Hafsa Kanjwal is an Assistant Professor of South Asian history at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she has taught courses covering the history of the modern world, South Asian history, and Islam in the modern context. Most recently, Kanjwal authored a book titled “Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation.” In a conversation with JURIST’s Deputy Managing Editor for Interviews, Pitasanna Shanmugathas, Professor Kanjwal delves into the profound themes explored in her book, focusing on the persistent dynamics of the colonial occupation of Kashmir.
JURIST: Professor Kanjwal, to the readers of JURIST who might be unaware, can you give a brief history of the territory of Kashmir, including how it came to be occupied and bitterly contested by two regional powers — India and Pakistan?
Hafsa Kanjwal: Kashmir has historically been an independent kingdom, and starting in the 16th century would come to be ruled as a province by the Mughals, Afghans, and Sikh empires. During British colonial rule, the region was sold by the British to the Dogras after the Anglo-Sikh wars. The Dogras, Hindu chiefs from the region of Jammu, had been allied with the British during these wars. The cobbled-together territory that the Dogras obtained or conquered, which included the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh, formed the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1846-1947. As a princely state, the Dogras were Hindu, while over three-quarters of the population was Muslim, many of whom were peasants and artisans that faced high taxation and repression. An anti-Dogra freedom movement emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, parallel to the independence movement in British India. After Partition, the fate of Kashmir remained undecided. A local Muslim uprising in the region of Jammu was quashed brutally by the Dogra Maharaja, in what became known (and erased in history) as the Jammu Massacre. After Pathan Muslims from northwest Pakistan joined their co-religionists in the uprising, the Dogra ruler signed a contentious treaty of accession with the Indian government, which sent its army into Kashmir in late October 1947. India and Pakistan subsequently went to war, and India took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations in 1948. The UN called for a plebiscite to be held in the region (with the options being India or Pakistan), and the region was divided into Indian and Pakistan controlled Kashmir.
Within the part of Kashmir that came under Indian control, the Indian government put in power client regimes that were promised autonomy, or greater self-rule within the Indian union. This was enshrined in Article 370 of the Indian constitution. Yet, India continued to erode the promised autonomy, and denied the people of the region their self-determination. Kashmiris initially resisted through peaceful means to demand a plebiscite, and eventually in the late 1980s regional and international events led to an armed rebellion against Indian rule. This was when Kashmir became immensely militarized (it is still the most militarized region in the world). The Indian army has complete impunity to commit a number of human rights violations such as enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and extrajudicial killings. Daily life under Indian occupation has resulted in immense suffering, and given India’s strategic position in geopolitics and the global economy, Kashmiris have little recourse to the “international community” to have their voices heard.
JURIST: On August 5, 2019, the Indian government unilaterally changed the legal status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. What did the change in legal status entail, and what was the Indian government’s motive to enact the policy?
Kanjwal: I mentioned in the previous response that the Indian government granted Kashmir’s client regimes autonomy through Article 370 of the Indian constitution in 1949. India was supposed to be responsible for the state’s defense, foreign affairs, and communication, with the Kashmir state government responsible for everything else. Yet, within a few years, India began to violate the restricted mandate and ousted Kashmir’s first prime minister, Sheikh Abdullah, for resisting these moves. Over the years, India has used Presidential Orders to further reduce the region’s autonomy. However, another article — Article 35A — was still largely in place. This allowed permanent residency rights of buying land or property, or gaining state employment, to be restricted to Kashmir state subjects. This was something Kashmir’s earlier client regimes had insisted on in order to protect the region’s demography from an onslaught of Indians.
Hindu nationalists in India have always been unhappy with the kind of “autonomy” that parties like the Indian National Congress have given Kashmir. They have sought to remove Article 370 and fully annex Kashmir. And so, once Prime Minister Narendra Modi was up for reelection in 2019, removing Article 370 was one of his campaign promises, and incredibly popular with his base, given the amount of hyper-nationalist consensus around “claiming Kashmir” in India. With the change in legal status, Indian citizens and corporations can come in, buy land, claim domicile, and settle in Kashmir. The army is able to grab land more easily. Kashmiri Muslims face dispossession of their land and resources, and the threat of being made into a “minority.” Although the settler-colonial framework was evident in Kashmir before the revocation, it became a lot more pronounced since 2019.
JURIST: In what ways has the Indian government’s unilateral action to change the legal status of Jammu and Kashmir affected the lives of Kashmiris, and in what ways has it been stifling democratic voices advocating for self-determination?
