Kashmiris fear Modi's big projects

Residents fear they will lose large areas of agricultural land on which their well-being depends, due to New Delhi's official plan to build roads, railways and other projects.

Malik Haroon sits on the ground on an early winter morning in the village of Daffepora, located in the Indian-administered Kashmir region.

He runs his fingers over the bark of an almond tree – of which there are hundreds around – to check for signs of fungal diseases.

"It's okay," he said, very happy.

With the snow-capped Pir Panjal mountains in the background, Haroon's half-acre plot, fed by the Rumshi Nallah river in south Pulwama, is filled with clusters of trees that produce 30 tonnes of apples, bananas, turnips and almonds every year.

However, the Indian government's decision to build a college in the Pulwama area - which encompasses almost all of Malik's land - risks depriving him and thousands of other Kashmiri land cultivators of the main economic source for the 4 million people who live in the region.

"I earn $11,000 on average a year from harvesting them," Haroon, 27, told Al Jazeera.

The income has helped his family of four overcome economic instability and the unemployment crisis in Indian-administered Kashmir since 4, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government revoked Article 2019 of the Indian Constitution, which granted special status to the Muslim majority in the region.

The status in question allowed the disputed region – also claimed by Pakistan – to enact its own laws on many issues except finance, defense, foreign policy and communications. The law protected the rights of the region’s residents by prohibiting foreigners from taking up jobs in the state administration or buying property there.

In addition to removing the special status, the Modi government also divided it into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Since then, the government has announced a wide range of infrastructure projects, claiming they will bring economic development to the region and connect residents with the rest of India. 

But residents and critics fear that the proposed projects are intended to tighten the Indian government's control over that territory, changing the demographic structure with the settlement of foreigners and increasing access to areas along India's tense borders with its arch-enemies, China and Pakistan.

One of the projects that has caused considerable concern among the residents of Pulwama is the establishment of a National Institute of Technology (NIT). NITs are a national network of government-run engineering colleges, among the most renowned technological schools in the country. According to a government notification issued on December 24, a huge area of ​​243 hectares of land is being acquired for the college, most of which is agricultural and horticultural land, which is very valuable to the residents, as they depend on it for their survival.

"The proposed land transfer affects 10 villages in Pulwama," Haroon said. "This land is our life."

He says that most people in these villages do not have any economic potential other than horticulture.
"Some raise cattle for a living, but even then, these are lands where the animals step on to graze," he said.

New railway lines

The college construction is not the only project the government has planned in the Kashmir region. Since 2019, New Delhi has authorized several megaprojects – roads, tunnels, railway lines and housing complexes – that critics say could destroy not only the rich agricultural land but also the sensitive Himalayan typography.

Kashmiris have accused the government of making decisions about these lands without their consent or proper compensation.

Ghulam Muhammad Tantray, 65, has 0.5 hectares of agricultural land in Dirhama, a small cluster of 150 houses in the middle of a vast area of ​​green fields covered with thousands of apple trees in Anantnag district.

"The garden brings me $13,000 every year," Tantray said.

But he fears he could lose his land after government officials arrived to survey the land last year.

"We had no idea what was coming until the Railway Ministry ordered a feasibility study for the area, in an attempt to add five new railway tracks to the region. We were scared like never before. It's like losing something very dear to you. We have raised this land and these trees like our own children," Tantray tells Al Jazeera.

The Indian-administered Kashmir region has always had only one railway line connecting the hill town of Banihal with Baramulla district in the north.

But the government plans to add five more lines that will run through the valley, taking up hundreds of acres of land, eliminating orchards and other plantations that are essential to the region. The upgrade is part of the government's ambitious plan to connect Kashmir to the rest of the country through a rail line that will provide easy and affordable travel for the millions of Indians who visit the region for tourism or religious pilgrimages.

One of the five new railway lines will pass through Dirhama, where a railway station will also be built.

"At least 80 out of 150 households in Dirhama will lose their main source of income after the railway project is completed," says Tantray. "As for me, out of the 0.5 hectares I have, 0.4 hectares will be used for the new railway station. What will I be left with?"

Tantray says villagers have held several protests, demanding that the railway station be relocated and telling government officials that they "never asked for it."

"The land is our family heritage. It has provided our livelihood for generations," Tantray tells Al Jazeera. "In the face of the growing unemployment crisis, this land is the only option my three sons will have if they cannot find work."

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "The people of Kashmir do not know how they will benefit from these projects."

Al Jazeera contacted several government officials for their comments on the railway projects, but they did not respond.

