An uneasy peace has descended on Kashmir, at least for now, but human rights conditions remain dire. The predominantly Muslim territory, disputed between India and Pakistan, has been divided since 1947, when the end of British rule brought independence but partition.

The latest wave of conflict was sparked by a horrific terror attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on 22 April. The gunmen singled out Hindus, India’s majority population, for point-blank execution, killing 26 people. India retaliated with missile strikes, and the two countries then exchanged drone strikes and cross-border skirmishes, putting civilians at risk.

The Indian government demolished the homes of alleged suspects, closed its airspace to Pakistani aircraft, shut down a key border checkpoint and downgraded diplomatic relations with Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated by banning Indian flights from its airspace, expelling Indian diplomats, suspending trading relations and threatening to withdraw from the peace agreement that ended a 1971 war between the two countries.

Most significantly, for the first time India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, the agreement to share the resources of a river common to both countries. The treaty had survived previous peaks in tensions between the two countries, including a 1999 war in Kashmir. It’s still suspended, threatening dire consequences for those in Pakistan-administered Kashmir who rely on the water.

As both sides exchanged hostilities, the situation clearly had potential to escalate into all-out war. While both sides probably wanted to avoid this scenario, with hate speech spiralling and India’s Hindu nationalist government in particular amping up its bellicose rhetoric, neither government wanted to lose face – and wars have started for less. Since both countries possess nuclear weapons, the impacts would have been global.

Disturbingly, as conflict threatened to spiral out of control, the US government initially sat back and did nothing. While the Gulf states are growing in influence in the region, the USA remains the only power capable of leveraging relations with both countries to broker compromise. But Donald Trump’s government, which bases its international relations on states’ willingness to make material concessions and flatter him, stayed inactive for several days.

Finally, the Trump administration intervened and a ceasefire was agreed, through processes that remain opaque. Some breaches followed, and the potential for resumed conflict remains.

Both sides have claimed victory, although India’s government has struggled to reconcile the ceasefire with its jingoism, insisting it has merely ‘paused’ its military action. The two states continue to blame each other for terrorist attacks.

Despite the efforts of influential states and the United Nations (UN), there hasn’t been lasting peace since partition – only variations in the degree of overt hostilities. International efforts react to spikes in conflict without addressing the entrenched problem of the region’s disputed status.

The conflict and its nuclear threat briefly shone a global spotlight on Kashmir, which will likely only return if another terrorist outrage is perpetrated and fighting breaks out again. But the world should pay more attention, because Kashmir, particularly on its Indian side, is also the scene of an ongoing human rights assault. As a consequence of the latest round of conflict, rights violations are likely to intensify.

A divided history

Under colonial rule, the region, known as Jammu and Kashmir, was a princely state. This meant it was formally sovereign and ruled by a maharajah, with the British governing indirectly. On independence and partition, it seemed likely it would become part of Pakistan, but when the maharajah deferred a decision, Pakistan invaded and the titular ruler turned to British forces. British military aid was conditional on the territory joining India.

In 1948, the UN brokered a ceasefire and established a line of control – a supposedly temporary border – on the condition that a plebiscite be held so Kashmiri people could decide which country to join. But the Indian government has never allowed this act of self-determination to take place. The result is that India controls around half the area, broadly the southernmost part, with the rest divided between Pakistani control and, in the northeast, control by China.

The region has long been home to armed rebellion, which the Indian government accuses Pakistan of supporting. India-Pakistan wars sparked by the territorial dispute broke out in 1965 and 1999.

In India, Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was recognised in the 1949 constitution. Article 370 allowed Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution, autonomous administration and emblems such as a flag, enabling it to retain a distinct identity. But that all changed in 2019.

Fresh from a resounding election victory that granted him a second term, Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government unilaterally annulled article 370. On 6 August 2019, parliament passed a bill dividing Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories – directly controlled by the central government –, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The central government then repealed or changed over 400 laws affecting the region.

Emboldened by its electoral mandate, the government had moved decisively to strip the Muslim-majority population of their rights. Anticipating the anger the announcement would cause, it moved troops into the region and advised visitors to leave. It imposed a region-wide curfew, cut mobile and internet access, banned public meetings, closed universities, introduced movement restrictions and put several political leaders under house arrest. Authorities detained thousands in the days following the announcement, including many young people, holding them in undisclosed or distant locations, and reports of torture followed.

When people protested against the government’s actions, they were met with violence from security forces, who used pellets, rubber bullets and teargas, despite the Indian government denying any protests had taken place. It took the authorities seven months to restore full internet access, making this one of the world’s longest internet shutdowns. As a result, it was difficult for journalists to report from the region.

