 m2) concentrated in the Kathua district, which has proximity to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The 5,007 applications in Kashmir valley are mostly for small and medium enterprises, requiring 3,671.98 acres (14,860,056 m2).
The mTop of Form
mmajor players are Indian and other foreign bidders. These include Kandhari Beverages, constructing a bottling plant on 36 acres (145,687 m2); Sri Lankan Muralidharan`s Ceylon Beverages, a Nestlé and Coca-Cola subcontractor, Dubai’s Ennar Group, known as the developers of Burj Khalifa, now constructing a shopping mall and IT tower in Srinagar, as well as another IT tower elsewhere in Jammu division. Sri Lanka’s Welspun Group hasreceived land worth €1.6 bn for building units in Kathua, while also planning to build a residential colony for employees on the land.
With these concessions, occupation authorities are transforming forest land into fully developed industrial estates, and India’s National Highways Authority is also considering development of a logistics park.
Another 625 acres (2,529,285 m2) of land in Panjgrain will be transferred to the Industries Department. 50 acres of land in Gurha Slathia in Samba is also in the process of being transferred.
Meanwhile,Indian authorities have continued their campaign of mass property expropriation for various pretexts, including to combat ‘terrorism,’ especially targeting JeI and those associated with the organization for expropriation. This has coincided with a series of land-corruption scandals, charging IAK officials, while investigations remain underway.
Also Read:
New Report on Kashmir Land Misrule, 27 November 2023
ACB Busts Land Scam in Jammu, Revenue Officials Among the Accused, 8 November 2024
Rural dept officials booked for bungling ₹30 lakh in Jammu and Kashmir, 4 July 2024 Global Letter to UN & World Bank: Set Serious Goals to Combat Inequality, 17 July 2023
Kashmir: Indian Land Law Dispossesses Locals, 16 December 2022
Pakistan: Mixed Mitigation Governance Record, 27 August 2022
Anti-Muslim India Gov’t. Razes Homes, 13 June 2022
Half a Million Migrants Evicted in Jeddah, 09 March 2022
India: Homeless Die amid Extra-cold Winter, 02 February 2022
Kashmir Land Case: ‘Property a Constitutional Right’, 03 January 2022
India Uses Israeli Silencing Tactic in Kashmir, 25 November 2021
Photo: As part of nationwide protest call, the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) held a protest demonstration at Shahedhi Chowk in Jammu, on 6 February over the India occupation administration’s dispossession and eviction of small-scale farmers across Kashmir. Source: Greater Kashmir News Network.
Conversions:
1Indian rupee (₹) = €0.01124
1 lakh = 10,000
1 crore = 10 million
1 acre = 4,046.85642 square meters (m2)
1 kanal = 505.858 m2
1 marla = 25.29285263 m2
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