As winter tightens its grip on the valleys of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIoJK), the cold enveloping the region is not merely seasonal. It is juridical and political. It reflects a deliberate freezing of rights, freedoms, and human dignity through law. The recent dismissal of appeals by senior Kashmiri political leaders, Masarat Alam Butt, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, and Nayeem Ahmed Khan, against charges under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) is emblematic of this reality. These decisions are not isolated judicial outcomes. They form part of a wider strategy to criminalize dissent and foreclose lawful political expression.
The UAPA, significantly expanded through amendments in 2008, 2012, and 2019, has drawn sustained criticism from jurists, civil liberties groups, and UN Special Rapporteurs. Concerns center on its vague definitions, the effective reversal of the presumption of innocence, and extraordinarily high thresholds for bail. InNational Investigation Agency v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali (2019), the Indian Supreme Court held that courts must presume the prosecution’s allegations to be true at the bail stage. This ruling normalized prolonged pre-trial incarceration and converted detention into punishment without conviction.
The prolonged incarceration of Masarat Alam, detained for years without trial, exemplifies this pattern. Shabbir Shah’s case is equally stark. He has spent over five years in prison despite documented and serious health concerns. Nayeem Khan’s continued detention further underscores the systematic use of UAPA to incapacitate political leadership. The law’s reach extends beyond individuals to families. The prosecution of Syed Salahuddin’s sons, Shahid Yousuf and Syed Shakir, on tenuous terror-financing allegations treats familial association as evidence. This directly violates the principle of individual criminal responsibility and underscores UAPA’s function as an instrument of political suppression rather than counterterrorism.
Parallel to this legal siege is the relentless military occupation. The report of a youth, Javed Ahmed Hijam, arrested in Pulwama on the familiar pretext of “providing logistical support to mujahideen” is a routine entry in the ledger of Kashmir’s suffering. These cordon-and-search operations (CASOs), now intensified ahead of India’s Republic Day, are not mere security drills. They are rituals of collective punishment. Streets are sealed, homes are invaded, and men are frisked and humiliated in front of their families. This “pervasive and oppressive” military presence, as termed by the political leaders , turns daily life into an ordeal, where movement is a negotiation with armed power and privacy is a forgotten luxury.
This winter, the material hardships are acute. Amidst this security clampdown, the lack of civic facilities bites harder. Unreliable electricity, inadequate heating, and disrupted livelihoods compound the misery. For the nomadic shawl vendors, whose winter migration to Indian cities is an economic lifeline, the season now brings a different kind of cold: the hostility of majoritarian extremism. Being forced to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” or being driven from markets is a brutal reminder that their identity itself is under assault, their economic survival contingent on surrendering their dignity and political silence.
The Indian state’s narrative of “normalcy” and development in Kashmir is brutally contradicted by this ground reality. What prevails is not peace but a pacification enforced by over a million troops. The conviction of leaders like Yasin Malik to life imprisonment, with the state seeking death, sends a clear message: the demand for the right to self-determination, promised by UN resolutions, is a punishable crime. The space for political expression has been methodically eradicated, replaced by the architecture of control—UAPA cases, armed patrols, and endless checkpoints.
The psychological toll is immeasurable. Each arrest under dubious charges, each dismissal of an appeal, each house raid deepens the alienation and trauma of a population that has lived under conflict for generations. The “silent suffering,” especially among women who bear the brunt of disappeared, detained, or martyred family members, constitutes a profound mental health crisis, largely unaddressed and exacerbated by the constant state of fear.
The international community’s silence on this ongoing crisis is a failure of moral and political responsibility. Kashmir is not an internal Indian matter; it is an internationally recognized dispute whose resolution is essential for regional peace. The world must look beyond geopolitical calculations and see the human cost: a people imprisoned in their own land, shivering through a winter of political disenfranchisement, disempowerment and militarized control.
To break this chilling stalemate requires urgent intervention. The global community, particularly the United Nations, must move beyond periodic expressions of concern. It must actively work to revive a credible, tripartite dialogue involving India, Pakistan, and genuine Kashmiri leadership to address the dispute’s root causes. Pressure must be mounted on India to repeal laws like the UAPA, AFSPA and PSA, demilitarize the region, release political prisoners, and halt human rights violations.
The winter in Kashmir will eventually pass, but the deep freeze of oppression will not lift without concerted external pressure and internal resilience. The courage of the Kashmiri people, enduring an “open-air prison” for over seven decades, demands nothing less than a world that finally chooses to see, speak, and act. Their right to self-determination is not a frozen relic of history; it is the unextinguished ember that can, and must, thaw the longest winter of their lives.
