India rewriting history in textbooks to conceal its annexation of Kashmir

On 12th April, The Hindu, a prominent Indian newspaper, reported that a revised political science textbook has been published by India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT)^[15].

The authors of the new textbook have removed a section in the book that stated that Kashmir’s highly contested accession to India was conditional, based on the promise that the State of Jammu and Kashmir would remain autonomous.

The section was present in the tenth chapter of the textbook, titled “The Philosophy of the Constitution”. The omitted section previously read, “For example, the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian union was based on a commitment to safeguard its autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution.”

The erasure comes four years after the Article-370 and Article 35-A were abrogated by India, which granted the state of Jammu and Kashmir nominal autonomy, restricting property and domicile rights to the native population. To some extent, these measures prevented the call led by the Hindu nationalists for demographic change in the Muslim-majority region.

With the abrogation, India has already issued thousands of domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris, and granted them lands in Kashmir, while dispossessing the local Kashmiri population of their rights, lands, and employment^[16].

[15] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/historians-condemn-key-deletions-from-ncert-textbooks/article6711848.ece

[16] https://www.arabnews.com/node/2148086/world