Thursday, December 2, 2021

Why Are Muslim Births in Sharp Decline in Indian Occupied Kashmir?

Muslim women's fertility rate in Indian Occupied Kashmir has sharply declined to just 1.4, far below the replacement level of 2.1, according to India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5).  Is this the result of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's oppression in Kashmir? Is it because of fewer Muslim young men in the occupied territory? Is it part of the Hindu Nationalist policy to change the demographics of Kashmir? Is it slow genocide

Kashmiris Demanding Azadi From India


Just over a week ago, India’s health ministry revealed that the country’s total fertility rate (TFR)—the average number of children that an Indian woman can expect to give birth to in her lifetime—has fallen below 2.1, which is to say below the “replacement” level at which births equal deaths. Muslim majority territory of Kashmir under Indian military occupation saw the biggest decline to just 1.4, the lowest TFR  reported by NFS-5. Hindu Nationalist politicians, including Prime Minister Modi, have rallied their Hindu voters by claiming that Muslims have too many babies. Legislation aimed at Muslims is being proposed to limit the size of families in the state of Uttar Pradesh led by Hindu priest Yogi Adityanath.  


India's Birth Rate Decline. Source: The Economist

The birth rates in Mr. Modi's BJP party's power base in the Hindi heartland continue to be much higher than those in the southern states. What this means is that the bulk of India's future voters and its workforce will continue to come mainly from the poor, less educated northern states. In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi froze the allocation of seats among India's states. As a result of this freeze, a member of parliament from Kerala now represents some 1.8 million voters while one from Uttar Pradesh represents nearly 3 million, according to a report in The Economist magazine. When the freeze on redistricting is lifted some time in the next decade, these disparities will mean that the northern states will have far more political power in the Union than they do now. 

The Indian military has kept Occupied Kashmir under extended and inhumane lockdown to prevent protests against New Delhi's reckless decision to scrap Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. The lockdown is being enforced by over 700,000 Indian troops deployed in Jammu and Kashmir.  People have been kept imprisoned in their homes for months. They were deprived of Internet, telephone or television for extended periods.  Delhi rules the region under Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the same law that was created and used by the British colonial power to try and crush Gandhi's Quit India movement. Thousands have died and more than 6,221 people received pellet gun injuries in the seven months following the July 2016 killing of Burhan Wani, according to the Jammu and Kashmir government as reported by The New Humanitarian.  Mr. Modi's actions are not only an affront to the people of Jammu and Kashmir but also in clear violation of India's international and bilateral obligations under United Nations charter and the Simla Accord.   It is time for all sane Indians and the rest of the world to wake up to the serious threats posed to peace in South Asia region and the wider world by Mr. Modi's fascist Hindutva project.

7 comments:

Riaz Haq said...

#US Senate Held Hearing To Consider LA Mayor Eric Garcetti's Nomination for #Ambassador to #India. Garcetti highlighted his masters degree in #HumanRights and International Law and said human rights would be a “core piece” of his engagement with India. https://cbsloc.al/3sagRVx#.YblLAcvfBFo.twitter


“Few nations are more vital to the future of American security and prosperity than India,” Garcetti told the committee during his opening statements.

Garcetti added that he first traveled to India with his parents as a teenager, then again in 1990 as a guest of Ambassador William Clark Jr., whose son was Garcetti’s college roommate. He said the trip inspired him to study Hindi and Urdu in college, as well as Indian and Cultural Religious History.

“Today the fundamental nature of that strategic partnership is firmly ingrained here in Washington and in New Delhi,” the mayor said. “If confirmed, I will endeavor to advance our ambitious bilateral partnership united by a free and open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

“Even with a pandemic, our bilateral trade this year is expected to break a record, and if confirmed, I intend to champion an ambitious economic partnership with India to reduce market barriers, to bolster free trade and to generate good, middle-class American jobs,” Garcetti added.

Highlighting his experience combating climate change in Los Angeles, which includes putting the city on a track to reach 100% renewable energy by 2035, Garcetti said he would work with India on a “similarly bold approach to promoting green energy.”

---
The White House’s July announcement about the nomination cited Garcetti’s responsibilities overseeing the Western Hemisphere’s busiest container port, the Port of Los Angeles; the largest municipal utility in the country, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; one of the busiest airports, Los Angeles International Airport; and his time as chair of the second-busiest transit agency, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The White House also credited Garcetti with leading the city’s successful bid to host the 2028 Olympics and co-founding Climate Mayors, a coalition of 400 U.S. mayors that adopted the Paris Climate agreement.

