India gives property rights to Hindu refugees in disputed Kashmir

India has granted land ownership rights to mostly Hindu refugees who had migrated to disputed India-administered Kashmir from Pakistan in 1947 as well as after 1965 India-Pakistan War.

New Delhi which administers the Muslim-majority region through Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha accorded sanction to grant proprietary rights on the region's land in favour of what are known as "West Pakistani displaced persons" along with those displaced persons of 1965, officials said on Wednesday.

"This shall significantly empower thousands of (refugee) families across the Jammu region. The decision fulfills the demand of all connected families, which have been requesting for ownership rights since the past so many decades," said an Indian official spokesman.

The decision will benefit over 22,000 families who received citizenship and other benefits following the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A in August 2019 when New Delhi annexed the region and divided it into two federally-run territories, officials said.

Prior to the abrogation of the special status and annexation, the refugees, mostly Hindus and Sikhs, were restricted from voting in local legislative elections as well as barred from applying for public jobs or scholarships.

Now they have been given the same rights as native residents.

Thousands of refugees migrated to India-administered Kashmir in 1947 as well as after the 1965 India-Pakistan War.

According to official records, a total of 5,764 families, most of them Hindus, moved from Pakistan to the Muslim-majority disputed region.

Demographic change

For almost a century, no outsider was allowed to buy land and property in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

That changed on August 5 in 2019 when India's Hindu far-right government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the Himalayan region's semi-autonomous powers and downgraded it to a federally governed territory.

As a result, the Muslim-majority region is now run by unelected officials and has lost its flag, criminal code and constitution.

Modi also annulled the long-held hereditary special rights its Muslim natives had over the disputed region's land ownership and jobs.

Since then, India has brought in a slew of changes through new laws. They are often drafted by bureaucrats without any democratic bearings and much to the resentment and anger of the region's people, many of whom want independence from India or unification with Pakistan.

Many Kashmiris say the decisions as settler colonialism are aimed at engineering a demographic change in Kashmir, likening the new arrangement to the West Bank with settlers — armed or civilian — living in guarded compounds among disenfranchised Muslim locals.

Residency rights were introduced in 1927 by Kashmir’s Hindu king, Hari Singh, to stop the influx of outsiders in the former princely state.

Historians say the maharaja brought land ownership rights on the insistence of powerful Kashmiri Hindus. They continued under Indian rule after 1947, as part of Kashmir’s special status within the Indian constitution which Modi government scrapped in 2019.

Roots of conflict

When Britain divided its Indian colony into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947, the status of what was then the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was left undecided.

India and Pakistan soon began a war over Kashmir, which ended with both countries controlling parts of the territory, divided by a heavily militarised frontier.

A 1948 United Nations resolution called for a referendum in Kashmir giving the territory’s people the choice of joining either Pakistan or India, but it never happened. The part of Kashmir controlled by India was granted semi-autonomy and special privileges in exchange for accepting Indian rule.

Kashmiri discontent with India started taking root as successive Indian governments breached the pact of Kashmir’s autonomy.

Local governments were toppled one after another and largely peaceful movements against Indian control were harshly suppressed.

Kashmiri dissidents launched a full-blown armed revolt in 1989, seeking unification with Pakistan or complete independence. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and Indian forces have been killed in the conflict.

New Delhi claims the Kashmir revolt is sponsored by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. Islamabad says it only offers political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris. Most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.