Saturday marks 4 years of India scrapping the particular standing of Indian-administered Kashmir, New Delhi’s most far-reaching transfer in opposition to the disputed area in seven many years.

The abrogation of Article 370 of India’s structure that granted the area partial autonomy in 2019 heralded a slew of insurance policies by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities to tighten New Delhi’s grip over a area additionally claimed by its nuclear-armed neighbour, Pakistan.

Residents and critics slammed the transfer in India’s solely Muslim-majority area because the BJP’s bid to impose “settler colonialism” geared toward altering its demography and land ownership patterns and depriving Kashmiris of their livelihoods.

Earlier this week, India’s Supreme Court began hearing a clutch of petitions difficult the constitutional validity of the BJP’s 2019 transfer.

But folks within the valley say they’ve little hope something will change.

Anxieties over land possession

Article 370 barred outsiders from settling completely or shopping for property in Indian-administered Kashmir.

However, a domicile law launched in 2020 permits anybody who has lived within the area for 15 years or studied there for seven years to use for a domicile certificates, entitling them to use for land and jobs.

Last month, the New Delhi-appointed administrative head of the area introduced inexpensive housing and land for the landless folks.

The coverage proposes the supply of 5 marlas of land (.031 acres) and the development of homes underneath the Prime Minister Housing Scheme-Rural – a authorities initiative to offer housing to the agricultural poor.

In one other measure, the federal rural improvement ministry allotted a goal of 199,550 new homes within the area for the monetary 12 months 2023-24 for folks belonging to the economically weaker sections (EWS) and low-income teams within the area.

Kashmiri activists and politicians have raised suspicion over the schemes, accusing the federal government of a “deliberate ambiguity” over who the beneficiaries can be.

“[…] the wide discrepancy between figures for the landless and housing allocation raises suspicion. According to official figures, there were 19,047 landless people in the region in 2021,” stated a report launched on Thursday by the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, a civil society group advocating for the rights of the folks within the area.

“Presumably the allocation of 199,550 new houses … will cover urban migrants, including labourers, street vendors, and rickshaw pullers. According to the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, however, any citizen of India who migrated temporarily or permanently, for employment, education, or a ‘long-term tourist visit’, would be eligible to apply. If the affordable housing policy is implemented, it would lead to the inclusion of around a million people,” the report stated.

Mehbooba Mufti, the previous chief minister of the area, accused the federal government of “importing poverty and slums to the region under the pretext of providing housing to homeless individuals”.

“There is total disempowerment of the locals, whether it is in land or jobs,” Mufti informed Al Jazeera.

‘The situation is bad’

A 12 months earlier than India scrapped the area’s autonomy, its elected legislative meeting headed by Mufti was dissolved in 2018.

Since then, the area is being dominated by the federal authorities by its hand-picked administrator because the regional pro-India political events demand contemporary elections.

Mufti accused the federal government of adopting policies geared toward “disempowering” the native residents and “being driven by a desire to increase their [BJP] vote bank, thus leading to a change in the demographic makeup”.

Mufti stated the final 4 years had been “full of surveillance and raids by investigative agencies”.

“Economically also, the situation is bad. Except for showcasing the so-called tourism, whether it’s the fruit industry or any other industry, they are killing it. With such surveillance, no one can express or talk,” she stated.

But Altaf Thakur, spokesperson for the ruling BJP in Indian-administered Kashmir, claimed tourism is at an all-time excessive and for the primary time, a world occasion equivalent to a Group of 20 (G20) assembly on tourism occurred within the area earlier this 12 months.

“There is no strike, no stone pelting, no anti-national slogan is being raised. Kashmir is on the way to peace progress and prosperity,” he informed Al Jazeera.

The authorities justifies its 2019 transfer by saying it ended a decades-long period of “stone-throwing protests”. The area’s administrative head Manoj Sinha says the BJP regime will set up peace within the area “rather than buy it”.

Crackdown on free media

Press freedom in Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an unprecedented crackdown since 2019.

Since final month, practically a dozen journalists from the area writing for worldwide publications have informed Al Jazeera they obtained emails asking them to give up their passports for being a “security threat to India”, or face motion.

Three journalists from the area are at present jailed outdoors Indian-administered Kashmir underneath stringent legal guidelines, together with the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

Security restrictions on reporting and journey have made the job of a journalist troublesome. Many journalists, together with Pulitzer Prize winner Sanna Irshad Mattoo, have been barred from travelling overseas.

“The freedom to report is increasingly getting restricted. For example, too many stories on human rights issues will inevitably bring allegations that you have an anti-national agenda,” a 31-year-old Kashmiri journalist informed Al Jazeera on situation of anonymity since he feared reprisal from the federal government.

“We have seen reporters facing summons, raids, detentions, no-fly-lists, and now passport seizures. So it automatically narrows down the scope of our reporting,” he stated.

The journalist stated conflating crucial journalism with being anti-national hobbles the flexibility to assemble data and report in truth.

“No official wants to be seen as speaking to someone who is anti-national. It looks like journalism – unless it is devoted to praising the government or limiting criticism to potholes or lack of sanitation – is being criminalised.”

‘Break the Kashmiris’

At least 50 authorities staff in Indian-administered Kashmir have been terminated from their companies since 2019 on vague charges of being a “threat” to the safety of the state.

The legislation underneath which the termination was executed permits the federal government to fireside its staff with out offering a proof for it.

Meanwhile, unemployment within the area stands at 18 % – practically twice the nationwide common – regardless of guarantees made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the federal government will “end the miseries of the youth”.

“Even if one protests over unemployment, it could be considered anti-national,” Muhammad Saqib, a 28-year-old engineering graduate, informed Al Jazeera.

Mohamad Junaid, a Kashmiri anthropologist on the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts within the United States, informed Al Jazeera India has enforced a “blanket silence” in Indian-administered Kashmir.

“Order after arbitrary order is autocratically issued and implemented to disempower, dispossess and break the Kashmiris,” he stated.

“Not a single law passed in the last four years has had inputs from the Kashmiri population whose lives these laws are meant to radically alter.”