By AFP - Agence France Presse
India's advancing infrastructure swallows up Kashmiri farmers' land
By Parvaiz BUKHARI
Farmers in Indian-administered Kashmir say a major government infrastructure initiative is taking over their most cherished land, fearing it is the spearhead of an effort to “Hinduize” the disputed Muslim-majority territory.
Musadiq Hussain said the police “destroyed” his rice plantation when a large part of his smallholding was expropriated to make way for a four-lane, 60-kilometer highway around the main city of Srinagar.
“It has affected my sense of who I am and my self-respect,” said 41-year-old Hussain, adding that he can no longer grow enough rice and vegetables to feed his family.
“I feel like my mind is shrinking, and so is my land.”
Hussain's land was taken in 2018, but the process has intensified recently.
Along with other highways and railroads, the road is also swallowing up areas of orchards prized for their almonds, apples, and other fruits in the Himalayan region, which has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947.
The Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which imposed direct rule in 2019, claims that the multi-billion dollar initiative is bringing about a “new era of peace” and “unprecedented development”.
New Delhi says it will boost trade and tourism, as well as strengthen military access throughout rebel-held territory and to strategic border zones with Pakistan and China.
- 'Colonial land grab by settlers'
The authorities say it is forbidden to build within 500 meters of either side of the highway around Srinagar.
However, last year, the authorities unveiled plans to build more than 20 “satellite towns” along the route, with drawings showing large-scale developments that were dubbed the “Pearl in Paradise”.
Kashmiri political parties are demanding to know who the housing is intended for, accusing Modi's government of wanting to change the demographic makeup of Kashmir to create a Hindu majority - something the authorities won't comment on.
Goldie Osuri, who studies Indian policies in Kashmir at the University of Warwick in Britain, uses a phrase often associated with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to describe the situation: a “colonial appropriation of land by settlers”.
“Kashmiri farmers (...) are being dispossessed of their land and livelihoods in the name of Indian development as 'a gift' to Kashmir,” Osuri told AFP.
She called the project an attempt to “‘Hinduize’ Kashmir at the expense of Kashmiri Muslims”.
After New Delhi ended Kashmir's constitutionally enshrined partial autonomy in 2019, land laws also changed.
This allowed all Indians to buy land in Kashmir for the first time.
Thousands of acres of “state land” were added to the registers to attract outside business.
“This is a land grab in plain sight,” said Waheed Ur Rehman Para, a member of the local Kashmir assembly.
Many say this has undermined previous land reforms that granted ownership or cultivation rights to hundreds of thousands of people.
This worries Kashmiri leaders.
“We want this land to remain ours,” said Modi critic Omar Abdullah, Kashmir's chief minister, at a rally last month. “Without it, what do we possess?”
But Siddiq Wahid, a historian at India's Shiv Nadar University, said the region's political parties showed “no intention of uniting, only of tearing each other down”.
“In this lazy politics lies the main concern for all of us,” he said.
- 'Where will we go?
More than half a million Indian soldiers are in Indian-administered Kashmir, fighting rebels who want independence or to become part of Pakistan.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 1989 in the territory of around 12 million people.
The police have also confiscated land and property - including orchards, commercial buildings, and homes - from people with alleged links to rebel groups.
The exact figures for the total area requisitioned are not public. Landowners say the compensation offered is sometimes too low, and some are suing the government.
In December, government authorities ordered the transfer of more than 600 acres (240 hectares) of orchards to a new university campus of the National Institute of Technology.
This provoked angry protests from hundreds of families who depended on the almond and apple trees.
Elsewhere, in the village of Dirhama, farmers are furious that their land has been requisitioned for the construction of a new train station, which will serve as a 40-kilometer railroad to an important Hindu shrine.
Standing in a field as the snow fell, apple farmer Mohammad Ramzan said there was no room for a railway line.
“Where is the space? We all have our little pieces of land. Where will we go?” asked the 78-year-old.
The plan hit a nerve in Kashmir, where land and identity are deeply intertwined.
“This self-sufficiency has ensured Kashmir's survival despite decades of curfews, strikes, and uprisings,” said Osuri.
Mohammad Shafi, a 61-year-old farmer, asked: “What good is this development if my family will be left without land?”
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