Abstract
The colonial legacy of structural centralization persists in developing nations that were once European colonies. Kashmir has been a contentious issue between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, Pakistan and India, since their inception; however, the origins of this conflict can be traced back to colonial times as part of the Crown’s divide-and-rule policy. This paper navigates the major structural dividends: political, economic, security, and demographic, generated during colonial times that the postcolonial states continue to exploit after independence, and more recently, following the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A from the Indian Constitution.
It further examines the consequences of these structural dividends in the form of injustice and human rights violations through the lenses of Rawlsian justice analysis and Ignatieff’s human rights arguments, respectively. The major findings conclude that the present-day political and social tensions in Kashmir trace their origins to the structural patterns established during the British Raj, which continue to shape governance practices, human rights outcomes, and the social fabric of Kashmir.
Introduction
The Kashmir conflict has been one of the most prolonged and complex issues in South Asia, shaping the geopolitical landscape, identities, and human rights conditions in the region since the inception of India and Pakistan. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to the colonial legacy of the British, which established corrosive institutional frameworks and unjust territorial arrangements that continue to influence Kashmir’s contemporary socioeconomic and political structure. The most influential treaty in this regard was the Treaty of Amritsar, 1846, which marked the beginning of the Dogra dynasty in Jammu and Kashmir under British suzerainty. This treaty established a political order that prioritized imperial interest over the democratic aspirations of locals (Kashmir Archive, 2024).
The Dogra rulers were Hindu elites governing a Muslim-majority population. Their centralized administrative structure, to serve colonial interests, marginalized the local population and concentrated power among Hindu feudal authorities. Thus, Muslims were structurally excluded from power sittings under the Dogra Raj (Bhat, 2019). The unjust territorial agreements and border demarcation by the British made Kashmir the bone of contention between them. Recently, in 2019, the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A further intensified political tension and violations of international human rights in the region (Ali & Mustafa, 2021).
This paper investigates how the colonial legacy of political centralization and the institutional framework generated the structures that were weaponized by the post-colonial states against the right of self-determination of Kashmiris. This paper considers the political, economic, security, and demographic structures that emerged from the colonial setup and their consequences on contemporary conflict. It also examines structural injustice, human rights violations, and the fragmentation of social identities through the lenses of Rawls’s theory of justice and Ignatieff’s critique of human rights politics.
Research Question
The central research question of this study is to what extent colonial structural arrangements shaped the contemporary situation of injustice, human rights violations, and social fragmentation in Kashmir. It further explores the key political, administrative, and security structures established by the British, as well as the purposes for which they were created. Moreover, it examines how the postcolonial government adopted these structures after partition.
Colonial Centralization Structures and Formulation of the Kashmir Issue
The history of the Kashmir issue is deeply rooted in the tactics adopted by the British to establish and sustain their rule in the subcontinent. The governance of Jammu and Kashmir given to Gulab Singh, a Dogra ruler, by the British East India Company under the Treaty of Amritsar, 1846 (Kashmir Archive, 2024), demonstrates the implementation of the Crown’s “divide and rule” policy because the major portion of Kashmir’s population was comprised of Muslims. The British adopted a centralized political order by aligning with the Dogras to control the frontier regions (Kreutzmann, 2008).
The political and administrative orders were hierarchical, which favored loyalty to the ruler rather than service to the state’s people. The administrative position and land rights were granted to elites who aligned themselves with the aspirations of the external authorities, and a significant segment of the Muslim population remained excluded from government participation (Bhat, 2019). Schofield noted that Kashmiri Muslims viewed the Dogras as treating the region as “a conquered territory,” and governance was given to the nobles loyal to the external authorities (Schofield, 2003, p. 5). The British introduced a classified system of revenue collection, judicial rulings, and bureaucratic administration, entrenched with centralized authority that restricted the development of a local autonomous system (Rai, 2004, pp. 18-79).
