Fact-finding report on occupied Kashmir reveals that locals are turning to peaceful civil disobedience

The people of Indian-occupied Kashmir are turning to peaceful civil disobedience in order to show their resistance to the new measures adopted by the Indian state in the occupied valley, suggest reports. 

According to Indian news publication The Wire, a new fact-finding report released by four academics, activists and journalists has chronicled how the people of Kashmir are dealing with a Delhi-imposed curfew. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had revoked the constitutional autonomy of occupied Kashmir on August 5, sending in additional troops to impose an indefinite military curfew in the region. 

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The report contends that people of the occupied valley have refused to open shops and offices, and some locals even say that the Indian security forces are pressuring shop-owners to keep business open. 

“These are people the Kashmiris are equally scared of. It is at their behest that people are being arrested. So the decision to defy them is significant and brazen," the report maintains. 

Their report adds that there has not been any violence from the people of Kashmir and instead the decision to peacefully resist the Indian occupation has jolted nerves in New Delhi. 

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“It is an active and collective choice being exercised each day, to observe a civil disobedience. In feeling rejected and betrayed by the Indian state, Kashmiris have chosen to respond back," the report notes. 

The authors say that this method of protesting is a marked difference from how Kashmir has protested in the past: “People in Kashmir are no longer interested in an interaction with the Indian state. That space is now dead.”

The report warns that this phenomenon of silent protest and civil disobedience may just be the lull before an impending storm. Prime Minster Imran Khan has made similar statements recently. 

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