Kashmir Conflict: From Human Rights Abuses to Settler Colonial Agenda Leading to Genocide

Kashmir Conflict: From Human Rights Abuses to Settler Colonial Agenda Leading to Genocide

Tazeen Hasan

Dated: Nov. 26, 2021






Photo Caption: Indian Army troops frisking a school going girl. An estimated 600,000 to 900,000 Indian troops are stationed in the Kashmir Valley, making it the most militarised region in the World



Kashmir is a Himalayan region with a predominantly Muslim population that comprises Jammu and Kashmir Valley, Ladakh (administered by India), and a comparatively small part of Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan region (administered by Pakistan).


On June 3, 1948, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution recognizing Kashmiris' right to self-determination. From 1948 to 1972, UN Security Council passed 17 resolutions concerning the Kashmir conflict including Resolution 38, 39, 47, 51, 80, 91, 98, 112, 123, 126, 209, 210, 211, 214, 215, 303, 307



This resolution categorically declares that Kashmir is not a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan; it is an issue of fundamental rights of the Indigenous population of Kashmiris.

By not fulfilling its responsibilities to hold a referendum in the last 73 years, India has denied Kashmiris the right of self-determination-- a fundamental right of the Indigenous population under the United Nations charter. Moreover, India is constantly repressing the Kashmiri people in order to continue the occupation and colonization of Kashmir.


Human Rights Abuses


According to a 2018-UN OHCHR report, there are widespread human rights abuses by occupying Indian paramilitary forces. Extrajudicial killings, prolonged arbitrary detentions, unfair trials, enforced disappearances, and inhumane torture have been a norm since the late '80s.

According to the statistics collected by Kashmir Media Services, from January 1989 till September 2021:


As a result of extrajudicial killings by security forces in IOK Kashmir, ​.95,875 Kashmiris have been killed; 22934 women have been widowed, and 107,842 children have become orphaned;


Overall 162,262 people have been arrested;


Most of the people detained are tortured in custody; 7195 people have been killed in Indian security forces' custody;


Security forces use arson as a collective punishment to curb the dissidents. Sometimes whole villages are burned. Arsons have destroyed 110,433 houses and shops;


Indian paramilitary forces have employed rape as repression too to silence the dissidents. From January 1989 to September 2021, 11246 women were raped by Indian security forces.


A 2011 human rights commission inquiry into India's atrocities in Kashmir found 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves containing 2,943 bodies. Many of the corpses were bullet-riddled, decapitated, or mutilated.

These atrocities continue to this day. In September 2021 alone, there were 18 killings, three deaths in security forces' custody, 202 civilians were arrested and 60 civilians were tortured, and nine structures were destroyed.

With a checkpoint, the Indian administered Jammu every couple of kilometers, and Kashmir has become an open-air prison.

According to the UN OHCHR 2018-Report, special laws, like Public Safety Act PSA and Armed Forces Special Powers Act AFSPA, obstruct the course of law, impede accountability and jeopardize the right to remedy for victims of human rights violations.

Enacted in 1990, AFSPA, ‘grants armed forces the broad power to destroy property from which “armed attacks” are “likely” or “attempted” to be made; arrest without warrant; enter and search without warrant; and stop, search, and seize vehicles.’

Notably, no Indian Army troops or police are ever tried for torture, rape, or murder.

Colonization by Military Force

Notably, the Indian administered Kashmir Valley is the most heavily militarized zone in the world. According to estimates, the Indian government has deployed over 600,000 to 900,000 paramilitary and police forces in Kashmir Valley, which is just 135 km in length and 35 kilometers in width, to continue the colonization of Kashmir. By comparison, at the height of the Iraq war, the strength of US troops in Iraq was a little over 166,000.

Human rights groups estimate at least one security person for every eight civilians and roughly seven security personnel for every square kilometer of land in the region. Using the heavy deployment of military force, India continues colonization of Kashmir.


Settler Colonial Agenda

In 2019, India unilaterally and illegally stripped the region of its Constitutional autonomy by abrogating Article 370 and Article 35A of the Indian constitution. Apart from Kashmiri's fundamental rights and UN security council resolutions, it violates the Indian constitution itself.

This abrogation is in defiance of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions numbered 47, 51, 80, 96, 98, 122, and 126, which determine that the final status of the disputed territory "will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations."

The abrogation of Article 370 also meant the dissolution of Article 35A, an important functional part of the former largely left untouched by the central government and which gave the Kashmiri state legislature, and not the central Indian government, the power to define “permanent residents” of the state and afford special rights and privileges, such as settling and purchasing land in Jammu and Kashmir, to them.

In preparation for this legal attack, the Indian-administered Kashmir was flooded with troops, further militarizing the region, and the whole Kashmiri political leadership was detained under Public Safety Act PSA, internet and mobile services were shut down.

In September 2019, over 50 countries in the UN called on India to end human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. Several rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have repeatedly called on India to lift restrictions and release political detainees.

On March 31, 2020, the Indian government introduced the new domicile law. This law is aimed at demographic change and at taking the land and resources from the indigenous population of Jammu and Kashmir. Over the next few months, more than 3.3 million domicile certificates have been issued by the occupying power to its own settler population.

This domicile law violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states "the occupying power shall not transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Notably, Article 1 of the Geneva Convention says that "all High Contracting Parties," which includes Canada, "are required to take action to ensure respect for the Convention" in all circumstances.

Apart from changing the demography of occupied Kashmir, the Indian government is confiscating land and resources through the use of military force.

Global experts fear that abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A is the beginning of a new settler-colonial project in Kashmir, and India will try to change the indigenous Kashmiri majority to a minority by demographic engineering. Experts say that settler colonialism leads to Genocide.

Genocide Alert

On August 15, 2019, Genocide Watch, an independent institution that monitors the early warning signs of the Genocide, issued a Genocide Alert for Kashmir.

According to a statement on their website, the early warning signs, i-e risk factors for a genocidal process, are far advanced in Kashmir. Kashmiri Muslims are locked down, subject to arrest, torture, rape, and murder. No Indian Army troops or police are ever tried for torture, rape, or murder. Muslims are dehumanized by calling them "terrorists," "separatists," "criminals," "insurgents. BJP's social media army spread hatred through fake news against Muslims. Since Modi and the BJP assumed power in India, the Hindutva leaders publicly speak of the "Final Solution" for Kashmir.

It should be noted that Hindutva and Hinduism are two different terms. While Hinduism is a religion that has thousands of years of history of coexistence with the followers of other religions, Hindutva is a neo-Nazi, fascist, and Hindu supremacist ideology that says only Hindus have the right to live in India and talks about Muslim Free India.

Genocide Watch called upon the United Nations and its members to warn India not to commit Genocide in Kashmir.

Tazeen Hasan is a campaign manager and research fellow at Justice For All Canada. She is campaiging for the release of arbitrararily detained prisoners belonging to Indian-administered Kashmir.