India uses the coronavirus pandemic to exploit human rights
May 08, 2020
<p>The United Nations has called for an immediate global ceasefire to “<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059972">put armed conflict in lockdown</a>” and focus on protecting the most vulnerable from the spread of COVID-19. Yet tragically, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-04-15-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-not-an-excuse-to-trample-on-human-rights">there are cases around the world where violations have occurred</a>.</p><p>Ongoing developments in Kashmir include a <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/media/kashmir-fir-photojournalist-masrat-zahra-crackdown-coronavirus">crackdown on Kashmiri journalists</a>, <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/kashmir-coronavirus-covid-india-lockdown-jammu">rising policing powers</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/coronavirus-kashmir-india-responds-more-violence">enhanced curfew measures</a>. These actions suggest that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/30/india-is-using-pandemic-intensify-its-crackdown-kashmir">the Indian government may be exploiting the pandemic</a> to accelerate its settler-colonial ambitions in the disputed territory.</p><p>For the past six years, I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-be-an-ally-with-kashmir-war-stories-from-the-kitchen-121801">worked as a researcher</a> along the Line of Control (LoC) — the de-facto border that divides Kashmir into India and Pakistan. I am also on the board of directors for the advocacy organization, <a href="http://cpjk.org/about">Canadians for Peace and Justice in Kashmir</a>.</p><p>Thousands of Kashmiris live within a 10-kilometre radius of the LoC, which is so heavily militarized that it is <a href="https://qz.com/india/516864/the-india-pakistan-border-is-so-closely-guarded-that-it-can-be-seen-from-space/">visible from space</a>.</p><p>Kashmiris are vulnerable to both the contagion and the violence of the ongoing conflict.</p><h2>War during a pandemic</h2><p>In April, <a href="https://thekashmirpress.com/2020/04/13/detailed-read-ammo-landed-60km-deep-inside-loc-in-kupwara-intense-shelling-after-1971-war-say-residents/">the Indian army set up artillery weapons</a> deep in Kashmiri villages, as far as 60 kilometres from bunkered areas, to launch long-distance fire on Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.</p><p>This encroachment is creating widespread panic and anxiety. Locals are <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-jks-kupwara-villages-caught-between-shelling-and-covid-red-zone/350723">protesting</a> the shifting of heavy artillery guns into their communities, fearing retaliatory fire from the Pakistani army.</p><p>It is an intentional strategy to station soldiers and artillery among communities to make it difficult for the Pakistani army to retaliate. The <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/india-accused-kashmir-human-shields-border-war-pakistan">blurring of civilian and military targets</a> amounts to a war crime.</p><p>The Indian army has used civilian populations as a human shield before. In 2017, footage emerged of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/29/india-army-chief-kashmir-protests-man-tied-to-vehicle">Kashmiri man tied to a military vehicle</a> patrolling a Kashmiri town.</p><p>As Indian and Pakistani forces continue to exchange fire, widespread <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/30/india-is-using-pandemic-intensify-its-crackdown-kashmir/">loss of civilian life and property</a> is being reported on <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1548651/4-year-old-boy-killed-near-loc-from-indian-shelling-officials-say">both sides</a> of the LoC.</p><p>During the exchange of cross-border fire, families are forced to take shelter in community bunkers. These are small enclosed spaces that make social distancing practices impossible to follow.</p><p>Furthermore, people trying to escape their villages during bombardment are <a href="https://kashmirobserver.net/2020/04/13/why-on-our-bodies-homes-a-dispatch-from-kupwara/">prevented from leaving</a> by the police as they enforce COVID-19 lockdown measures.</p><h2>Asia’s Berlin Wall</h2><p>The LoC, also known as Asia’s Berlin Wall, does not constitute a legally recognized international boundary. It was <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/indiapakistan-karachiagreement49">put in place in 1949</a> as a temporary measure until the status of Kashmir is resolved.</p><p>In her book <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520274211"><em>Body of Victim, Body of Warrior</em>,</a> Cabeiri deBergh Robinson, associate professor of South Asian studies at the University of Washington, explains that in earlier years, the LoC was permeable and fluid. It was only after the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/indiapakistan-simlaagreement72">Simla Agreement</a> in 1972, that it came to mimic the impermeability of a border.</p><h2>‘100 little sleeps’</h2><p>From 1990-2003, during the peak of the Kashmiri insurgency, the LoC was a site of intense conflict between Indian and Pakistani militaries.</p><p>Armies fired long-range artillery and mortar shells at each other, killing and harming civilians, property and livestock in the process.