DUBAI (Middle East Eye) – News of the Emirati property company Emaar investing in Indian-administered Kashmir has been branded a “complete betrayal” by activists and Kashmiris in the region and abroad.
Many believe Kashmir is set to meet a fate similar to Palestine’s, with some Arab and Islamic countries withdrawing their support for the Muslim population’s cause in order to build better economic and diplomatic relations with India.
In March, Emaar’s chief executive in India revealed plans to build a shopping mall and an office complex in Srinagar, capital of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir region. Amit Jain said that the investment worth $60m would generate around 7,000 to 8,000 jobs.
Speaking on behalf of the Indian government, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said the announcement marked a “historic day” for Kashmir and that “business leaders from the UAE have been invited to invest in J&K and become ‘partners’”.
The Kashmir region is divided between areas administered by India, Pakistan and China and has been fought over since the partition of India by the British Empire in 1947.
The Indian government stands accused of thousands of human rights violations and extrajudicial killings in the region, with allegations of brutally suppressing a decades-long freedom struggle by Kashmiris.
Kashmiri rights campaigner Ershad Mehmood, executive director at the Centre for Peace, Development and Reforms, based in Islamabad, told Middle East Eye: “I am in absolute shock. This is a complete betrayal of the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir and their struggle.
“They shouldn’t have done this. This completely strengthens India’s stance, it recognizes Kashmir as Indian territory and completely whitewashes our struggle,” he said. “The UAE has just sent a message to the people of Kashmir that it doesn’t care about their rights and aspirations.”
Another campaigner, Altaf Hussain, who manages the Kashmir Institute of International Relations, said that “the message India is trying to convey to the Kashmiris is that nobody is with you - even the UAE is investing with us. They want to project this as a negative impact on the Kashmiri struggle”.
Hussain emphasized that there was no peace in Jammu and Kashmir and that India “has on its hands a long list of human rights violations”.
Indian human rights violations in Kashmir have made international investment highly controversial.
Just after Emaar’s announcement last month, UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor appealed to the Indian authorities to stop the latest attacks on human rights activists in Jammu and Kashmir.
India is also in violation of UN resolutions on holding an independence plebiscite in the region and the withdrawal of 600,000 Indian soldiers currently based in Jammu and Kashmir.