Another tactic used by the British was the reshaping of identities through the census and bordering. Jammu and Kashmir were two separate regions that were brought under a single dynasty. Kashmir is a valley comprised of a Muslim majority population, and Jammu lies in the south of Kashmir, a hilly region with a Hindu-majority population. Many scholars argue that the unification of these two geographical regions occurred to create a religious demographic mismatch (Schofield, 2003, pp. 49-55).
The colonial legacy of mapping Kashmir’s political and demographic realities is more than establishing an administrative structure; it produces a foundation for the conflict that still exists between the two nuclear-armed states, India and Pakistan. The centralization of authority and classification of different social groups created resentment in the Muslim population, which emerged during the accession dispute in 1947 and persists in contemporary political relations between India and Pakistan (Schofield, 2003, pp. 49-55). Thus, the political dynamics of Kashmir cannot be analyzed without understanding how the colonial centralized structure and identity stratification system institutionalized inequalities, which later on resulted in interstate rivalry and intrastate resentment.
Post-colonial Exploitation of Structural Dividends in Kashmir
Political Dividends
The accession of Kashmir to India in 1947 was a politically ambiguous event. The Indian state has ultimate authority while projecting an image of conditional autonomy. Article 370 established this asymmetry by constitutionally granting limited self-governance while reserving defense, foreign affairs, and communication to the center (Schofield, 2003, pp. 49-55), similar to the colonial diarchic system. Rather than replacing this notorious legacy, the post-colonial state adopted this structure and restricted the path of political enfranchisement of Kashmiris in the broader political arena.
For a prolonged period, the center directly ruled over Kashmir through executive interventions, armed control of the area, and dismissal of elected governments (Human Rights Watch, 2006). The abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A did not dismantle the colonial pattern; rather, it reinforced the trajectory from limited self-governance to making Kashmir an internal colony of New Delhi. (Bose, 2021, pp. 192-245).
Economic Dividends
Kashmir’s economic integration into India and Pakistan has been profoundly shaped by control over its natural resources. Major hydroelectric projects on rivers originating in Kashmir are administered by the center, limiting the local participation and benefit-sharing despite the region bearing the environmental and social costs (Latief, 2023). The Indus Water Treaty of 1960 shows that India and Pakistan neglected the valley while settling the water dispute, even though the Indus Basin System originates in Kashmir (Núñez, 2025). The colonial legacy of extraction without consent of the local population continues to be practiced by the post-colonial states.
Similarly, development projects often favor state-aligned actors, particularly in the tourism and infrastructure sectors. The recent constitutional changes not only gave access to the Kashmiri land but also increased the dependence on the center. These policies exacerbate the condition of local ownership, employment, and access to land, weakening the indigenous economic system (Nisa, 2024). It also reflects the imperial pattern of rewarding allegiance with land and economic benefits in order to maintain a firm grip over the region. The state chose to reinforce dependency rather than to empower the local population through its economic policies.
Security Dividends
Kashmir’s contemporary security governance model reflects the logic of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which prioritizes order over rights. Under the banners of counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and national security, security forces exercise broad discretionary powers in the region. In doing so, the state converts security into a structural dividend by normalizing legal and political exceptionalism within routine governance. The postcolonial state has further redeployed a “buffer zone” rationality characterized by intensive surveillance, pervasive militarization, restrictions on civil liberties, and the privileging of security-threat narratives over lawful citizenship claims (Kreutzmann, 2008).
This regime of exception is legally entrenched through the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (1990) and the Public Safety Act (1978), which permit detention without trial, provide de facto immunity from prosecution, and authorize extensive surveillance (Amnesty International, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2006). The resulting highly militarized governance structure produces a pervasive climate of fear and impunity, systematically weakening civil rights and political liberties while simultaneously consolidating central authority.
Demographic Dividends
Ethnic stratification was one of the key colonial political tools to control the region, especially in Kashmir. The colonial census categorized the population based on religion and ethnicity in the valley (Zutshi, 2004, pp. 57-118). This gave a new identity to the people, which was based on their religion, caste, and ethnicity.