Garcetti also served as national co-chair of Biden’s presidential campaign.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, asked Garcetti about accusations of sexual harassment and a culture of silence within his office, which Garcetti claims he has not witnessed. His former adviser, Rick Jacobs, has been accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles Police Department officer.

The officer claims Garcetti witnessed the misconduct but turned a blind eye to it. Garcetti has denied the allegation.

Garcetti responded to Shaheen, saying he has a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual harassment.

“I want to say unequivocally that I never witnessed, nor was it brought to my attention, that behavior that has been alleged. And I also want to assure you that if it had been, I would have immediately taken action to stop that,” Garcetti said.

Naomi Seligman, a former director of communications for Garcetti who says she was forcibly kissed by Jacobs and that Garcetti knew about Jacobs’ alleged pattern of harassment, tweeted at Shaheen after the hearing:

“What about the victims and our sworn testimony on the abuse we endured and that (Garcetti) witnessed and enabled? We are greatly disappointed. Human rights matter, here and around the world. #metoo.”

--
Several senators asked Garcetti how he would work to advance human rights in India, noting a recent citizenship amendment that shortens the citizenship process for non-Muslim people from three neighboring countries. Garcetti highlighted his masters degree in Human Rights and International Law and said human rights would be a “core piece” of his engagement with India.

Riaz Haq said...

As #Hindu Extremists Call for Killing of #Muslims, #India’s Leaders Keep Silent. Hundreds of right-wing Hindu activists and monks swore to turn India, constitutionally a secular republic, into a Hindu nation, even if doing so required dying and killing. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/world/asia/hindu-extremists-india-muslims.html?smid=tw-share

“If 100 of us are ready to kill two million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a leader of Hindu Mahasabha, a group that espouses militant Hindu nationalism, referring to the country’s Muslims. “Be ready to kill and go to jail.”

Even by the standards of the rising anti-Muslim fury in India, the three-day conference in the city of Haridwar, 150 miles north of New Delhi, produced the most blatant and alarming call for violence in recent years.

The crowded auditorium, where right-wing Hindu monks called for other Hindus to arm themselves and kill Muslims, included influential religious leaders with close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing party, and even some members of the party.

Videos of the event have spread widely on social media in India this week. Yet Mr. Modi has maintained a characteristic silence that analysts say can be interpreted by his most extreme supporters as a tacit signal of protection.

The police, who readily jail rights activists and comedians on charges lacking evidence, have been slow to take action. Even opposition political groups have been restrained in their response, an indication of the degree to which right-wing Hindu nationalism has gripped the country since Mr. Modi came to office in 2014.


The inflammatory remarks come as some states governed by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are holding elections, including in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where the conference was held. Mr. Modi was busy campaigning this week in Uttar Pradesh for Yogi Adityanath, his hard-line protégé and the state’s chief minister, who has frequently fanned anti-Muslim hatred.

Multiple episodes of violence against Muslims have been reported during election season, including attacks by mobs trying to close businesses owned by Muslims.

“There are virtually only a handful of political leaders left who even mention the need to preserve India’s secularism,” said Gilles Verniers, a professor of political science at Ashoka University near New Delhi. “The B.J.P. may face increasing political challenges, but it has won its cultural war, with lasting effects on India’s democracy, and on India’s largest minority.”

Right-wing Hindu nationalists have preached violence online for years, but the violence has recently spilled onto the streets. Muslim fruit sellers have been beaten and their earnings snatched away after being accused of luring Hindu women into marriage to convert them. Muslim activists have been threatened with prosecution under an antiterrorism law that has been scrutinized by courts.

Riaz Haq said...

#China's #birth rate in alarming decline. Could it impact #Chinese #economic growth rate? Could China get old before it gets rich? Is #India better placed than China in terms of #demographics? #population #economy #fertility https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3171867/china-india-population-debate-comes-down-quantity-vs


A social media post in early March claiming that India had become the world’s most populous country created a storm in China.
The post claimed India’s population had hit 1.415 billion and was widely shared on social media, adding to rocky relations between Beijing and New Delhi and concerns over domestic growth hurdles in China, while also fuelling discussions about a host of social issues.
Demographic issues have been a hot topic in China since last year, when the once-a-decade census found the national fertility rate was alarmingly low.

Riaz Haq said...

Nitasha Kaul, One of #KashmiriPandits, testifying in #US Congressional hearings condemns #Modi’s oppression in Kashmir.Selective #Hindutva narrative of #JammuAndKashmir about #KashmiriPandits ignores that #Jammu had #Muslim majority in 1947 #kashmirifiles https://youtu.be/q8JScHFlhWs

Riaz Haq said...

The Kashmir Files': Hate - the Right Language For Our Story?

