By fiat, this order previously inapplicable Indian laws to Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir, including laws that relate to ownership of real property and criminal procedure. This facilitates forced demographic change and settler colonial activity while furthering the colonial domination, dispossession, disempowerment and marginalization of the territory’s indigenous people. It is a major violation of international humanitarian law, human rights, indigenous rights, treaty obligations and constitutional guarantees.
Topics: changing the laws in force in occupied territory, international humanitarian law violation, no consent of governed, violation of economic rights, violation of social rights, demographic change, settler colonialism, land expropriation, forced demographic change, colonial domination, dispossession, disempowerment, marginalization, indigenous rights
By fiat, the Government of India issued an order that imposed the following Indian central government laws to Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir:
This order is part of the elimination of historic protections that safeguarded the land rights of indigenous farmers and were the product of popular, historic land reforms to protect the rights of dispossessed, marginalized and discriminated-against people. Previously, agricultural land could only be transferred to the local government (the government of Jammu and Kashmir) and only be offered as security for land-improvement loans. Now, land can be leased or used for contract farming and owned by corporates and non-local interests, facilitating the dispossession and marginalization of indigenous people and undermining the foundations of the local economy and culture.
October 2020
Originally published