NEW DELHI: Women’s rights advocates have slammed a torrent of online posts by men from across India who expressed enthusiasm about marrying women from held Kashmir after the sudden removal of special rights in the disputed region made it more appealing to do so.

Until this week, residents of Jammu and Kashmir, whose population is majority Muslim, had exclusive rights to property and state government jobs, among other privileges, though women marrying non-residents stood to lose those benefits.

But the constitutional changes put residents and people from elsewhere in India on equal legal footing.

Many women and women’s rights activists condemned the online comments that welcomed the changes for making it easier to marry Kashmiris.

“Its deeply sexist,” said Rituparna Chatterjee, an independent journalist and activist who runs the Twitter handle @indiametoo handle that spotlights the stories of survivors of sexual harassment. “Women’s bodies have been battlegrounds for men for centuries. The latest comments on Kashmiri women are only testimony to this fact.”

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2019