A Kashmiri Pandit responds to the film 'The Kashmir Files'.
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/the-kashmir-files-is-hate-the-language-for-our-story-kashmiri-pandits-kashmiri-muslims-politics-hate?fbclid=IwAR33BSe_iWIruBzst88g3b_QjBf7tqhtnJIXpabKbHQLUtvlCkYSPTgWF7g#read-more#read-more


No, what happened was not genocide. No, they weren’t like Nazis, neither were we like Jews- systematically and deliberately persecuted by the state. No, a dramatised film so obviously conniving and cunning in its telling is not the gospel. The wheels of justice have not suddenly sprung into motion, unless we choose to believe so. By drawing misleading parallels, we insult the history that isn’t ours and bastardise the truth that is.

Monumental box office numbers, multiple twitter trends and incessantly buzzing WhatsApp notifications might suggest a long overdue unification of Kashmiri Pandits for justice.

However, with a single minded interest in pushing the discourse into a vortex of technicalities like Genocide Vs Exodus, and number of killings, despite its marketing tagline - RightToJustice – this film has neither an interest, nor the answer for what this justice could possibly entail. Not even lip service.
Regardless of its cinematic worth, The Kashmir Files relentlessly pursues a version of truth those hailing it, swear by. By misrepresenting facts just enough, deceitfully layered with disinformation and obfuscating any context, the film succeeds in its true purpose - blatant vilification of Kashmiri Muslims.

Several friends, and acquaintances reached out recently, asking – did it really happen? Yes. Did it happen the way it is shown? Yes, but not really. And, therein lies its voodoo.

Three decades ago, when thousands of Kashmiris left their home, we were perhaps luckier than some to have extended family already in Delhi to stay with. Thereby sidestepping the quagmire of refugee-camps. To that extent, ours wasn’t the median story. It wasn’t even the worst. Others who left, lived in abysmal conditions for years, and died. And yet, many others that survived, showed remarkable resilience by building back lives since - from scratch, despite the tragic displacement, and thrived. Did time heal all the pain? Or did we forget everything that happened, as a defence to cope with our unaddressed trauma?

Unfortunately, trauma works in mysterious ways. Every life event, in one form or the other, gets linked to that traumatic event. I have seen this within my immediate and closed ones. Admittedly, I too, lived so for many years. Silently. And assumed that’s just the way it was, is, and will continue to be.

Even though, the first friend I made in Delhi (and life) was a Kashmiri Muslim, himself a product of this complex tragedy of Kashmiris (not just Pandits), I failed to recognise what stared me in the face, for a long time. Today when I struggle with many trepidations of life, more than thirty-two years after that fateful day, I realise I am a product of privileges, choices, misgivings, mistakes and learnings, all uniquely mine. It took me many years to realise – Trauma induces hate, and hate consumes you. No matter how deep a wound runs, hate can't be right. Because, it blinds you.



--------------

To let our suffering, grief and trauma turn into a battle cry, and be appropriated as a weapon of mass hatred, we do grave disservice to our tragedy.
By reducing our idea and understanding of truth, to mistrust, suspicion and today’s zeitgeist -hate for them- we stand to denigrate our very essence forever. Was hate the right language to tell our story in? Were shock and awe the only words to write our history in?

Before it’s too late, we need to open our eyes to see through this mirage. Instead of falling into the trap of being told what, and who, we should stand against, we need to decide for ourselves, what we should stand for.

Riaz Haq said...

India, Israel, and Geopolitical Imaginaries of Cooperation and Oppression
Author: Nitasha Kaul
Date Published: June 17, 2022

https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/06/17/india-israel-and-geopolitical-imaginaries-of-cooperation-and-oppression/

Portrayals of India and Israel as strategic partners or allies in the oppression of Kashmiris and Palestinians often suggest that India emulates Israel in how it manages oppression. Yet, the designation of Israel as a unique source of learning for oppression limits the recognition of the indigenous Indian nature of the long-standing ideological and technological infrastructures of occupation in Kashmir. We must eschew simplistic geopolitical imaginaries of cooperation and oppression and pay greater attention to the similarities as well as the differences across contexts.

The contemporary global moment requires us to be alert to the multiple trajectories of repression. Tactics and technologies circulate amongst and between democracies and authoritarian regimes. Russian and Chinese models of digital authoritarianism have been regionally exported, and there has been Indian and Chinese mutual learning on modalities of repression. These circulations occur along supra- and intra-statal pathways, and via traffic in both economically profitable weapons and ideologies. To attend to these trajectories, we must carefully examine the preferred narratives adopted by the states as well as those offered by resistance and solidarity movements across national boundaries. In this context, the relationship between India and Israel is notable for how the two countries are celebrated as friendly partners for strategic cooperation, or alternatively, critiqued as allies for the parallel oppressions of Kashmiris and Palestinians.

