 Hello and let's talk about Kashmir. Today marks the first anniversary of the day when the Indian state struck another blow on the people of Kashmir. Last year on this day, article 370, which guaranteed a special status to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, was read down. The state was split into two union territories and all of this happened without the people being consulted. Political leaders were detained, thousands of more troops were rushed in and a harsh communications blockade was put in place. To this day, many of these restrictions continue. Over the past year, the centres also started processes which may lead to demographic change, one of the dreams of the Hindutva Brigade. All this was done with the claim that it would bring Kashmir's people to the so-called mainstream. The truth is that the people of Kashmir have been under siege more than ever over the past year. The anger, sense of betrayal and pain is palpable in every interaction in every report. Today, we bring you some voices from Kashmir who talk about what the past year has been like. A year has passed since the 70-year-old law was removed in Kashmir and the region was bifurcated into two union territories. Article 370 was considered to be central to Kashmir, a formerly princely state's accession to Indian Union in 1947 when a vast majority of Muslims joined the newly created Pakistan. The removal of article 370 has been a rallying cry of the Hindu right-wing party BJP, so when it came to power for the second time in India following the 2019 parliamentary elections, it laid its eyes on Kashmir, a prized territory in the Himalayas. To remove the law which was referred to as the tunnel between New Delhi and Srinagar, the government had to do something about the opposition in Kashmir. It did so by converting the entire region of Jammu in Kashmir into an open-air jail. All movement was restricted and communication lines were severed. On 5th August last year, without knowing what was about to happen, the people of Kashmir woke up in a severe clampdown. The government was about to make a big decision about the people of Kashmir, but none of them had any clue. As the decision was announced in New Delhi, a young 17-year-old boy Usaib Altaf was being murdered on the streets of Kashmir to maintain peace and calm. Kashmir was under siege, a strict lockdown was imposed. The media was not able to cover Usaib's death. Authorities later claimed Usaib was a protester. The government finally appealed to the government. He was a managing officer. At the height of a small regime, the government had said to the people of Kashmir were to make a decision about their future. We were้and the people of Kashmir immediately came to a decision. We decided to stop them, but with a strong desire to stop them. If you don't do this, I will kill you. If you don't do this, I will kill you. If you don't do this, I will kill you. In the beautiful world of Lutadaya, there is a cave of the Wafarjadun. There is a shrine, everywhere. Where is Gira? Wherever Gira is, there will be kayaamahs. There is a warm and fresh youth. Gawaha is the age of the book. There is a place called Dhaleel. If you don't do this, you will die. I would like to say that I am afraid of using the word Kashmir today. Because when Kashmir is not there, then what is the use of the word? We have got Ruswai from Azal. Ever since we were born, we have seen Kashmir as Ruswai. We have never seen anything like this. No one has done anything for Kashmir. All people are like this. They say everything to spread our hearts. Nothing else. Two days after the abrogation of Article 370, on 7th August 2019, Shabazz wrote a poem. I will write in my heart. The death of Dhamgut is our coming. I will write all these things, I will write all these things, I will write all these things, even those who have alimentos upon them, I will give in order to nourish the enemies, to是啊 the dead hearts of the dead, I will write the world in my heart, I will write everything. The poetry of young men in Kashmir is smeared in blood, violence and war. A young poet and poet from Palwaama. Shabazz often writes for these lines. He feels compelled to write about pain, and death due to the ongoing situation in Kashmir. I will say on a personal level that I am a very good person. Because the situation is the same. If someone tells the truth, the next day I will say that the name of the person will not be mentioned on the paper. The name will be erased from the paper. So now who is involved in this? Who is not? I don't want to say that. I will say it as a poetry. If we write and write a poetry for ourselves, then it is a challenge for us too. Flowers in the garden have remained in bloom. Arman has fallen in the presence of the flower. The dead bodies are emerging from every place. Now there is the rain of the sky. People who are seen, are called the paradise. People who are seen, are called the paradise. Unfortunately, our Kashmir is burning. Unfortunately, our Kashmir is burning. Over 40,000 crores or 5.4 billion dollars. Before the lockdown of 5th August 2019, the two brothers sustained their families on their own. Their lives have been deeply impacted since. Pakhan, the situation here is very bad. The people are suffering. People are suffering. People are suffering. People are suffering. Pakhan, the situation here is very bad. The situation of 5th August 2019 is very bad. People are suffering. People are suffering. Now God is taking care of them. Now God is taking care of them. Now the government cannot. There is no road to they can't do this. What compounded the situation for people in Kashmir was another lockdown imposed right when 5th August lockdown was beginning to ease. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic further pushed the people in the region towards the wall. In our next segment, we bring you a conversation with Professor Radha Kumar, who was an interlocutor for the government in Kashmir. She talks about the impact of the past year, especially in areas such as education and healthcare. First, I think finding was how a whole series of human rights, from habeas corpus, to the right to bail, to the right to a speedy trial, to protections against arbitrary arrest, to the rights of children not to be arrested, all of these were violated from August 4th onwards. What we did find, and there was very little recourse, in the sense that the courts took a very, very long time on any of these petitions on habeas corpus or bail. And in that sense, one might say that really you can say that those rights were denied even by the courts, which is a sad situation. We also found that you have people in India perhaps don't realize that what we're talking about is in effect one year of lockdown in what used to be a state of the country. And obviously if you have one year of a lockdown, you are going to have terrible