Seven decades after fleeing the carnage of partition, Mangu Ram is still regarded as a second class citizen in Indian Kashmir, unable to own property or vote in state elections.
However, now aged 82, Ram is daring to hope he will finally be able to shed his refugee status after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a share of power in India’s only Muslim-majority state.
“If something can be done, then maybe I will finally have some enjoyment in this life,” said traditional healer Ram, speaking in a slum home on the outskirts of Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital. “If only the gods could show us some mercy.”
A Hindu, Ram was born in pre-independence India in an area of Punjab Province that became part of Pakistan.
Hundreds of thousands of families fled across both sides of the border during the 1947 partition of the sub-continent, when around 1 million people were killed in communal violence. Most of those refugees were quickly absorbed in towns and cities of the newly independent nations.
However, the fate of the West Pakistan Refugees (WPR), who decamped to Jammu and Kashmir State, became mired in the dispute with Pakistan over the territory, prompting its rulers to hold off granting them residential rights, including the right to buy land or vote in state polls.
About 100,000 people are classified as WPRs, most living in the Jammu region. Hardly any of them have ever set foot in Pakistan. Their plight has been effectively ignored by the federal government in Delhi and successive state administrations, citing legal barriers.
However, in its manifesto for state elections in December last year, Modi’s BJP pledged to normalize the WPRs’ status.
Although the BJP came second, they have joined a Kashmir governing coalition for the first time and are expected to champion the WPRs’ cause.
“We have been living here like this for three generations now,” veteran activist Labha Ram Gandhi said. “Granting us state-subject rights is the only way to improve our condition.”
Despite prevailing unrest, Kashmir is one of India’s more prosperous states. However, the estimated 18,000 WPR families live in abject poverty, mostly marrying among themselves because of their low economic status.
“I spend whatever money I earn to send my children to school,” part-time driver Ramesh Kumar said.
“My fear is their fate is going to be the same as mine,” added Kumar, who lives with his wife, two children and mother in a two-room hovel.
The family’s only permanent income is the US$100 monthly pension his mother receives after her husband died serving in the army.
Like many WPRs, Kumar hopes the BJP’s presence in the state and federal governments will yield a change in fortunes.
As well as the manifesto pledge, hopes of a breakthrough were also raised in January when a committee of lawmakers in the BJP-dominated national parliament recommended the WPRs be granted permanent resident status.
However, the WPRs have been disappointed by the absence of a similar commitment in the recent agreement signed by the BJP and its regional partner in Kashmir’s coalition.
“We were expecting something to happen about our rights after the BJP came into government. We are still hopeful,” Kumar said.
“At least our situation is being discussed in the assembly, but we expect the BJP and Modi to do more than just improve our livelihoods,” he said.
Observers say the reluctance of successive state governments to grant full rights to the overwhelmingly Hindu WPRs stems from fears of upsetting the demographic balance in India’s only Muslim-majority state, which has special autonomy enshrined in the constitution.
The WPRs, whose families mainly originate from Punjab, have fallen foul of a pre-independence law that only grants citizenship to people born — or descendants of those born — in the old undivided kingdom of Kashmir. The same legislation has allowed about 35,000 Hindus, who have fled Pakistan-controlled Kashmir since partition, to be granted citizenship. Kumar said the law is ridiculous.
“I was born here [in India]. My roots are here,” he said. “What else do I and my children need to be citizens of this place?”
As things stand, Kumar’s children cannot be admitted to state-run training colleges, or be employed in the state government, although they can work for the federal one.
The WPRs are widely seen as victims of the broader dispute over Kashmir, a captivating Himalayan region between India and Pakistan and claimed in full by both.
Successive state governments have ignored requests by their federal counterparts for a “one-time” settlement of the Hindu refugees, fearing a backlash from Muslims, whose numbers have fallen six percent since 1947. Kashmir’s Hindu population has risen by five percent in the same period.
The Rashtriya Swayamsawak Sang, an influential Hindu group whose alumni include Modi, has advocated settling “Hindu patriots” in Kashmir. Separatists opposed to Indian rule insist the WPRs must settle in states where Hindus are in a majority.
However, Gandhi said the WPRs’ patience is exhausted and they are ready to take matters into their own hands if their hopes are dashed again.
“We will spill our blood on the streets for our rights,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The