Kanjwal: There has always been repression of dissident voices in Kashmir, yet since 2019, this repression has reached new heights. All possible modes of dissent – from journalism to human rights organizations- have been completely, and clinically decimated. India leads the world in internet shutdowns — most of which occur in Kashmir. For decades, journalists in Kashmir played an important role in documenting and sharing the news of what was happening in Kashmir to outside observers. Most of them have either been silenced, arrested, or made into government stenographers. Human rights defenders also have been arrested, and their work has been forced to a standstill. The leaders and workers of the major pro-freedom or resistance political parties have either been killed or detained. The government has taken over academic institutions — no research that challenges state narratives on Kashmir is allowed. Social media cites are widely surveilled so you will rarely see Kashmiris saying or posting anything online; if they do, they will get harassed or removed from their jobs. The Indian government has created a new category called “white collar terrorists” – basically anyone who contests its narrative of sovereignty. Anti-terror legislation is used against any type of expression — from cheering for the Pakistan cricket team to demanding the body of a slain relative. People are scared of losing their livelihoods, so they resort to self-censorship. With the legal changes as well, many live in fear of losing their land or property.
JURIST: The stifling of speech expressing support for the self-determination of Kashmir also seems to extend to the citizens of India. For instance, it was recently announced that critically acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy will likely face prosecution on sedition charges over a speech she made in 2010 where she said Kashmir is not an integral part of India. Your thoughts.
Kanjwal: Kashmir has always been the litmus test of Indian democracy. To speak of Kashmir’s desire for freedom from India is rare, and so it is not surprising to me that the state would want to make an “example” out of those that do, like Arundhati Roy. Before, there may have been others who would speak on Kashmir from a “human rights” angle (which itself is a flawed and restrictive framework) but now, even the space for that has diminished significantly.
JURIST: How have foreign nations, as you assert, made “Kashmir a site of global extraction and environmental destruction” and talk about how all of this is happening through the lens of neoliberalism.
Kanjwal: The removal of Article 370 and 35A has permitted Indian and foreign companies to invest in Kashmir. For example, the United Arab Emirates has signed a series of memorandums of agreement with the Indian government to build shopping complexes and real estate. Israel has made deals with the Indian government to develop agricultural projects (which contribute to the greenwashing of both occupations as well as a move away from indigenous forms of agriculture). Foreign investment ensures that India is going to have supporters as it enacts its settler-colonial project, who will be invested in it then, too.
India has long stolen Kashmir’s natural resources, including water, for its own purposes. Even as Kashmir faces massive electricity scarcity, especially during the cold winter months, India is selling Kashmir’s hydro-electric power to Indian states like Rajasthan. Kashmiris have no rights to determine what happens with their natural resources; Indian colonial rule determines how it gets used and gains the profit from it, too.
Climate experts have long been warning about how Kashmir has a fragile ecology prone to the disastrous effects of climate change and global warming, exacerbated by decades of military occupation. Since 2019, the Indian government has given mining rights to Indian corporations to mine for minerals — including lithium, which was recently “discovered” in the Reasi district of Jammu. These corporations do not adhere to any environmental regulations, and have no knowledge of the local ecology, making the region further vulnerable.
JURIST: Prof. Kanjwal, you have asserted that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted India to “bind Kashmiris in golden chains” — talk about what Nehru meant by that and how have successive Indian leaders accomplished this goal.
Kanjwal: Nehru is reported to have told this to Sheikh Abdullah, the first prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Part of what I examine in my book is how the Indian state and Kashmir’s client regimes saw the Kashmir issue as one that could be won over through development, empowerment, and progress — the “golden chains” Nehru is referring to, or what I call the politics of life. Indian and Kashmiri client leaders felt that if Kashmiris could see for themselves the benefits of Indian rule, they would accept Indian sovereignty. This entailed giving the Kashmir state a lot of benefits and grants that were not given to Indian states. Over the decades, the internal contradictions of this approach became evident, and more brute force or militarization was used to bind Kashmiris. However, even today, we see remnants of the “golden chains” as the Indian state continues to propagate development and progress as part of its settler-colonial rule.
JURIST: India has often cited its control over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, as an example of its secularism. Talk about how this notion is problematic and how secularism has been used to entrench Kashmir’s occupation.
Kanjwal: Indian leaders like Nehru basically would say that India’s secular ideals are exemplified through its only Muslim-majority state — Jammu and Kashmir. My book shows how producing a good Kashmiri secular subject was deployed as a mechanism to entrench India’s colonial occupation and criminalize Muslim political aspirations or visions of sovereignty. Kashmiri Muslims were politically useful for India’s “secular politics of inclusion”; but this forcible inclusion is aligned with assimilationist settler-colonial narratives about Kashmir’s history and recent past. The secular was used to both erase and tame Muslim histories of Kashmir. For example, I examine how in film and tourism discourses, Kashmir was presented as a Hindu space and the heart of Indian civilization form the ancient to present times. Kashmir’s Muslim histories or identity were either erased or relegated to stories of “invaders.” Thus, I show how Hindu geographies, imaginaries, and histories were central to these secular discourses, revealing the close relationship between secularism, settler-colonialism, and Hindu majoritarianism.
JURIST: India accuses Pakistan of illegally occupying parts of Kashmir and interfering in its internal affairs. This might be a case of the pot calling the kettle black but to what extent does Pakistan occupy and exercise influence in Kashmir?
