The Indian-controlled Kashmir’s newly elected assembly passed a resolution Wednesday demanding that the central government restore the region's partial autonomy.
Undoing the unilateral action of the Indian parliament, the Kashmir assembly passed this resolution by a majority vote to noisy scenes in the house.
“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 stated.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has 29 members in the 90-seat assembly, rejected the resolution. It requires the approval of Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha, New Delhi’s appointed top administrator in Kashmir.
The National Conference party, which sponsored the resolution, came to power last month in the region’s first vote in a decade and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped it in August 2019.. The Indian government also downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir.
The 2019 move – which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters – was opposed in Kashmir, including by the National Conference, as an assault on the region’s identity and autonomy.
Many fear it would pave the way for demographic changes in the region, which has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media freedoms restricted.
The region remains a “union territory” – directly controlled by New Delhi with India’s Parliament as its main legislator.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Militants in the Indian-controlled Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Most Kashmiris support the goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India claims the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored, a charge denied by Islamabad, while Kashmiris consider it their freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Modi and his powerful home minister, Amit Shah, have repeatedly stated that the region’s statehood will be restored after the election, without specifying a timeline. However, they vowed to block any move aimed at undoing the 2019 changes.
