India’s infrastructure push engulfs Kashmir farmers’ land, says AFP report

February 18, 2025Last Updated: February 18, 2025

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Srinagar: Farmers in Indian illeglly occupied Jammu and Kashmir say a major government infrastructure drive is taking their deeply cherished land, fearing it spearheads a push to “Hinduise” the disputed Muslim-majority territory, reported Agence France-Presse in its latest report.

According to Kashmir Media Service, the report citing a local farmer, Musadiq Hussain as having said that police “destroyed” his rice crop when a large chunk of his smallholding was expropriated to make way for a four-lane, 60-kilometre (40-mile) highway around the key city of Srinagar.

“It has affected my sense of who I am and my self-respect,” said 41-year-old Hussain, adding he can no longer can grow enough rice and vegetables to feed his family.

“I feel like my mind is shrinking, just like my land.”

Hussain’s land was taken in 2018 but the process has intensified in recent years.

The road, along with other highways and railways, is also swallowing swathes of orchards prized for their almonds, apples and other fruit in the Himalayan region, split between India and Pakistan since 1947.

Last year, authorities unveiled plans to build more than 20 “satellite townships” along the route, with drawings showing highrise developments it called a “Pearl in the Paradise”.
Kashmiri political parties are demanding to know who the housing is for, accusing Modi government of wanting to change Kashmir’s demographic makeup to create a Hindu majority.

Goldie Osuri, who studies Indian policies in Kashmir at Britain’s University of Warwick, uses a phrase often associated with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank to describe the situation: a “settler colonial land grab”.

“Kashmiri farmers… are being dispossessed of their land and livelihoods in the name of Indian development as ‘a gift’ for Kashmir,” Osuri told the France based news agency.

She called the project a bid to “‘Hinduise’ Kashmir at the expense of Kashmiri Muslims”.

After New Delhi ended Kashmir’s special status in 2019, land laws also changed.That allowed all Indians to buy land in Kashmir for the first time.

Thousands of acres of “state lands” were added to registers to attract outside businesses. “This is a land grab in plain sight,” said Waheed Ur Rehman Para, a member of Kashmir’s local assembly.

Many say that has undermined previous land reforms that granted ownership or farming rights to hundreds of thousands of people.

“We want this land to remain ours”, Modi critic Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s chief minister, told a rally last month. “Without it, what do we truly possess?”

Musadiq Hussain said that police ‘destroyed’ his rice crop when a large chunk of his smallholding was expropriated to make way for a highway.

Elsewhere, in the village of Dirhama, farmers are angry at their land being requisitioned for a new train station, serving a 40-kilometre railway to an important Hindu shrine.

Standing in a field as snow fell, apple farmer Mohammad Ramzan said there was no room for a railway line.

“Where is the space? We all have our small patches of land. Where will we go?” asked the 78-year-old. The plan has struck a nerve in Kashmir, where land and identity are deeply intertwined.

Mohammad Shafi, a 61-year-old farmer, asked: “What is this development for when my family will be landless?”