They are considered India’s oldest refugees. In 1947, they came to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from Pakistan. Some came from Pakistan, others came from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Those who came from PoK were allowed to settle in J&K with full citizenship rights while these same rights were denied to those who came from parts of Pakistan and are now recognized as West Pakistan Refugees (WPR). The WPR who went to other states in India got both state and Indian citizenship, but the those who came to J&K got only Indian citizenship.

The lives of WPR are perched on the intersection of many a fault line in Kashmir. They can vote in parliament polls, but not in J&K elections. They can be recruited for central government services and the defence, but they are not eligible for jobs in J&K. Even the land granted to them by the state government to build their houses and carry out agricultural activities isn’t theirs since state subject laws don’t allow non-state subjects to own, buy or transfer immovable.

According to state subject laws, non-state subjects cannot own, buy, or transfer immovable property. The lands these refugees hold were not initially granted to them by J&K Government, but were occupied by them when they first arrived in the state. Later these lands were allotted to be retained by them (up to 12 acres of khushki or dry and eight acres of aabi or wet land) subject to certain conditions. As a result, 46,466 kanals of state land stands retained by these refugees under J&K Cabinet Order No. 578-C of 1954.

Of course, the larger conflict over J&K between India and Pakistan looms over these refugees. While Islamabad’s objections may hold little weight in India’s decision to grant J&K citizenship to these refugees, there is another hurdle: J&K’s special status within Indian Union under Article 370, which forbids outsiders from settling in the state or buying immovable property. 

However, Article 370 alone is not a problem. The law to bar outsiders was ironically framed by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1927 when J&K was an autonomous principality of the British-ruled, undivided India.  According to Section 6 of the J&K Constitution, comprising the state subject notifications issued by the Maharaja, the WPR are not covered under any category of Permanent Residents. 

Over the years, the issue has become only more complicated and enmeshed with the politics of conflict in the state. The Muslim majority in the state – more so the Muslims in Kashmir Valley – see in the grant of citizenship to around 20,000 families of West Pakistan Refugees an attempt to alter the demography of the state to their detriment. Why? Because they’re all Hindu families.

According to Wadhwa Committee, constituted in 2006 by the then state government,  a total of 47,215 people migrated from West Pakistan in 1947 and settled in Jammu, Kathua and Rajouri districts of Jammu division, with the largest number concentrated at Chak Jaffar village of Marh block and Bhagwati Nagar area in Jammu district. Now, according to the West Pakistani Refugees Action Committee Cell, which itself has carried out an exercise of enumerating their population, a total of 18,428 families of these refugees have been identified by the association in  2012.

Hence the opposition to the nativity certificates issued to the WPRs by the state government are seen as yet another step in the gradual process to provide them state citizenship. The opposing social and political groups in Valley don’t acknowledge how the numbers of WPRs are insignificant and won’t make much of a difference to the population percentage of the religious group to which they belong. 

“The West Pakistan Refugees have already identity cards in the form of Election Identity cards, Aadhar cards, ration cards and they cast their vote in Parliamentary elections,” said Mian Qayoom, the president of the High Court Bar Association, during a protest against nativity certificates to WPRs, held in December 2016. “But they are still being issued fresh Identity Cards by the Government of J&K only to pave way and make their settlement in J&K permanent. This is yet another carefully planned assault on J&K’s autonomous status.” 

A similar anxiety about the alleged conspiracy in New Delhi to undermine the state’s special status has driven people in Valley to oppose the Sainik colony for ex-servicemen and their kin, separate settlements for Kashmiri Pandits, leasing land to non-state subjects to set up industries and other decisions perceived to have a bearing on the state’s existing demographics.

There is, however, a more rational opposition to the citizenship for WPR. “In the Valley, state subject law is seen as the last and the most critical part of the Article 370, which has otherwise been diluted in many of its vital aspects, which once gave J&K its autonomous status within the Indian Union,” said Naseer Ahmad, a local columnist. “Muslims are paranoid if this last bulwark also goes, nothing can stop a full scale demographic change geared to undermine the Muslim majority character of the state”. 

Occasional statements to this effect by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders like Tarun Vijay and Subramanium Swamy have only reinforced this paranoia. In the past, Swamy has called for undoing the “cleansing” of the Valley of Kashmiri Pandits by “sending one million ex-servicemen and families into the Kashmir Valley for re-settlement”. Taking this narrative forward, Vijay recently said that it was “the right of jawans to get a piece of land in the Valley for which they have been shedding their blood and becoming martyrs”.   

The issue has thus assumed historical, political and psychological dimensions and the WPRs are its hapless victims.

In reaction to the opposition in Valley to WPR being granted state citizenship, Jammu has increasingly turned hostile towards Rohingyas, who are Muslim refugees from Myanmar and have recently taken shelter in parts of the province. According to Government figures, there are 13,433 refugees from Myanmar and Tibet staying in J&K. A significant chunk of these refugees are Rohingyas, who are Muslims, while the rest are Buddhists. Rohingyas started coming to Jammu over the past few years, after suffering persecution in Myanmar. Replying to a question in the state Assembly, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti put their number at 5,743 and almost all of them aare settled in Jammu’s Narwal area.

But now, sections of Jammu’s political class is seeing their presence as a conspiracy. One of them who wants them out is Prof Bhim Singh, leader of J&K Panthers Party. The ruling BJP has also expressed concern. Its legislator Ravinder Raina described Rohingyas as “a great threat to the national security”. 

Not everyone holds such divisive points of view. “We just say that refugees are refugees, whether WPR or Rohingyas,” said Engineer Rashid, an independent legislator from the Valley who even urged Pakistan to take WPR back. However even Rashid added this caveat: “All refugees should be treated with dignity and well provided for, but they can’t be granted citizenship.”