Altaf Hussain Wani
The recent report by the Concerned Citizens’ Group (CCG) on their eleventh visit to Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir is not merely an observation; it is a chilling testament to a profound and deliberate betrayal. It paints a picture not of integration, but of a suffocating occupation, where the promises of democracy, dignity, and self-determination have been systematically shredded, leaving behind a populace simmering in “sullen silence” on the brink of eruption.
For decades, the people of Kashmir were told their future would be decided by the democratic principle enshrined in UN Security Council Resolutions 47 and 80, 122, 98 etc : a free and impartial plebiscite to determine their political destiny. Indian leaders, from Nehru onwards, stood on the global stage and promised that people of Kashmir will decide their political future through a free and fair of pelbisite under UN auspices. Today, that promise is a ghost, haunting the corridors of power in New Delhi, invoked only to be mocked by the reality on the ground. The Indian state has moved from a rhetoric of promise to a policy of punitive control.
The CCG report meticulously documents the architecture of this control. The denial of statehood is not an administrative oversight; it is the cornerstone of a colonial-style diarchy. The elected Chief Minister labels himself “half a CM,” a powerless figurehead presiding over a “toothless” government. Real power rests with the unelected Lieutenant Governor, a viceroy in all but name, controlling law, order, and bureaucracy. This is not democracy; it is a sophisticated political disenfranchisement designed to ensure that Kashmiri voices can never truly govern Kashmiri land. The Indian Supreme Court’s own observation that the demotion to Union Territory status was “unconstitutional” only underscores the illegitimacy of this arrangement.
This political neutering is compounded by a brutal psychological and cultural assault. The report speaks of a “deep sense of loss—of identity, sub-identity, dignity and honour” following the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 and 35A. This was not a legal adjustment; it was an act of demographic and political conquest, stripping away the last vestiges of constitutional recognition of Kashmir’s unique status. When a retired professor laments there is “no protection for Kashmiri identity today,” he speaks for a nation fearing cultural extinction. The branding of cultural events as “invasion” and the Indian national media’s vilification of all Kashmiris reveal a project aimed at erasing a distinct identity and enforcing a homogenized, majoritarian idea of India.
The economic stranglehold tightens the noose. The devastation of tourism post-Pahalgam, the deliberate policy of auctioning hotel lands to dispossess local entrepreneurs, and the crippling of the horticulture sector through infrastructure neglect and unfair policies are not accidents. They are tools of collective punishment and economic disempowerment. As one civil society member noted, economic disempowerment is a key facet of the current repression. The new reservation policy, a cynical game of social engineering that pits community against community and region against region, is a “time-bomb” designed to fracture Kashmiri society from within, diverting its energy from political resistance to internal squabbles.
Most damning is the climate of fear. The report details a media landscape under siege—journalists harassed, credentials revoked, reports censored. Civil society is “silenced,” with intellectuals, doctors, and even religious leaders like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq facing relentless surveillance and intimidation. The space for dissent has been surgically removed. This is not the “normalcy” India boasts of; it is the quiet of a graveyard, where, as a senior editor warns, the silence is “unsustainable” and will explode with dangerous consequences.
The Indian state’s response to any challenge is to further militarize and securitize. Operation Sindoor and the constant anti-Pakistan rhetoric are used to justify this perpetual lockdown, branding any demand for rights as terrorism. The youth, alienated and hopeless, are indeed turning to drugs or radicalization—a direct and tragic outcome of a policy that offers them no future, no dignity, and no peaceful avenue for political expression.
The CCG’s findings are a stark revelation: the Indian government is not interested in dialogue, reconciliation, or honoring its own past promises. It is engaged in a project of subjugation. The “appropriate time” for statehood never comes. The promise of a plebiscite is buried under the rhetoric of territorial integrity. The world watches, complicit in its silence, as a people are stripped of their rights, their economy, and their voice.
The warning from the ground is clear: “Kuch bada hone wala hai” (something big is going to happen). This is not a threat, but a desperate prophecy from a people pushed to the wall. The volcano of suppressed anger is real. The trigger will come. When it does, the Indian state will have only its own oppressive policies to blame. The path forward is not through more battalions or more bureaucratic control, but through the only just solution that has ever been on the table: respecting the right of the Kashmiri people to determine their own future, as was promised to them and to the world. Until then, the silence will remain, heavy with a grief and a rage that will, inevitably, find its voice.
Writer is Chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations and can be reached:- saleeemwani@hotmail.com, X:- @sultan1913