Overlapping of civil and military facilities

Some of the roughly 50 infrastructure projects underway in Indian-administered Kashmir relate to building more roads and expanding road links to the border region of Ladakh, where Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed in 2020, sparking a protracted military standoff — with signs of an eventual detente between the two Asian giants only now emerging.

Last month, Modi inaugurated a 6.5 km long Z-Morh road tunnel, built at an altitude of 2.6 km, which connects Kangan village in central Kashmir to Sonmarg, a popular tourist resort on the way to Ladakh.

Others reflect more clearly civilian objectives.

A 250km road connecting the southern outskirts of Jammu to the region's main city, Srinagar, is being widened to four lanes at a staggering cost of $1.92 billion, according to government documents.

In addition, a 6.84 km ring road is being built around Srinagar to allow vehicles – both civilian and military – to pass through the city's congested urban areas and ease mobility to the districts of Baramulla and Ganderbal, which border Pakistan and China, respectively. The ring road will have new highways built through the rice fields and apple orchards around Srinagar.

And then there are initiatives that can serve both civilian and military purposes.

For example, the ring road will be accompanied by another 161 km long project, at a cost of about $95 million, which starts in Srinagar and will connect with the Baramulla road on its way to the border town of Uri, where it will connect with another 51 km four-lane section, easing travel between districts near India's deep military border with Pakistan.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, says the projects are aimed at strengthening India's military presence in sensitive border areas, with the removal of Article 370 making it easier for New Delhi to proceed with them.

"These infrastructure projects may be intended to strengthen India's national security interests, but the irony is that, because of residents' opposition to the projects, they may end up undermining them – and that's no small matter in a region where grievances against the government have been strong," he says.

Pulwama resident Haroon also fears that the proposed NIT project has military dimensions.

"It seems that this project is meant to create a deeper military presence here," he says. "Otherwise, why would they need 243 hectares of land for the project? The 2014 guidelines of India's HRD Ministry put the ideal land requirement for NIT at 121 hectares. But this is twice as much."

Altaf Thakur, spokesperson for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the region, acknowledges that some of these projects "are dual-use in nature."

"But the fact is that they are also here to facilitate the local economy and eliminate travel barriers," he told Al Jazeera. "Of course, there is a lot of thought behind these projects. Why would we bring a project if people are not going to benefit?"

"Death by a thousand infrastructure projects"

In another move that has fueled fears of a demographic shift in the region, the government last year announced the creation of at least 30 residential complexes within a 500-meter radius around the Srinagar ring road.

Fears of a demographic shift erupted in Kashmir in 2020, when New Delhi eased rules for Indian citizens to settle in the region.

Kashmiri academic Mohamad Junaid, an assistant professor in the anthropology department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in the United States, tells Al Jazeera that he fears that "railway and other infrastructure projects are not based on the needs of the Kashmiri population, or even the future needs of Kashmiri society."

"They are intended to change the landscape and disrupt and damage the Kashmiri economy. It is death by a thousand infrastructure projects," he says, adding that the Kashmir Valley has "very limited agricultural land, which is essential for a large section of society to survive."
"Construction of such projects on this land will not only consume land but will also lead to division of communities and create barriers between them. While it is clear that the railways are for Hindu pilgrimages and movement of troops, it is even more worrying that the government is creating 'cities' - for whom? These settlements are not for the people of Kashmir."

The BJP, however, accuses critics of trying to keep Kashmir "stuck in its violent past."

“Every person whose property is involved in these projects will be compensated,” government spokesman Thakur insisted. “These things don’t happen without consensus. The projects have long-term benefits and will maximize the economic potential of the region.”

Meanwhile, activists describe New Delhi's ongoing land acquisition for projects as "arbitrary," claiming that some disgruntled landowners are being compensated under a 1990 law that they say was outdated after New Delhi stripped the region of its special status.

“The new Compensation Rights Act of 2013 promises compensation four times the market price,” says Raja Muzaffar Bhat, an environmental activist from the region.

A former government employee familiar with the controversy over the alleged lower compensation to landowners under the Srinagar Ring Road project says the government has used the 1990 law retrospectively, as the 2013 law was not in force when the project notification was issued in 2017.

“The compensation rates should be prepared within two years of the announcement of the notification,” he says, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But in this case, it has taken more than three years. When it was prepared, Article 370 was repealed and a new law came into force.”

But Haroon in Pulwama says he will refuse government compensation or a job offered in exchange for his land.

"The work or compensation will only last for a few years. But this land has been inherited from generation to generation," he says.

"Last year alone, 1 kg of almonds that we produced on this land was sold for 250 rupees (approximately $3). This year, it was sold for 350 rupees (more than $4). When you consider the total, this is a massive increase in income that a single job or compensation cannot replace."