The ties between India and Israel present a systematic divergence between official accounts of these relations and the perspectives of critical resistance scholarship on Palestine and Kashmir. The official story in the media unsurprisingly focuses on the mutually fertile and growing cooperation between India and Israel as strategic partners at every level of investment from infrastructure, innovation, and defense to people-to-people interaction. The bilateral trade between the two countries has been steadily increasing, and apart from growth in collaborative ventures, there is the imminent possibility of the conclusion of longstanding negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Then, there is the resonance at the level of political leadership. The meeting between Netanyahu and Modi was perceived as a bromance between these leaders of deeply illiberal projects; the right-wing majoritarian nationalist projects championed by the regimes in the two countries both portray themselves as beleaguered by Islamists and resolute in combating terrorism.

On the other hand, there is no dearth of critical narratives that point to Kashmir and Palestine as being symmetrical occupations; here the focus is on the ways in which the oppressed populations in both cases are Muslims and oppressors are non-Muslims. India is the largest buyer of Israeli weapons and Israel is the second largest supplier to India; Israeli drones are used in Kashmir (one unmanned aerial vehicle called the Heron was specially adapted for such use). Indian forces have used Israeli Tavor rifles in 2008, used Spice-2000 guidance technology in the aftermath of Pulwama attacks in Kashmir in 2019, and bought Pegasus from Israel that same year.

Although these two portrayals of India and Israel as strategic partners for cooperation or allies in the oppression of Kashmiris and Palestinians are manifestly different, they have one important point in common. Both these narratives (often explicitly) suggest that India copies from Israel in the ways in which it manages oppression.


Riaz Haq said...

The Kashmir Files: Israeli director sparks outrage in India over ‘vulgar movie’ remarks
Nadav Lapid, chair of the International film festival India, spoke out against work that critics say is anti-Muslim propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/the-kashmir-files-israeli-director-sparks-outrage-in-india-over-vulgar-movie-remarks

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the film festival, Lapid said he and other jury members had been “shocked and disturbed” that the film had been given a platform. The Kashmir Files, said Lapid, was “a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival”.
-------
Lapid, who has taken an anti-establishment stance against rightwing elements in his home of Israel, is not alone in expressing concern over The Kashmir Files. Cinemagoers have started anti-Muslim chants at screenings and it has been accused of stirring up communal violence. In May, Singapore banned the film over its “potential to cause enmity between different communities”.

Vivek Agnihotri, the film’s director, said on Monday that “terror supporters and genocide deniers can never silence me”.

He added: “I challenge all the intellectuals in this world and this great film-maker from Israel to find one frame, one dialogue or an event in The Kashmir Files that is not true.”

-----------
A row has erupted in India after an Israeli director described a controversial film about Kashmir as propaganda and a “vulgar movie”, prompting the Israeli ambassador to issue an apology.

Nadav Lapid, who was chair of this year’s panel of the international film festival of India (IFFI), spoke out against the inclusion of The Kashmir Files at the event.

The film, released in March to popular box office success, is largely set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when attacks and threats by militants led to most Kashmiri Hindus fleeing from the region, where the majority of the population are Muslim.

Many film critics, Kashmiri Muslims and others, have described it as propaganda that inflames hatred against Muslims and distorts events to suit an anti-Muslim agenda.

However, the film has received a ringing endorsement from the highest levels of the Indian government, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), who have also been accused of pursuing an anti-Muslim agenda. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, has praised the film, congratulating its makers for having “the guts to portray the truth” and it was the second highest-grossing film in India this year.

------------------

Lapid said his comments were made in the spirit of “critical discussion, which is essential for art and life”, adding he was sure they could be accepted graciously by the festival and audience as such. But his critique caused outrage.

Amit Malviya, a senior BJP leader, compared his remarks to denial of the Holocaust. “For the longest time, people even denied the Holocaust and called Schindler’s List propaganda, just like some are doing to Kashmir Files,” he said.

In Goa, where the festival took place, a complaint was filed to police against Lapid, accusing him of “instigating enmity between groups”.

Fellow jurors at the film festival, which is sponsored by the Indian government, quickly distanced themselves from his comments, stating that they reflected his opinion and not that of the panel. Film-maker Sudipto Sen, who was on the panel, said: “We don’t indulge in any kind of political comments on any film.”

Some of the harshest criticism came from Israel’s ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, who told Lapid he should be “ashamed” of his comments and that it was “insensitive and presumptuous” to speak on a subject that has political and religious ramifications in India. Gilon said he “unequivocally condemned” the statements.