Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion Kashmir’s already vulnerable civil society is being crushed

By
December 8, 2021 at 11:53 a.m. EST
Khurram Parvez, a Kashmiri human rights defender who works with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. (Courtesy of Bilal Bahadur)

Hafsa Kanjwal is an assistant professor of South Asian history at Lafayette College.

As the Biden administration prepares to host India’s Hindu nationalist government in its virtual Summit for Democracy later this week, Kashmir’s civil society is ending the year facing an assault on the basic democratic norms of freedom of expression and rule of law.