The Indian government has granted the right to vote in Kashmir to almost 7 lakh Indian soldiers stationed there.
The decision by India to grant voting privileges to any Indian resident temporarily residing in Indian-administrated Kashmir has sparked outrage and fears that the Hindu nationalist government will make yet another attempt to alter the demographics of its sole area with a Muslim majority.
The decision, which was made public on Wednesday by the top electoral official of the federally administered territory, is anticipated to boost the number of voters by a staggering 30 percent, from the current 7.6 million to roughly 2.5 million additional voters.
Indians, mostly Indian military personnel, employees of the public and private sectors, as well as migratory workers, would make up the new voters.
Following the repeal of Article 370, all individuals who had not previously registered to vote are now able to do so, according to Hirdesh Kumar, who also noted that the laws of the Representation of the People Act, which governs how elections are conducted in India, also apply to the area.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted the disputed region, which is also claimed by neighbouring Pakistan, limited autonomy, guaranteed that voting rights in Kashmir, which is controlled by India, were only open to its permanent residents until August 2019. The ordinance forbade Indians from outside the area from residing there permanently, from purchasing land, and from working in local administration.
On August 5 of that year, two months after winning a reelection by a landslide, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration unilaterally removed the region’s special status by dissolving the decades-old law and dividing it into the two federally controlled territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
It was just the first in a string of legislation and actions by the government, according to locals, that try to stifle a movement for either independence or fusion with Pakistan. According to Kashmiris, the repeal of Article 370 and the ensuing legal actions are intended to alter the region’s demographics.
Since then, the Indian government has passed a contentious law on domicile that gives citizenship to all Indians who have lived in the area for more than 15 years. Additionally, new legislation was passed that makes all Indian citizens eligible to purchase land in the area.
According to Kumar, registering to vote in Indian-administrated Kashmir does not require an Indian citizen to have a domicile certificate or to be a permanent resident.
Any worker, student, labourer, or other person typically staying in Jammu and Kashmir is now eligible to register as a voter, he said.
Muslims make up 68.31% of the 12.5 million people that live in Kashmir under Indian administration, and Hindus make up 28.43%, according to the 2011 census. Ninety-seven percent of these inhabitants, or more than seven million people, reside in the valley.
