By fiat, the Government of India enacted this Act making Hindi an “official” language of the region.  While Hindi is widely spoken in Northern India and promoted by Hindu supremacists and the BJP, there is no indigenous Hindi-speaking community in the region. At the same time, languages spoken by indigenous people of the region, like Gojri, Pahari and Punjabi, were excluded.  Those excluded languages had previously a recognized official status under law.

Topics: changing the laws in force in occupied territory, international humanitarian law violation, no consent of governed, violation of economic rights, violation of cultural rights, violation of social rights, demographic change, settler colonialism, forced demographic change, colonial domination, disempowerment, marginalization, indigenous rights