</p><p>Even though a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/26/world/indian-and-pakistani-forces-agree-to-cease-fire-in-kashmir.html">shaky ceasefire</a> was reached in 2003, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxOL6uOmDg&feature=youtu.be">skirmishes flare up unannounced</a>.</p><p>During my research in the Neelum valley in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, a villager described living near the LoC: “We are never at ease. The firing can start at any time. It’s like having 100 little sleeps every night.”</p><p>The number of civilians killed on each side of the LoC is challenging to document, given a lack of government transparency.</p><p>The <a href="https://unmogip.unmissions.org/background">United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP)</a> is responsible for monitoring the ceasefire. India stands accused of <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/24/ceasefire-violations-in-kashmir-war-by-other-means-pub-77573">blocking UNMOGIP’s access to the LoC</a>.</p><p>This year alone, India has committed <a href="https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/650896-woman-martyred-girl-hurt-in-indian-firing-on-loc">882 ceasefire violations</a>.</p><h2>Pre-existing inequality</h2><p>Pandemics do not occur in a vacuum but exacerbate pre-existing inequalities.</p><p>Kashmir is ill-prepared to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/die-cattle-kashmiris-fear-coronavirus-outbreak-200322151405218.html">handle the pandemic</a>. In Indian-occupied Kashmir, there is one soldier for every nine people but only <a href="https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/646698-indias-dirty-priority-is-to-suppress-people-in-occupied-kashmir-president-alvi">one ventilator for every 71,000 people</a>, and one doctor for every 3,900 people.</p><p>Health facilities along the LoC are severely deficient, reflecting India and Pakistan’s neglect of the sub-region.</p><p>Given the current <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/article31306118.ece">suspension of high-speed 4G internet,</a> Kashmiris are prevented from accessing necessary <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/13/slow-internet-speeding-spread-coronavirus-kashmir-india-lockdown/">public health information needed to slow the spread of COVID-19</a>.</p><p>Internet and telecommunication services are restricted on both sides of the LoC.</p><h2>Kashmir’s annexation</h2><p>Amid the pandemic, on Mar. 31, India introduced a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/flooding-india-introduces-kashmir-domicile-law-200401100651450.html">new domicile law</a>. This is one of the many legislative changes set by India following the unilateral <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/05/indias-settler-colonial-project-kashmir-takes-disturbing-turn/">abrogation of Article 370</a> in August last year.</p><p>The <a href="https://medium.com/@media_41618/the-new-domicile-law-is-indias-plan-to-change-the-demographics-of-occupied-jammu-and-kashmir-2f3c52ff6abd/">domicile law paves the way for demographic flooding in Kashmir</a>, which will allow non-Kashmiris to obtain property, compete for government jobs and impact the outcomes of a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1766582.stm">referendum </a> on Kashmir’s future should it be held.</p><p>Demographic flooding as a colonial strategy has been used by <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080052/israel-settlements-west-bank">Israel along the West Bank </a> as well as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26414014">China in the Xinjiang autonomous region</a>.</p><h2>A Kashmir yet to come</h2><p>The pandemic has inspired thinking on the complete <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis">restructuring of our world</a>. It has shed light on the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/jge39g/taking-care-of-each-other-is-essential-work">centrality of care workers</a> and those at the <a href="https://www.syracuse.com/opinion/2020/04/from-farm-to-factory-to-table-coronavirus-pandemic-challenges-us-food-system-commentary.html">forefront of our food systems</a>.</p><p>It is forcing us to imagine “<a href="https://hedgehogreview.com/blog/thr/posts/radical-hope-amid-catastrophe">a world we do not yet know and cannot describe</a>” as scholar Vafa Ghazavi recently wrote.</p><p>A just world <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/19/after-the-crisis-a-new-world-wont-emerge-as-if-by-magic-we-will-have-to-fight-for-it">won’t emerge as if by magic. We will need to fight for it</a>.</p><p>The LoC does not signal the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36521314/Kashmir_as_Movement_and_Multitude">closure of Kashmir’s forms and futures</a>. It is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2019.0074">site of potentiality</a>, for a Kashmir yet to come.</p><p>This Kashmir would not be held back by the paucity of our imagination or the lack of available language. It would be a Kashmir where Kashmiris can freely choose learning, laughter and living.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137682/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" width="1"/></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/omer-aijazi-801090">Omer Aijazi</a>, Postdoctoral research fellow, Religion and Anthropology, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-toronto-1281">University of Toronto</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-uses-coronavirus-pandemic-to-exploit-human-rights-in-kashmir-137682">original article</a>.</p>
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