People who were once known as Kashmiri were being classified as Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims’ sufferings, due to structural inequalities, turned into demographic anxieties, which later on mobilized the masses in post-colonial states. The mobilization of masses against the state is therefore rooted in identity manufactured by the British, not merely in policy failure.
Through establishing the Dogra dynasty, the British combined the two regions, Jammu and Kashmir, into a single unit under the Treaty of Amritsar, 1846 (Kashmir Archive, 2024). Jammu comprised a Hindu population in the majority, while Kashmir was a Muslim-majority valley. By combining two separate geographic, demographic, and economic regions, the British reshuffled the identities. (Schofield, 2003, pp. 5-6). Similarly, by abrogating Articles 35A and 370, the center grants access to the external population to alter Kashmir’s demographic structure. The new domicile law, land reforms, and redistricting altered the political landscape by modifying electoral participation (Nisa, 2024). These reforms raised concerns regarding local representation, identity marginalization, and dilution of culture, thereby reshaping demography as a dividend that transforms power relations in favor of the center.
Impact of the Dividends
The above-mentioned centralized political and administrative system adopted by the post-colonial state to govern Kashmir has severely weakened the local governing structure. The elected governments were marginalized, and the decision-making process was dominated by the central government. The dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah’s government and the installation of a center-backed government proved how the right of self-determination was crushed in Kashmir (Schofield, 2003, pp. 64-71). The administrative authority prevails over the elected representatives, thereby prioritizing order over civil liberty. After the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, the distance between the political authority and the citizen increased as the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly was dissolved and the region was reorganized into Union Territories under direct control of the central government (Bose, 2021, pp. 192-245).
Government policies and governing patterns systematically constrain basic civil liberties in Kashmir. Recurring curfews, extensive communication blackouts, and unreasonable use of preventive detention laws contribute to the chronic outcomes of rights. Immediately after the revocation of Article 370, authorities imposed curfews and communications shutdowns and detained thousands of members of civil society without charge under laws such as the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) (Human Rights Watch, 2020). This results in the isolation of communities, restrictions on access to information, and disruptions to routine life. The arbitrary detentions were documented as a systematic crackdown on opposition (CHRAC, 2024; Amnesty International, 2022). To cover up its mess, the Indian state imposed restrictions on the press that go beyond Kashmir (Amnesty International, 2024).
Such policies and rights restrictions lead to social fabrication in Kashmir by undermining intercultural coexistence and enlarging communal and regional gaps. The concept of “Kashmiriyat” was severely damaged by the militant insurgency of 1988. The 1987 election controversy catalyzed this insurgency (Navlakha, 2009). After that, identity clashes and communal riots took an upward turn, and the situation worsened due to the revocation of Articles 370 and 35A. International organizations criticize such practices because these patterns can lead to social alienation, making the valley difficult to govern. (CHRAC, 2024).
Theoretical Evaluation
The theoretical assessment of this paper is based on the Rawlsian lens of justice and Ignatieff’s notion of human rights. It will examine the colonial structural legacies that have been adapted, reinforced, and imposed by the post-colonial state, and to what extent these structures are successful in establishing justice and how human rights are instrumentalized in Kashmir.
Rawlsian Lens of Justice
Rawls conceives justice as fairness and identifies the basic structure of society as the primary subject of justice because it determines individuals’ life chances from the outset (Rawls, 1999, p. 6). He formulates two principles to assess justice. The first is the principle of equal basic liberties, which implies that every member of society must enjoy equal fundamental rights, such as political participation and freedom of speech (Rawls, 1999, pp. 54-53). The second is the difference principle, which holds that social and economic inequalities are permissible only if they are open to all under conditions of equal opportunity and if they benefit the least advantaged members of society (Rawls, 1999, p. 65). Together, these principles reject moral distinctions based on birth or social status and require governance arrangements to be justified from the standpoint of those worst off in society.
