From autonomy to 'settler colonialism': How India redrew Kashmir's demographic and political landscape
Seven years after India revoked the special constitutional status of Indian-administered Kashmir, changes to land ownership, residency laws and governance have continued to reshape the region, which critics have called a part of a multi-pronged strategy to alter Kashmir's demographic and political landscape.
On 5 August 2019, India's ruling right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government revoked Article 370 and Article 35A, which granted Jammu and Kashmir autonomy and constitutional safeguards. What followed was a legal onslaught for a broader restructuring of the contested region, parts of which are held by India, Pakistan and China.
As the government of India unilaterally divided the region into multiple Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, it placed the region under direct rule of New Delhi's union government.
The Modi-led government in New Delhi said the move was aimed at integrating Kashmir more closely with India, encouraging investment and development, and curbing militancy.
However, within months, New Delhi introduced new domicile rules allowing anyone who had lived in the region for 15 years, studied there for seven years or served in certain central government positions to obtain domicile status.
Subsequent amendments also eased restrictions on land purchases.
Government figures presented in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly showed that more than 1.25 million domicile certificates had been issued within two years, including 83,742 to people who had not previously qualified as permanent residents.
Residents say that the moves have led to massive disenfranchisement of the native populations, as outsiders have been given free access to the region's resources.
"I think what has changed in these seven years is the visible presence of inequality," said Jan, 35, a resident who requested that only her first name be used.
"I don't recall Kashmir being so economically unequal before. When you see the much-hyped city centre of Lal Chowk, for example, you get a small glimpse of a colourful metropolis. But the moment you step into the next-door neighbourhood of Maisuma and walk into the lanes of the old city, you encounter real Kashmir: waterlogged roads, people driving rickshaws for a living, stray dogs outnumbering humans and more."
She said the changes had become more apparent since 2019.
"Before, we had laws that prevented a single person from acquiring land that was more than 12 acres. That kept Kashmir anchored into a socialist character. No one was allowed to build so much as a small hut in agricultural land. Now, it is free for all," she says.
"Indian construction firms can tear past our rice fields and apple orchards to construct railway lines and expressways that are completely defacing the Kashmir that we knew as children," she adds.
"This infrastructure is meant to serve its military more than it serves us. The poorer lot are especially more defenceless against the onslaught of 'new Kashmir' and the sweeping changes it represents. We are simply getting estranged from our own land."
What was Article 370?
Article 370 of the Indian constitution was one of the provisions of the pact reached when Kashmir acceded to India following the country's division in 1949. For 70 years, it served as the constitutional connection between the Muslim-majority region and the Union of India.
The law barred non-Kashmiris from owning land as a measure to protect the region's delicate ecology and resources, while regulating jobs, ensuring local employment and providing constitutional guarantees for limited political decision-making.
The article operated in conjunction with Article 35A, a legal provision that gives the state assembly of Kashmir the authority to determine who are the “permanent residents” and to prevent outsiders from permanently settling in the region.
In 2019, the BJP government unilaterally repealed Article 370, split the region and converted it into two federally governed Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
A new domicile law announced in March 2020 declared anyone who had lived in the area for 15 years, studied there for seven years or worked for the central government in the region eligible for domicile status.
In October 2020, another notification rendered even this condition irrelevant for non-agricultural land.
Within two years, more than 1.25 million domicile certificates had been issued across the region. According to figures provided by the government to the assembly, more than 83,000 were issued to people who had not previously been state subjects.
The authorities in the region say that a domicile certificate was, "for applying for jobs" and did not itself confer land rights or voting rights. The land law changes meant a domicile certificate was not even required to buy most property in the first place.
“Since the abrogation of Article 370, land has remained a central point of political and public debate in Kashmir,” said Abu Bakr, 42, a resident of Srinagar, the region's main city.
"Disempowerment is part of the broader history of imperial control in Kashmir"
- Muhammad Junaid, professor
Bakr, who runs a private business and closely follows the region’s politics, said another major government initiative involved opening up land to businesses across the region.
