Jehangir Ali 
Five years ago, the Narendra Modi-led Union government read down Article 370, taking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and statehood, and splitting it into two Union Territories on August 5, 2019. The past five years have seen sweeping changes, glaring rights abuses and big developments in the region. This series looks at where J&K was and where it is now, five years after the move.
New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir’s economy has fallen backwards after the Bhartiya Janta Party-led (BJP-led) Union government read down Article 370 in 2019 and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, according to a new report.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The annual report by ‘The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir’ (TFHRJK) states that Jammu and Kashmir’s net state domestic product (NSDP) registered annual growth of 13.28% between April 2015 and March 2019 which slumped to 8.73% after 2019 when J&K was demoted into a Union Territory.
NSDP is a monetary measure of the economic output produced within the boundaries of a state and a key indicator of its economic health.
“The per capita NSDP growth rate was 12.31% between April 2015 and March 2019 but it was 8.41% between April 2019-March 2024,” the TFHRJK report said, adding that Jammu and Kashmir’s economy is yet to recover to its pre-2019 level.
The disclosure comes days after the parliament was informed during the presentation of J&K’s latest budget that the Union Territory’s debt had ballooned to Rs 1,12,797 crore in 2022-23, with liabilities tripling in a decade since the BJP took over at the Center.
The TFHRJK report has been prepared by an informal forum of prominent citizens led by Gopal Pillai, former Union home secretary, and Radha Kumar, former Kashmir interlocutor.
The forum was set up in 2019 to monitor the human rights situation in J&K after the erstwhile state was stripped of its special status followed by an unprecedented communication blackout and security lockdown which lasted several months.
The forum noted that Jammu and Kashmir was doing well economically before 2019, when it was not a Union Territory, even though there were “loss years” of 2016-2017 (post Burhan Wani agitation) and 2019 (Article 370 revocation) during that period.
“The pre-2019 NSDP and per capita NSDP growth rates were better than post-2019, the former at 15.61% against 13.79%, and the latter at 14.63% against 12.97%,” the report said.
Amid the prevailing political uncertainty in J&K, the report noted that there are fears that the Central government could use the upsurge in militant attacks in Jammu as a pretext to extend the September 30 deadline set by the Supreme Court for the assembly election.
Such a move would be “counterproductive” and it “will increase alienation and might play into the hands of spoilers,” the forum said in its report.
The forum has recommended the constitution of “independent election monitors” for providing a “level playing field for all candidates” and immediate assembly election in J&K.
Also read: Divided in their Politics, But Jammu and Kashmir Are United in Yearning for Statehood, Polls
The 72-page report, which has been released on the fifth anniversary of J&K’s demotion into two Union Territories, said that there are “worrying indications of pre-emptive actions to limit an elected administration’s capacity to govern even before legislative assembly elections are held” in the Union Territory.
This July 12, the Union government, through an executive notification, extended the scope of the J&K lieutenant governor’s powers who will effectively have the final say in the functioning of the All India Service cadre, the J&K Police and the senior bureaucracy in the Union Territory besides other critical departments.
“The new administrative rules… (can set up) a potential standoff between the elected administration on one side, and a nominated authority, civil and police services on the other, as it happened in Delhi,” the forum cautioned.
The forum has noted that the new rules shadow the prospects of the restoration of J&K’s statehood. “Up until now, it was assumed that (the) restoration of (J&K’s) statehood meant restoration of full statehood. The new rules suggest the Union administration is contemplating a Delhi-type hybrid instead.”
Calling for a rollback, the forum warned that the new rules “contravene Supreme Court’s judgement” and could “obstruct … an elected administration’s ability to fulfil its duties to the people as intended by the Indian Constitution.”
“Whether they (new rules) can be issued by a simple statute instead of constitutional amendment is questionable,” the report pointed out, urging the government to come out with a timeline on the restoration of J&K’s statehood.
“Alongside, it should be clarified that this will be full statehood, not the envisaged hybrid. If Article 3 does not permit demotion to a Union Territory, it is unlikely to permit demotion to a hybrid Union Territory-state,” the forum said.
The forum also highlighted that that the Union finance ministry’s 20% cut in import duties on walnuts and apples hit Kashmiri farmers badly who struggled to compete with the lower-priced walnut varieties from China, Turkey and the United States.
“Similarly, the ministry’s slashing of the import duty on Washington apples from 70 to 50% has constituted a further setback for apple growers. Kashmiri saffron has also suffered due to the tax-free import of Iranian saffron, leading to a large reduction in Kashmiri saffron production,” the report said.
Since 2018 when the BJP took control of J&K, the Union government claimed to have funnelled thousands of crores of rupees into the Union Territory for better infrastructure and job creation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said that funds won’t be a constraint for J&K as long as the BJP remained in power at the Centre.
The forum, however, said that unemployment was higher in J&K than the national average. “At 10.7% for April 2023-March 2024, unemployment for all ages is four percentage points higher than the all-India average of 6.6%; youth unemployment is as high as 18.3%,” the report stated, adding that suicide rate has jumped from 2.10 per 100,000 in 2020 to 2.40 in 2023-2024.
Referring to the crackdown on journalists in Kashmir since 2019, the forum called for the rollback of the ‘draconian’ New Media Policy, which was notified by the J&K administration in 2020.
It also urged the government to “establish a safe environment for the media” while demanding an end to the “raids” on journalists and editors.
On the issue of human rights, the report has called for an end to the misuse of anti-terrorism laws such as the UAPA and the J&K Public Safety Act to “suppress dissent” in J&K with an “administrative order” that restricts the use of these laws, punishes the guilty and compensates the victims of “wrongful arrests”.
On the murder in army custody of three Poonch civilians last year, the forum called for criminal and civil action against the police, armed forces and paramilitary forces convicted in such cases. The forum also urged the government to release the reports on “action taken” in recent such cases.
The forum also demanded the release of all political detainees in preventive detention since August 4, 2019 and their speedy trial, repeal of the Public Safety Act (PSA) and other preventive detention laws and dropping of “unsubstantiated charges” under anti-terror and prevention detention legislations against students, lawyers, political leaders, journalists and activists.
This is the forum’s fourth annual report on civil security, economic and human development, elections and ‘ongoing rights violations’ in Jammu and Kashmir with a chapter dedicated to recommendations.
The forum expressed concern over the continuing targeted attacks in Jammu and Kashmir on Kashmiri Pandits and migrant workers from both Hindu and Muslim communities, the “unacceptably high” rate of casualties in armed forces in the recent past and the shattering of “decades of peace” in the Jammu region.
The report also noted that the crimes against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes increased in J&K from 0.20 per 100,000 in 2020-2021 to 1.20 in 2023-2024, and 0 per 100,000 to 0.10, respectively.
Also read: As Article 370 Abrogation Nears Fifth Anniversary, Nobody’s Celebrating
In its ‘findings’, the forum has sought to punch holes in the UNDP-NITI Aayog’s 2023-2024 report on India’s performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in which J&K figured with a score of 74, which was slightly higher than the national average.
“The report gives Jammu and Kashmir 81 on SDG-16 – peace, justice and strong institutions – for 2023-2024, up from 69 in the base year of 2018. But it has chosen only the first of four indicators listed to measure progress – murders per 100,000 of the population – while omitting data on the number of conflict-related deaths or the proportion of people who feel safe walking around,” the report pointed out.
The report states that the establishment of village defence guards and the reinstatement of special police officers have increased the “vulnerability of employees as well as the public to acts of violence” and these decisions must be rolled back.
Read more from the series here.