Elections in occupied Jammu & Kashmir cannot substitute self-determination for its people

August 27, 2024

ISLAMABAD – INDIA’S election commission has announced that polls to elect the legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases on Sept 18, 25 and Oct 1.

The Indian government is obliged to hold these by Sept 30 to comply with the supreme court verdict of December 2023, which had upheld Delhi’s 2019 abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution as “legal and constitutional”. The last assembly elections took place 10 years ago. After the assembly was dissolved in 2018 the state has been under direct rule by Delhi. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wrote another grim chapter in J&K’s tragic history by illegally annexing the state, bifurcating and absorbing it into the Indian union. This was in defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions that prohibit any material change in the state, which is recognised as an international dispute.

Since 2019, the Modi government has carried out far-reaching changes — administrative, electoral, demographic and in domicile rules — to pave the way for elections with the aim of consolidating its 2019 action and claiming this has been ‘accepted’ by the people of J&K with ‘normalcy’ returning there. In fact, last month, before announcement of the election schedule, the government substantially increased the powers of the lieutenant-governor (LG), who is nominated by Delhi, to sharply limit the authority of the next ‘elected’ government. The Modi government has opted to maintain central control knowing that BJP or its proxies cannot win the election and being unwilling to cede authority to anyone else. The LG was given sweeping administrative and security powers — over the police, transfer and postings of civil servants, sanction for