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As the G20 tourism summit opened this week on the banks of Srinagar’s picturesque Dal lake in the heart of the Kashmir Valley, army commandos patrolled the area and police officers with machine guns watched on most street corners.
Tight security in Jammu and Kashmir, which has become one of the world’s most heavily militarized zones, to ensure the working group meeting, hosted by India and attended by delegates from 27 countries, goes smoothly.
It was the first high-level international meeting to be held on Kashmir since the government revoked the Muslim-majority region’s special status and placed it under direct Indian rule, while dividing it into two federal territories.
Indian authorities are hoping to show that Kashmir, the site of a decades-long insurgency against the Indian government, is now peaceful and stable after being stripped of its semi-autonomous status.
But in the Jahangir Chowk market, a few kilometers away from the perimeter that isolated the meeting place, the idea of anything normal in Kashmir was rejected outright.
“If things are normal in Jammu and Kashmir, what makes you deploy such a large number of security personnel to be deployed in this state?” said businessman and political activist Amood Gulzar, 29. “There is a contradiction.”
He said he was happy with the G20 delegation in Srinagar, but felt that ordinary Kashmiri demands were being ignored – including free elections, which have not been held in Jammu and Kashmir since 2014.
“There is no elected government [in the region] and that India [world’s] largest democracy, rejecting democratic procedures in this country,” Gulzar said.
‘We live in fear’
Others in the market and elsewhere quietly complained about being harassed by police and soldiers before the three-day meeting. Multiple security checkpoints are in place in Srinagar, and residents have told CBC News they feel unable to describe the situation in their country to reporters, for fear of arrest.
“People are oppressed. We can’t talk openly,” one shoe seller shouted angrily, while others nodded their heads.
“We live in fear. The forces are everywhere,” Srinagar resident Riyaz Ahmed told CBC News, while shopping at the market with his young grandson. “Every Kashmiri is depressed.”
He said that when he spoke to the CBC, he was “scared that he might watch it” and that he would be “harassed later.”
However, Ahmed continued the conversation, saying that he and others gathered in the market square did not know the purpose of the G20 tourism summit.
“They want to show the world that Kashmir is peaceful. But it is not,” Ahmed said. “The G20 campaign is just a facade.”
WATCH | CBC on the ground: Calm, anger in Indian-occupied Kashmir:
As India hosts the G20 summit on tourism in Kashmir, the country is keen to project stability and peace in the part of the region it controls. But on the ground, CBC India correspondent Salima Shivji heard anger from Kashmiris who could not speak out, fearing retribution from the security services.
In an indoor market with almost no customers, Manzoor Ahmed (no relation) uttered these words.
“Because of the heightened security presence around the G20, Kashmiris are very scared and don’t leave their homes like they used to,” said a 40-year-old vendor in Kashmiri. “It also affects our business.”
He stirs a large pot full of traditional Kashmiri Gushtaba meatballs at the stall he’s served all his life, and shakes the heavy security that has descended on his town, where a heavy military presence has become the norm.
He shrugged when asked if he expected to benefit from the G20 meeting, which focused on promoting tourism in the besieged region.
“The G20 delegation has no communication with us Kashmiris, they don’t know about our sufferings and problems,” Ahmed said. “The government just gave it away [the delegation] with a normal facade and placed in a luxury hotel.”
Decades of conflict
Controversy has created the Indian government’s choice to hold the meeting in a disputed region.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but each controls only parts of the Himalayan region, which is predominantly Muslim and has been a flashpoint since the two countries gained independence 75 years ago. The countries, both nuclear powers, have fought two of the three full-scale wars in the region.
The United Nations said on Monday that the meeting was being held as “massive human rights violations” continued in Kashmir, including arbitrary arrests, political persecution and restrictions on free media.
“The Indian government is seeking to normalize what some describe as a military occupation by holding the G20 meeting and reflecting on international agreements,” Fernand de Varennes, the UN’s special rapporteur on minority issues, said in a statement.
India called the claim “baseless” and full of “illegal allegations.”
China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were among several countries that boycotted the meeting because of its location.
Pakistan, which is not a member of the G20, was angered by the meeting’s decision on Kashmir.
India is “misusing the G20 presidency to push its colonial agenda,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told AFP Monday from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Indian officials rejected the criticism. The chief coordinator of India’s G20 presidency, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, said Pakistan had no right to argue about the G20 or Jammu and Kashmir, “which is an integral part of India, and the meeting held here today has nothing to do with them.”
The region has ‘moved on’ from the conflict, India says
Indian officials at the G20 tourism working group meeting also defended the meeting in Srinagar, the summer capital of the restive region.
“Jammu and Kashmir has moved on” from the violence, Jitendra Singh, India’s junior science and technology minister, said on the first day of the meeting.
He said holding the summit was an achievement in itself, while hailing the dramatic increase in tourism to the mountainous region known for its beauty. The number of tourists, mostly domestic, visited Indian-occupied Kashmir last year – 18.4 million. This year’s figure is estimated to be as high as 20 million.
“The common man walking on the streets of Srinagar wants to be a part of the development journey led by Prime Minister Modi,” Singh said.
His statement was met with disbelief in Srinagar’s food market.
“Unemployment is increasing, roads are being dug up,” said Riyaz Ahmed. “Is this the development they are talking about?” he added, gesturing at an empty vendor table on the dirt road.
“The situation is worst in Kashmir. India is doing whatever it wants.”
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