A year of government policies that eroded hard-won land rights in Jammu and Kashmir

In 1949, when Jammu and Kashmir got autonomy under Article 370, its residents acquired sovereignty over a crucial resource: land. This was especially important to the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley. Under the Dogra kings who had ruled Jammu and Kashmir till 1947, the landowners in Kashmir were largely Hindu; those who tilled the land Muslim.

For decades, land rights had been entwined with Kashmiri political aspirations, entering assertions of identity and protests against the extractive Dogra state.

In 1954, Article 35A was applied to Jammu and Kashmir, sealing its special status. Under this law, the state legislature was empowered to define “permanent residents” of Jammu and Kashmir and reserve for them certain rights, including the right to own land in the state.

With these protections in place, the state embarked on decades of reform aimed at transferring “land to the tiller”. Vast feudal estates were abolished, land ceilings fixed and land redistributed to those who tilled it. Public rights to commons were established.

Kashmir was transformed. Most of its rural population moved from poverty and starvation to self-sufficiency. With greater prosperity came greater political power for rural families. Many also started migrating to the cities, swelling urban centres. Since the 1990s, land and food security has also...

Read more