With the 38th day Amarnath Yatra being commenced to start on July 3, 2025, and continuing till August 9, 2025, a dark reality stands in the wake of India over it supposed spiritual and religious holiness of this religious pilgrimage of pilgrims conducted annually in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). Excusing militarization of the region on the pretext of securing the religious event, the Modi regime has given a go ahead to deployment of an additional 580 other paramilitary companies that will further intensify the ongoing and already suffocating militarization of the region. This ruling reveals the hypocrisy between what India claims is normalcy in Kashmir, and what the reality, the unassailable truth actually is, a land that is brutally occupied in the colonial style.
People are against the security that these forces are supposed to provide to the Yatra and pilgrims because it does not jive with the reality situation in Kashmir. Several decades in the past, the Amarnath Yatra was done in complete peace without such a tremendous amount of military force. The pilgrimage had become the excuse to this military extravagance only after the surge of aggressive Hindu nationalist policy of BJP that systematically manipulated the Kashmir demography and politics. This event is no longer associated with simple religious piety by the Kashmiri people, year by year they have instead turned it into a government sponsored event whereby they allow India to pump in more of its troops, more watch and more violence by the police under pre text of security.
Where Yatra pilgrims are allowed freedom of movement, protection and hospitality, the local Muslim majority is given curfews, arbitrary searches, house raids, detention and are humiliated with security checks everywhere. Reports by organizations like JKCCS and APDP highlight over 10,000 enforced disappearances and around 8,000 custodial deaths in Jammu and Kashmir since the 1990s. These incidents are attributed to torture and abuse by Indian security forces.
Anything that goes on in life is checked, all phone calls, texts, and even Facebook posts constantly scanned over by an intelligence officer. Drones fly over shopping centers and residential areas; cameras are mounted in all passages and streets, Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) and rapid deployment units are ready to leap into the line of any manifestation of protests or protests. The military is there to accomplish much more than just to offer protection to pilgrims, it is meant to cow the spirit of the Kashmiri people down the gullet of haughty state terror. Within this hypocritical and black background, the Yatra is a ready-made excuse, or one that will enable India to defend its intolerable presence of its military without international investigation.
The symbolism here is very disturbing in that Hindu pilgrims move around with state security whereas the Muslim population who occupies these lands is viewed by the state as a constant security threat to be monitored, harassed and kept in check. This kind of apartheid is a prevision of the entire plan of the Modi regime to redivide the social and religious contour of Kashmir. A plan that is based on the ideology of Hindutva and the intention is to erase the exclusive Muslim identity of the valley.
Although it is obvious how badly human rights are violated, civil liberties are trampled down, and military force is used on the level, which is almost uncommon in the contemporary world, the international community does not dare to question the actions of the Indian government in IIOJK. Interest in economic gains, strategic alliances, and geopolitical considerations have made many countries ignorant of the plight of the Kashmiri people. Such silence is collaboration. It only serves to embolden India in its further escalation of the occupation, in deployment of more troops, in further erection of barriers, in crushing of dissent with ever more ferocity.
The inability of the world to practice what it preaches on justice and human rights in the case of Kashmir amounts to a big dark spot on how the world goes about speaking up on such issues in other parts of the world. The use of 580 additional forces indicates that the Indian state cannot think of another mechanism to control Kashmir besides force. It establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that Kashmir under the occupation of India is not because the people want it but because of the gun barrel. It is the entire meaning of colonial occupation where a foreign country is ruling over an unwilling people by the force of the gun. On the contrary, new wave of repression only makes them more determined to fight back, to survive and to eventually be free of the chains of occupation. With this reality the international community has a moral and legal obligation to respond.
Various resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have created the right to the Kashmiri people on self-determination of their political destiny in the form of a free and fair plebiscite. These resolutions are however not being implemented as the resolutions continue to collect dust as the Indian military occupation of India intensifies. The common course of action must be sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and inquiry into the abuse of human rights issues by international bodies when the international community intends to bring peace in South Asia. There can be no peace in the region without a fair solution to Kashmir case that should in itself meet the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
To sum up, the decision to send 580 additional paramilitary units to IIOJK pretending to provide security during Amarnath Yatra further makes clear the plans of the Modi regime to strengthen its illegal occupation, to further their campaign of suppressing the Kashmiri people, and to carry out their evil plans to change the demography and culture. This recent episode of militarization has destroyed the myth that India sells to the world, that it is a normal country par excellence. Kashmir is not in peace; it is not normal; it is the land that is besieged. It is not a religious festival as such but it is now an occupation pretext turned into a tool of warfare. Unless the international community takes note of this fact and forces India to abide by the rights of Kashmiri people as entrenched in international law, this suffering will persist, this conflict will simmer and the vision of peace in South Asia will always prove to be a mirage.
