There had been warnings. But the government's decision to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its autonomy came as a shock
WITH BREATHTAKING speed, Narendra Modi’s government has acted to end the special status enjoyed by Indian-adminstered Kashmir. For 70 years this had given the disputed, Muslim-majority state of Jammu & Kashmir a limited degree of autonomy within India. Overnight on August 4th-5th phone lines and internet access in the valley of Kashmir were cut and the leaders of its political parties were put under house arrest.
Mr Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government romped back to power with a towering majority in May. Tensions rose on August 2nd, when the army announced that it had come across a hidden cache of weapons near the pilgrimage route, including Pakistani-made mines and an American sniper rifle. The implication was that a terrorist attack might be imminent. The reaction was even more remarkable.
To absorb Kashmir into India, the architects of the federal constitution and local Kashmiri leaders spent years working out an unwieldy joint legal system. Only in matters of defence, foreign affairs and communications would India enjoy primacy. Everything else would go through Jammu & Kashmir’s own assembly, with a prime minister of its own. It is this clause of the Indian constitution, Article 370, defining this limited form of autonomy, that was gutted on August 5th.
Since 1989 insurgents, some of them backed by Pakistan, and campaigns against them have killed at least 45,000 people in Kashmir. By 1990 nearly all of the valley’s ethnic Kashmiri Hindus had been driven into exile. By the time Mr Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, the conflict had become less intense. Since then it has steadily escalated. This has been Mr Modi’s main justification for abrogating Article 370.
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