Kanjwal: Pakistan’s official state position has always been that it supports the UN resolutions on Kashmir, including the right of the entirety of the J&K princely state (this includes the parts that Pakistan controls) to be able to exercise its self-determination. The issue has always been an international dispute between the two countries, so the language of “internal affairs” really doesn’t apply here.
This is not to say that everything is perfect in the part of Kashmir (Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan) that Pakistan controls, but to draw an equivalence to Indian occupied Kashmir is a fallacy.
Many Kashmiri political formations have sought merger with Pakistan, and so, they have sought Pakistan’s political, military, and diplomatic support. Even the JKLF, a group that seeks Kashmir’s independence, turned to Pakistan for assistance. This is no different from many other anti-colonial struggles around the world, that reach out to states that would be sympathetic to their cause. At times, given the political situation within Pakistan, that support is more forthcoming, while at other times, it is not.
JURIST: Many have suggested that if Kashmir was allowed an independent referendum to determine whether they want to be part of India or Pakistan, Kashmiris would vote overwhelmingly to join Pakistan, and that this is why reason India opposes such a referendum. Do you agree with that characterization of the situation?
Kanjwal: This is certainly why India opposed a referendum in the subsequent years following the UN resolution calling for a plebiscite. However, the Indian government used other reasons to justify their opposition to a referendum, declaring, for example, that Pakistan had not removed its soldiers from Kashmir as part of the UN resolution, or that local elections to the J&K Constituent Assembly in 1951 served as a referendum, and because it had voted to affirm Kashmir’s accession to India, people had accepted Indian rule. With the first justification, both countries were called to remove their troops, but were not able to come to an agreement about the manner and number of troop removal and the authority that would oversee the plebiscite.
With the second, even the UN declared at the time that local elections were not a substitute for a plebiscite. In addition, “local elections” were not actually an exercise in democracy. The 1951 election itself was rigged as the pro-accession National Conference ran unopposed in 73 out of the 75 seats that they “won” at the time. Groups that did not support Kashmir’s accession to India were disqualified from running. This is also why the emphasis on “Pakistan’s troop removal” was a deflection from the Indian government, given that it was already working to entrench Indian rule in Kashmir through its client regimes.
Since then, there have also been political movements in Kashmir seeking a third option — independence — especially from the 1970s and onwards. Given the immense amount of repression in Kashmir today, as well as the decimation of Kashmiri political life, it is difficult to project what would happen in case of a referendum. But, that immense repression itself is a sign that Kashmiris overwhelmingly do not favor India.
JURIST: What would you like readers to take away from your recently released book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation?
Kanjwal: I hope, first and foremost, that readers will begin to think more critically about the binaries between colonialism and postcolonialism, and also about the decolonial moment. In particular, I hope that readers will see how a formerly colonized nation like India, whose anti-colonial movement is idealized, or which was seen as the leader of the “third world,” can also be colonial. I hope that readers will learn to challenge the narratives that nation-states tell about themselves and their histories. I also hope that they will come to a better understanding of the 5 — not just through violence or dispossession, but also through things that have a positive valence, like democracy, secularism, state-building, and development. I hope they will also come to an understanding of how communities amongst the colonized come to be on a spectrum of resistance and collaboration, and some of the political, economic, or historical reasons for this.
JURIST: What steps do you believe need to be taken so that meaningful pressure, through organized resistance, can be exerted onto superpowers like the United States and the United Kingdom to compel India to end its occupation of Kashmir and support a referendum?
Kanjwal: For the longest time, Kashmiris have tried to appeal to the international community — the United Nations, human rights organizations, and governments in the West. While limited lip service was given to human rights concerns, no meaningful steps were taken to center Kashmiri aspirations, especially as India emerged as an important economic power for many countries.
The Israeli genocide of Gaza in the past few months has revealed, fundamentally, the failures of the Western-led international order. I am not sure what possibility occupied and colonized nations like the Palestinians or the Kashmiris have within this order; in fact, they face further subjugation. I think we need to fundamentally rethink global solidarities and organized resistance, as the movement for Palestine is showing us so clearly in this moment.
The US and the UK will not be able to compel India; they are part and parcel of the subjugation of colonized and occupied peoples. I think pressure can only come from regional actors and regional pressures, as well as continued Kashmiri resistance. It will also be interesting to see what happens within India over the next few years, as the Hindu nationalists continue to impose their vision across the country, including in regions that may not buckle so easily to it. The best that those on the outside can do is to hammer away at the immense soft power that India continues to have by educating themselves and their communities, and take actions whenever possible to reject the narrative of normalcy that India projects. It is also important to identify the people and institutions that are tied to the Indian state project or nationalist narrative where ever you are, and organize against them. Even small symbolic actions make a difference—India certainly gets rattled by it — and can provide solace to a people that feel completely abandoned.
