The controversy erupted after the Election Commission of India announced an expansion of voting rights earlier this month. Until now, only permanent residents had been entitled to vote in assembly polls. But the federally appointed electoral officer for the region in the southern city of Jammu estimated that a revision to the electoral rolls could add about 2.5 million more voters to the 7.6 million existing registrants.
“An employee, a student, a labourer or anyone from outside who is living ordinarily in J-K can enlist his or her name in the voting list,” the officer said at the time.
The change would allow soldiers stationed in the Muslim-majority region to register as well. There are believed to be around 600,000 Indian military and paramilitary personnel posted there, most of whom are non-Muslims. In the last census, in 2011, the region was home to about 12.5 million people, with Muslims comprising 68.31% and Hindus 28.43%.
“The recent move is to ensure the entire country follows the same election rules,” said Kavinder Gupta, a senior leader in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former deputy chief minister of the region. “We have tens of thousands of army and paramilitary personnel posted in the region and they have the right to vote in the region’s elections.”
In the past, outsiders were prohibited from not only voting but also buying property or taking local government jobs, though this changed in August 2019, when Modi’s BJP government stripped the region of these exclusive rights by revoking Article 370 of the constitution.
Kashmir is a disputed territory between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the Himalayan region in its entirety and have fought three wars over it. Each nation holds parts of the area, and a small portion to the east is under Chinese control. A popular armed rebellion in the Indian-administered portion has been challenging New Delhi since the 1990s, demanding either a merger with Pakistan or the creation of an independent state.
Gupta termed the voting decision as a historic and fitting reply to Pakistan and its supporters in the region. Critics, meanwhile, are condemning it and eyeing plans to challenge it.
“This move is the final nail in the coffin of electoral democracy in J&K,” said Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of the region, who ran a coalition government along with the BJP from 2016 to 2018 but was temporarily detained after the revocation of Kashmir’s special status. She and others argue the government is taking an ethnic supremacy approach and fear the installation of a local “fascist ruler.”
Allegations of India employing similar electoral tactics go back to 1975, before the BJP was founded, when the country annexed the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim. In Kashmir, another former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, suggested the move could backfire someday.
“Is the BJP so insecure about support from genuine voters [of Kashmir] that it needs to import temporary voters to win seats?” said Abdullah, who also served as a federal minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in New Delhi from the late 1990s to 2004. “None of these things will help the BJP when the people of J&K are given a chance to exercise their franchise.”
Amid the uproar, the local administration issued a clarification saying the decision was being “misrepresented,” but this does not appear to have assuaged concerns about outsiders voting.
This past Monday, political parties that are normally pro-New Delhi – led by a sitting member of the Indian parliament from Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah – held a meeting in Srinagar to discuss strategies against the government’s move. They resolved to call a meeting of leaders of all national parties in September to explain their concerns. They are also considering taking the matter to the Supreme Court.
The BJP insists its policies in the region are for the benefit of ordinary Kashmiris. But another former minister from the region, Sajad Lone, a separatist turned BJP ally, underscored that the announcement had heightened fears of demographic change. “I am not scared of the law but those implementing the law,” he said.
In any case, the region is currently run by a federally appointed governor. No elections have been held since the last elected government fell apart after the BJP withdrew its support in 2018.
Kashmiri political leaders have been demanding early polls but with the slew of new laws favouring the BJP, many see a vote as increasingly pointless.
“These military personnel and non-locals will be used in the elections to decide future governments which would be favourable to them,” said Rayees Ahmed, a local student. “The BJP is brazenly attempting to shrink rights of a majority community into a minority.”