As Modi Addresses India, Protests Flare in Kashmir

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York, who both serve on foreign affairs committees, urged India on Wednesday to protect and promote “equal rights, including freedom of assembly, access to information and equal protections under the law.” But the statement stopped short of condemning India’s actions.

In the British Parliament, reaction was somewhat mixed. Debbie Abrahams, an opposition lawmaker from the Labour Party who is the chairwoman of a parliamentary group on Kashmir, said that India’s move “contravenes international law.” Bob Blackman, a Conservative lawmaker who is the chairman of a group that represents British Hindus, said Article 370 was an “anomaly” and needed to go.

On Wednesday, the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said he had spoken to India’s foreign minister. “We’ve expressed some of our concerns around the situation and called for calm, but also had a clear readout of the situation from the perspective of the Indian government,” he said.

After India’s announcement, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a collective of over 50 Muslim-majority countries, convened an “urgent meeting” in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with high-level officials.

A focus group on Jammu and Kashmir in the organization called India’s actions illegal, but the organization has not condemned the dilution of Article 370 outright. In a statement released on Sunday and reiterated through the week, the organization said it was “deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”

China also criticized the Modi government. In remarks on Tuesday, Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said the international consensus on Kashmir was that it was “an issue left from the past between India and Pakistan.”

Raveesh Kumar, spokesman for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, criticized that statement, saying decisions made on Jammu and Kashmir were “an internal matter concerning the territory of India.”

“India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise,” he said.