impacts on the economy, on health, and on education. Looking at industry, estimates that have come out of the valley, for example, from the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, indicate that there could be a loss of as much as 40,000 crore across all sectors of the industry. Obviously, the most severely affected were also those that contributed a very large proportion of the GDP of the state, the fruit industry, the tourism industry, services. All of these were severely impacted. Smaller industries like handicrafts or information technology, many, many companies, especially startups, were forced to go out of business. In the March budget, we did not see any allocations for compensations for these losses. And these losses were not due to natural disasters, but due to manmade disaster. On health, we saw interestingly that the impact on health could be divided into two phases. The first phase being the first, say, two to three months from August 4th to, let's say, October, when communications were snapped, when Section 144 was imposed, when no one could go to the hospital and when you could not speak to your doctor on the telephone, clinics were closed, pharmacies could not deliver medicines, vital medicines did not arrive at pharmacies. Already, news reports have indicated that several people died in that period just for lack of access to healthcare. And that's really very shocking. The COVID lockdown, by contrast, was allowed some movement. People could go to hospitals, even though on average, it took three or four times the amount of time to get to a hospital compared to pre-August 2019. But still, doctors had terrible difficulties. They could not keep up with the latest information and research on the pandemic and methods of dealing with it. Nurses could not attend even government conferences digitally because of the restriction to 2G networks. And patients who spoke to their doctors were not able to visually explain what their ailment was. So, across all categories, you saw a negative, a severe negative impact on healthcare. Education was one of the major sufferers. First, post the lockdown schools were closed. Then, when they were opened, it was very difficult for parents to send their children to school because they couldn't communicate with them on the phone, they couldn't check on them, they couldn't communicate with the school, and that was a risk that obviously most parents were not willing to take, as I would not be either. When things began to improve slightly and some movement was allowed, and at least some basic communication was possible, schools opened for perhaps two weeks and there were winter vacations. Then came the COVID pandemic, and again, the continuing restriction to 2G at this point became really dire in terms of its impact on education because online classes could barely function. Most of the time they were snapped. You could not, you know, many students couldn't even get online. And this we found across the board in all parts of Jamu and Kashmir, this problem of 2G, and teachers as well as students were traumatized by the inability, for the students the inability to learn or to even see, you know, familiar friendly faces, and for teachers the inability to deliver the kind of education that they wished to give their students. I mean, teaching is like health, is a vocation, still it's not a money-making enterprise. So that I would say was tragic. Doctors have told us how the rates of trauma have shot up, stress, trauma, distress, disability, inability to function, the innumerable mental health problems from child to adult. Again, across the state. Now, looking at all of these, you ask yourself why, you know, what can be the possible justification for this? We hear the Jamu and Kashmir administration as well as the Union Home Ministry saying that all of these steps were necessary in the name of security, that if these steps had not been taken, then figures for militancy would rise, figures of terrorism, cross-border organization and so on would all rise. I would only say that they have not really shown any substantive or convincing evidence. It is true that figures for casualties have dropped by about 30% compared to the same one year, preceding year of August to, you know, 2018 to June 2019. But that drop is not in absolute numbers. It's not a very large drop. We're talking maybe a couple of hundred. So if you look deeper into the government figures, what you see is that actually incidents of violence were dropping continuously from 2002 onwards, from a height of say, you know, 4,000 or 5,000 incidents. By 2013, you had come down to something like 150. Slowly after 2014, those figures for violence started to rise slightly. But still very slightly compared to the 90s or even the early 2000s. The only conclusion to be derived from those figures is actually that the impact of peace and dialogue processes during the 2000s did impact in terms of bringing incidents of violence down. And there were two major factors. I mean, one was the dialogue with all shades of political opinion, as the government put it, in Jammu and Kashmir. And the other was the fact that the security forces had adopted a hearts and minds policy where they tried, for example, to restrict coordinate search operations to the bare minimum and to ensure that, you know, orders that the Supreme Court had supported the Army Chief to give in terms of respect for human rights, that those were strictly adhered to, to the extent possible. I mean, security forces never adhere strictly to all human rights norms. So these two factors together had contributed a great deal to the rise of some hope for a political solution to this long standing issue of the relationship between Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the Indian Union. However, what we've seen from 2014 onwards and certainly at a really accelerated pace in this last one year is that coordinate search operations, for example, have shot up in number every single day we saw from the beginning of June to date almost. We have had a coordinate search operation, whichever way you cut it, that is inevitably going to lead not only to an increase in casualties, but even more seriously to a real alienation of the population. Again, I would say any one of us can imagine what it would be like to have suddenly, you know, a number of armed soldiers come, surround our locality, start searching all the houses in some cases where there is strong evidence to show that militants may be hiding, laying IEDs, it is a very terrifying experience. And it cannot be something that can become a norm. It has to be rare if you want actually to bring peace in an area. Yeah, definitely. That was an interesting part of the report. That's all your time for today. We'll be back with more news from the country tomorrow. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.