CALGARY -- Since the beginning of August, much of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, along the India-Pakistan border, has been under a blackout.
But now after 75 days of silence, some communication is finally getting through, much to the relief of thousands of Kashmiris who now call Calgary home.
Wasim Naqshbandi has lived in Canada for nearly 20 years after his parents saw an uncertain future for the family in their homeland of Kashmir.
“The actual uprising started in ‘89,” Naqshbandi, a Calgary medical professional, said in an interview with CTV News.
“I was a teenager back then. It was a very different Kashmir that we were used to before that.”
For most of the roughly 30 years since, it hasn’t been peace, but for many, it was tolerable.
“People had a normal day, they go to work, kids go to school, there is military around but it is part of our lives there,” he said.
In the first days of August, the Indian government sent over 900,000 troops into the semi-autonomous region, cutting phone and internet servicews, rounding up local politicians and imposing strict curfews and martial law.
There is now nearly one soldier for every seven Kashmiris.
About 6,000 Kashmiri families live in Calgary, the second largest Kashmiri population in the world outside of the famously beautiful region.
Some cell service was restored on Monday, but families abroad are calling for the international community to act, and call on India to live up to its secular democratic principles.
“I don’t think of any other country in the world where they would have shut down internet for 75 days and still continues, in the modern era,” said Naqshbandi. “Especially a democratic country doing that to people to bsically stop the flow of information, the freedom of speech.”
While Kashmir has some autonomy, it is shared by Pakistan and india and has been the scene of an uprising since the late 1980’s.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi abruptly changed his country’s constitution in early August, stripping the region of its special status meant to find a peaceful path to self-determination.
That strikes Naqshbandi as the height of irony.
“If you look at India, it’s the country of Ghandi and Neru,” he said. “Their idea of India was secular and democratic.”
The federal government has only said it is monitoring the situation closely.
