advertisement
Video Editor: Deepthi Ramdas
5 August will mark one year since the Modi 2.0 government pulled off an audacious political move by effectively abrogating Article 370 and thereby ending Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under the Constitution.
The months following the move saw J&K downgraded from statehood, bifurcated into two Union Territories, and placed under a strict lockdown, with movement restricted and all communication services blocked.
The moves were challenged in the Supreme Court, which is yet to hear the petitions against the ending of J&K’s special status, and which despite holding that aspects of the restrictions under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) were illegal, failed to take any action against the government.
Co-chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur and former member of the Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir Radha Kumar, the report released days short of the one-year anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370 details the trauma of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Quint spoke to Radha Kumar as well as other key members of the Forum, Justice AP Shah (former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court) and Enakshi Ganguly (co-founder of the Haq Centre for Child Rights) about their findings.
A DEATH BLOW TO PRESS FREEDOM
“J&K media were among the first to bear the brunt of the August 2019 lockdown,” explained Justice Shah, pointing out that at first the media were unable to report at all due to the lockdown and communications blackout.
Even after operations resumed, however, the government took steps to censor anything critical of the government line, and the continuing restriction on 4G, and frequent internet shutdowns have continued to make things difficult for them.
In the midst of this has now come the ‘New Media Policy’, which Justice Shah describes as follows:
Noting that this is the first time since the Emergency that such a media policy has been adopted by the government, he also warned of how this not only creates a “climate of fear” among journalists, but also creates conditions for FIRs against those who don’t toe the government line.
A WORSE IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE ACCESS THAN THE COVID LOCKDOWN
Radha Kumar, one of the foremost experts on conflict areas and peace-building, discussed how limited access to healthcare was during the first four-month lockdown imposed in the aftermath of the abrogation.
During the lockdown, she explains:
SUPREME COURT FAILS TO PROTECT LIBERTY OF PEOPLE OF J&K
Justice AP Shah also took exception to the Supreme Court’s failure to take up the habeas corpus petitions brought before it, instead inserting baseless conditions as in the Tarigami case, or just not hearing the cases, which followed thousands of people being detained without committing any offence.
He found it strange that the courts were willing to be mute spectators to this trampling of the liberty of the people of J&K, and cautioned that if this was how rights were going to be ignored, the Constitution would remain “a mirage.”
WORRYING IMPACT ON CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH
Enakshi Ganguly, child rights expert, explained that in addition to the obvious human rights violations when it came to detention of children in J&K, some just nine years old, the impact of it on the mental health of all children was even more worrying, thanks to the disruptions created in their lives – which are continuing now with the COVID-19 pandemic as well.
Ganguly recommends that this needs to be addressed immediately, perhaps by looking at an order by the apex court on a petition about child rights in J&K:
IMPACT ON BUSINESSES AND INDUSTRIES
Radha Kumar also warns that there have been severe losses to business and industry in J&K ever since the abrogation of Article 370, thanks to the lockdowns and the internet restrictions, which has also led to an incredibly high unemployment rate.
In Kashmir alone, the losses are estimated to be around Rs 17,000 crore during the first four months of the lockdown – adding Jammu to the mix doubles this figure. While IT-reliant industries were an obvious victim, the lockdown didn’t spare traditional powerhouses of the J&K economy either, with tourism suffering a major blow, as she explains:
Kumar also notes that despite all these losses, the government had not allocated any compensation for these losses, imposed by the Centre on the people of J&K without their consent, in the Budget presented in March.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)