Modi to meet Kashmir leaders 1st time after altering region

India’s prime minister is scheduled to hold a crucial meeting with pro-India politicians from disputed Kashmir for the first time since New Delhi stripped the region’s semi-autonomy while jailing many of them in a crackdown

SRINAGAR, India -- India’s prime minister was scheduled to hold a crucial meeting with pro-India politicians from disputed Kashmir on Thursday for the first time since New Delhi stripped the region’s semi-autonomy while jailing many of them in a crackdown. Experts say the meeting is meant to ward off mounting criticism at home and abroad after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in August 2019 downgraded the region's status, split it into two federal territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and removed inherited protections on land and jobs for the local population. Since then, Indian authorities have imposed a slew of administrative changes through new laws, often drafted by bureaucrats, that triggered resentment and anger as many likened the moves to the beginning of settler colonialism. Modi has repeatedly called the changes overdue and necessary to foster economic development and fully integrate Kashmir with India. Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, which both claim it in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.