Restrictions over the past eight days have been severe enough that a lot
of Kashmiris have been all but confined to their homes. Indian forces
went to the extent that reporters said the communications blackout meant
some Kashmiris didn’t even know what was going on.
Indian forces expected that the Eid al-Adha holiday would lead to large
protests in Kashmir, and in trying to prevent such demonstrations, the
military imposed even more severe restrictions, including closing the largest mosque in Srinagar.
Muslims, who are the heavy majority of Kashmir, are allowed to go to
mosques for the Eid, but only smaller mosques. The expectation seems to
be that the largest, most influential mosque would be used to organize
big protests.
That’s probably a reasonable expectation. Historically in places where
governments severely restrict public assembly, people opposed to their
crackdowns have used religious meeting places to organize
demonstrations. Indeed, Kashmir’s largest protests of the first week
came on Friday, after weekly prayers.
India would be better off bringing the 700,000 troops back and let Kashmiris rule themselves. Suppressing such a large population by brute force is not going to work.