Indian-occupied Kashmir’s legislative assembly demands restoration of partial autonomy
Indian-occupied Kashmir’s (IoK) legislative assembly passed a resolution on Wednesday demanding that New Delhi restore the Muslim-majority territory’s partial autonomy, cancelled in 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
New Delhi cancelled IoK’s special status in 2019, a sudden decision accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long communications blackout.
It has been ruled by a governor appointed by New Delhi since.
But last month the territory also elected its local legislative assembly, with voters choosing a government in opposition to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“This assembly calls upon the Government of India to initiate dialogue with elected representatives of people of Jammu and Kashmir for restoration of special status,” the resolution read, passed by a majority vote.
The 29 BJP members in the 90-seat house opposed the non-binding resolution, which requires the approval from the federally appointed governor.
“The assembly has done its job,” chief minister Omar Abdullah told reporters.
The resolution said it “reaffirms the importance of the special and constitutional guarantees, which safeguarded the identity, culture and rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir”.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since partition at the chaotic end of British rule in 1947, and both countries claim the territory in full.
About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region, battling a 35-year separatist movement in which tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and Kashmiri fighters have lost their lives, including dozens this year alone.
The 2019 constitutional amendment imposing direct rule also downgraded held-Kashmir from a federal state to a “union territory”.
Modi has promised to restore that, without giving a timeline.