A year ago today, the Indian government led by the right-wing Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) revoked the special status of India’s only Muslim-majority state of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, and divided the state into two federally controlled Union Territories. What is the situation today?

The following statement by the International Marxist Tendency addresses the continuing, brutal oppression of Kashmir. Down with imperialism! For workers’ struggle to liberate Kashmir! For a Socialist Federation of South Asia!

Millions of ordinary people in Indian-occupied Kashmir are facing an unprecedented situation amidst the coronavirus lockdown imposed on the whole of India for 21 days. Kashmir was already under a strict curfew and has faced brutal repression since 5 August 2019, when a draconian law was passed by the Modi government changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate state, dissolving its state assembly by presidential order and relegating it to a union territory directly controlled by the central government.

Lal Salaam Publications in Pakistan has published a new book in the Urdu language on Kashmir, written by comrade Yasir Irshad, who resides in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. The following is the foreword of the book, translated into English for readers of marxist.com.

Draconian measures by the Modi government regarding Kashmir have sent shockwaves across the whole region. On 5 August, the 70-year status of the disputed Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked by a presidential order. The existing constitutional arrangement was also revoked suddenly without any democratic process.

Comrades and supporters from around the world are continuing to put pressure on the Pakistani state to release the Marxist student activist, Rawal Asad, who is still being held on the scandalous charge of sedition and has been denied bail. Meanwhile, protests are ongoing in Pakistan, where comrades, students and workers are demanding that Rawal be immediately released.

On August 18th the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) organised its founding convention at Hill Top hall in Rawlakot, Kashmir. More than 450 students participated and the revolutionary spirit ran high. More than 100 students had come from cities across Pakistan to attend this historic beginning, while other participants were students from various educational institutes of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir.