Last year, businessman Amit Raina got a document certifying him as a domicile of Jammu and Kashmir. “It is a way to connect to your roots,...
Last year, businessman Amit Raina got a document certifying him as a domicile of Jammu and Kashmir. “It is a way to connect to your roots,” said 45-year-old Raina, a Kashmiri Pandit who runs a business in Ghaziabad.
Like many Kashmiri Pandits, Raina’s family had fled the Valley in the 1990s as militancy spread. He recalls that his house in downtown Srinagar was burnt to the ground in 1992. But while he applied for a domicile certificate, he was not planning to return to Kashmir. “Why should I vote where I have no property and no say?” asked Raina.
New rules defining domiciles were framed last year, months after the Centre split the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, abolished autonomy guaranteed to the state under Article 370, and scrapped Article 35A. The latter empowered state governments of Jammu and Kashmir to define “permanent residents” or state subjects and reserve for them certain rights and privileges, including the right to own land and hold government jobs in the state.
The new rules replace “permanent resident” with “domicile” – anyone who has lived in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for 15 years or studied there for seven years or written Class...