“To facilitate investment and improve the ease of doing business, the policy allowed investors greater access to land. Subsequently, the government introduced a series of policy changes affecting land, agriculture, and forest laws,” he said, adding that these steps, presented as reforms, also altered the legal status of many people living in or near forest areas.
“In several cases, land occupied by such residents was classified as encroachment, leading to eviction drives. There are many examples of it,” he said.
Bakr added that the government's programme to distribute land to homeless families had further reignited the contentious debate over "demographic change", a concern that has shaped Kashmiri political discourse.
Restructuring control
Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the abrogation, calling it a historical rectification long overdue.
His BJP party in New Delhi said it would help rid the region of a corrupt local political elite, curb militancy, and bring development and private investment, boosting the local economy.
In February 2021, a panel of UN special rapporteurs said the revised residency rules had been introduced "without the consultation of the local population", warning that the fast-tracking of domicile certificates for outsiders risked "deteriorating the overall human rights situation of native residents".
Ather Zia, a political anthropologist, said the changes should be understood as part of a broader political process.
"In my work, I describe this as the iterative temporal dynamic of settler colonialism, where successive changes over a period of time reinforce one another, and cumulatively they are focused on restructuring control over land, political representation, and Indigenous sovereignty, as we see that is what has unfolded," she said.
"Settler colonialism as an analytical framework helps explain how changes in legal restructuring, policies of land expropriation, demographic engineering, increasing militarisation, and massive overhaul in how the region is governed illustrate an evolving structure rather than disconnected policies."
She added that the cumulative effect had been "extremely transformative for everyday life".
"There is heightened uncertainty and deep fear over land; political representation has diminished; journalism, activism, and civil society activity are curbed."
Political map redrawn
Alongside land reforms, New Delhi redrew electoral boundaries for the first time since 1995.
The Delimitation Commission increased the number of assembly seats from 83 to 90, allocating five of the six additional constituencies to the Hindu-majority Jammu region and only one to the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley.
The commission also merged geographically disconnected areas across mountain ranges into single parliamentary constituencies, a restructuring designed to artificially shift political power towards New Delhi's allies.
While a local assembly election eventually led to the formation of an elected state government, the newly formed administration remains severely hamstrung, stripped of statehood and lacking primary legislative and administrative powers, which are handled by New Delhi.
Far from delivering the promised economic surge or an end to insurgency, the situation remains volatile.
In May 2025, suspected militants opened fire in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley, killing 26 tourists in one of the deadliest civilian attacks in years.
Last month, a police official was shot dead on security duty in Anantnag's Lal Chowk. The killing was followed by a crackdown that led to the detention of over 3,500 people across the region.
“We are plagued by high rates of unemployment among youth; they are going towards drugs,” said Muhammad Amin, 55, a resident.
The unemployment in Kashmir still stands at about 6.7 percent, roughly double the rate in India.
There has also been a systematic attempt by the government to oppress intellectuals through censorship even in school books.
‘Total political disempowerment’
While New Delhi maintains the constitutional changes have improved governance, investment and integration, critics argue they have fundamentally altered Kashmir's political, legal and demographic landscape.
Seven years after Article 370 was repealed, those competing narratives continue to define the debate over the region's future.
Muhammad Junaid, who teaches at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, told Middle East Eye that the post-2019 changes were designed as a strategy aimed at the total political disempowerment of Kashmiris as a people.
“To bring Kashmir to a level where people of Kashmir would be compelled to demand (or not even demand at all) things that had already once existed rather than seek their historical political rights as a people," he said.
"This disempowerment is part of the broader history of imperial control in Kashmir."
Junaid said that the history of such a process "in other places and times tells us that the situation in Kashmir resembles many aspects of settler colonialism".
"The impacts of the 2019 events are gradually unfolding… as people are being governed by imperial bureaucrats as imperial wards with no say in their own administration," Junaid said.