Repression continues

The government justifies its authoritarian approach by saying it’s needed to prevent violence. But its repressive policies, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and police raids, have become entrenched. Many Kashmiri journalists have faced detention, police interrogation, threats, violence and travel bans. To aid repression, in December 2023 police began using AI-assisted facial recognition technology in the region. Impunity is the norm: officials who commit human rights violations aren’t investigated or prosecuted.

Impunity is aided by censorship. In August 2023, for example, the government blocked access in India to the Kashmir Walla, an independent news site, including its social media accounts. Shortly after, authorities evicted it from its offices. In February 2024, authorities ordered a magazine website to take down an article about the deaths of three civilians and torture of several others in Indian-administered Kashmir. People from the region have been arrested for social media comments deemed derogatory or ‘anti-social’.

The most prominent dissenting voices have long been put behind bars. Khurram Parvez, programme coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), chair of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearance and deputy secretary general of the International Federation for Human Rights, has been detained since November 2021.

Authorities accuse him of conspiracy and terrorism under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a supposedly anti-terrorism law frequently used to persecute activists and dissenters, increasingly deployed in the region since 2019. Convictions under the UAPA are rare; rather, authorities use it to detain critics for long periods.

Khurram has repeatedly been denied bail and authorities have brought further charges against him. In June 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary and called for his immediate release. Authorities have also held journalist and former JKCCS researcher Irfan Mehraj since March 2023. The JKCCS is known for its credible research into human rights violations in the region.

The central government has also repealed laws that protected land rights, making it easier for authorities to confiscate land and use it for large-scale projects, including infrastructure and tourism development. The results have been evictions, destruction of local people’s property and  impacts on the environment and Indigenous rights. The government has also removed protections on the sale of land to people from outside the region, raising concerns it’s trying to engineer a demographic shift. It has also attempted to negotiate deals to begin mining the territory’s valuable lithium deposits.

Restrictions across the line of control

Rights aren’t guaranteed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir either. When people there protested against the rising costs of food, fuel and utility bills in May 2024, police attempted to stop a march reaching the regional capital of Muzaffarabad, including by obstructing roads. They raided the homes of around 70 people involved in the protests and arrested them, triggering further demonstrations. Police used teargas against protesters, and some teargas shells landed in the grounds of a school, injuring several girls.

More broadly, in Pakistan’s compromised democracy – in which the military exercises ultimate power – the state routinely targets people who express dissent. The government made extensive use of media censorship and internet restrictions and shutdowns ahead of the February 2024 election. Authorities continue to criminalise, threaten and harass human rights activists, restrict online freedoms, intimidate journalists, censor media and violently repress peaceful protests. Their latest weapon is a cybercrimes law, which they use to detain journalists.

This repression particularly applies to supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his banned party, and members of Pakistan’s excluded groups: women’s rights activists, people from the southwestern Balochistan province and ethnic Pashtuns in the country’s northwest.

Further repression likely

The conflict has brought further rights restrictions. Following the first night of military exchanges, the Indian government asked Twitter/X to block over 8,000 Indian accounts. It banned 16 Pakistani YouTube channels, accusing them of spreading disinformation, and successfully asked Meta to block the Instagram page of a major Muslim news feed. Several other pages of prominent Pakistani figures were also made unavailable. It warned the BBC about its terminology and blocked some Chinese state media social media accounts; China has warmer relations with Pakistan than India, and Pakistan reportedly used Chinese planes and missiles in the conflict.

Indian authorities arrested academic Ali Khan Mahmudabad for social media comments criticising people advocating for war. Evidently the government was determined to control the narrative, even after this latest phase of conflict ended, keen to suppress any sentiment that it had backed down. During the fighting, both governments also appear to have circulated disinformation talking up the scale of the enemy’s losses.

With India making clear that any further terror attacks will be considered an act of war, and an audience of ruling party supporters who’d apparently relish this, conflict seems far from over. A solution to the long-running dispute appears further away than ever.

Meanwhile the Indian government’s nationalist rhetoric signals no let-up in attacks on the rights of Kashmiri Indians. The ceasefire has at least allowed the tens of thousands of people who’d been forced to leave villages close to the line of the control to return home. But on the Indian side of the line, they can expect even more intense hostility from a central government that wants the land, but not the people. The international community urgently needs to break the cycle and, before conflict erupts again, invest in peace processes, putting the human rights of Kashmiris at the centre.

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