When Kashmir’s governance structure is examined through the Rawlsian lens of justice, a pattern of structural injustices rooted in the colonial governance structure adopted by post-colonial states becomes apparent. The centralization of authority, prolonged non-functionality of representative institutions, and implementation of excessive emergency and security laws restrict Kashmir from enjoying equal political and civil liberties, which denies the principle of equal basic liberties (Rawls, 1999, pp. 53-54; Schofield, 2003, pp. 64-71).
Additionally, the persistent inequalities in the political framework, economic opportunities, and heedless exposure to insensitive security practices do not improve the condition of the least advantaged in the region, resulting in a violation of the difference principle (Rawls, 1999, p. 65; CHRAC, 2024). Thus, Kashmir is an apt case study where not only the policy failure but also the basic structure itself systematically reproduces injustice. This results in the failure of governance arrangements to be compatible with Rawls’ framework of fairness and justice.
Ignatieff’s Notion of Human Rights
Ignatieff views human rights as a political practice rather than a metaphysical moral doctrine. He believes that human rights exist to protect humanity from cruelty, humiliation, and abuse of power. For him, human rights have a limited and concrete purpose: to protect basic human agency (Ignatieff, 2000, p. 288). He refuses to view human rights as a moral vision of a good life. He argues that if human rights are treated as an absolute truth, they become idolatrous, thereby losing practicality. In such conditions, they are manipulated by individuals in power to justify their interventions and oppressions as protection of universal values (Ignatieff, 2000, pp. 322-324). According to him, the legitimacy of human rights depends on their ability to serve the victims completely in a political sense, rather than on being a tool for an abstract ideology (Ignatieff, 2000, pp. 334-336).
When Ignatieff’s arguments about narrative are applied to Kashmir, it unveils a pattern of systematic oppression covered by human rights discourse. The Indian state’s narrative about the present condition of human rights in Kashmir revolves around constitutionalism, national security, and democratic legality, trying to justify the oppressive condition of human life currently over there for the achievement of the collective sacred cause for the people of Kashmir, which is marginalizing the real political voice of the Kashmiris (Schofield, 2003, pp. 64-71; Ignatieff, 2000, pp. 322-324).
In the Supreme Court, senior government counsel referred to the Pulwama attack of February 2019 to justify the revocation of Article 370, which later resulted in the infamous 2019-2021 lockdown and communication blackout in Kashmir (BBC, 2019). It was the Indian state’s discursive strategy to convert universal human rights language into a state legitimating strategy. Thus, in Ignatieff’s terms, it is an attempt to make human rights idolatry, where the language of rights protects rather than confronts the oppression, thereby making it a political tool to erode the very agency it is supposed to protect. (Ignatieff, 2000, pp. 334-336).
Conclusion
This paper concludes that the contemporary political, social, and human rights crisis in Kashmir is not simply an outcome of recent constitutional changes but is deeply rooted in the colonial institutional framework adapted and intensified by post-colonial states. The post-colonial state did not dismantle the political, economic, security, and demographic colonial architectures; rather, it selectively reinforced them to generate what this study tries to conceptualize as structural dividends (the coercive gains that the postcolonial state gets by adapting coercive colonial measures).
Colonial practices of centralization of authority, securitized governance, and systematic demographic redistricting were adopted after 1947, resulting in the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status, which further marginalized local political institutions (Schofield 2003, pp. 49-71; Bose, 2021). These practices are what Rawls refers to as an unjust basic structure of society. In this structure, equal basic liberties and fair opportunities are systematically denied to a specific population (Rawls, 1999, pp. 53–54).
In this unfair system, human rights do not protect victims of oppression; instead, they are used as political tools to back emergency laws, preventive detentions, and prolonged communication blackouts. This reflects Ignatieff’s warning that rights discourse can become a tool of governance rather than a shield (Ignatieff, 2000, pp. 322–336; Human Rights Watch, 2020). Overall, the views of Rawls and Ignatieff are that the injustice in Kashmir is not random. It is structurally created through a governance system that denies political freedom and misuses human rights.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Muhammad Ihsan Haris has a bachelor's in Pakistan studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He is now pursuing his master's in intercooperation in human rights from the University of Bologna, Italy.
