New Delhi [India], June 24: The people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) are once again up-in-arms against the suppressive federal government in Islamabad.
At least 15 people were killed in PoK protests on June 9 ahead of the scheduled local elections in the region.
The peaceful protests led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an umbrella organization of traders, civil society activists, students organizations and socio-religious groups, were met with a brutal crackdown by the Pakistani deep state.
Authorities responded by banning the group and declaring organization leaders as absconders with a prize on their arrests.
The PoK has witnessed a number of protests since the territory, referred as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in Pakistan, came under the control of the Pakistani regime during the 1947–48 conflict following the Partition of the Indian sub-continent.
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PoK has been subjected to constant political subjugation and economic exploitation in various forms.
Since 2023, the protests have largely stemmed from rising electricity bills and shortage of subsidized wheat in the region.
As is the case with all the provinces of Pakistan, the civil society of PoK accuses Punjab of domineering and diverting the resources of the region for its own growth at the cost of economic, political and social exclusion of its people.
The prosperity of the elite military-bureaucratic nexus, helmed by Punjab, has been a constant irritant for the PoK, who assertively voice their concerns.
Unlike the forced accession of Gilgit-Baltistan region by the Pakistan Army at the behest of the British soldier Major William Brown in 1947, the illegal occupation of PoK emerged from military and political developments during the first Indo-Pakistani war around the same time.
Unlike India’s Jammu and Kashmir which was annexed through the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, no comparable legal instrument exists through which PoK as well as Gilgit-Baltistan acceded to Pakistan.
More so, Pakistan’s failure to deliver on the promise of self-governance and autonomy to both regions has raised serious questions on the legitimacy as well as ability of the Pakistani state to justly govern PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
PoK, for instance, has all the trappings of being a self-governed province by virtue of its own constitution, state assembly and judiciary.
However, it has often been called out as a bluff. The provincial government status of AJK has evolved as a gradual assertion and monopoly of the Centre first through Rules of Business of the Azad Kashmir Government of 1950 and then through Interim Constitution Act of 1974, which prescribed limits on its elected office.
Even now, all decisions in the region are formally made by the AJK Council headed by the Prime Minister and supervisory control rests with the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (MKANA).
In fact, behind the recent protests is also a recent Pakistan Supreme Court verdict on reservation of seats in the PoK assembly. Under its constitution, out of total 53 seats, 12 are reserved for refugees settled in Pakistan with some seats going to other provinces like Punjab and Sindh.
This effectively gives leverage to the federal government over governance in the region. Besides these 12 seats, five are reserved for women, one for religious scholars, one for overseas Kashmiri residents and one for technocrats, which reduces the number of seats on which the people of PoK effectively elect to just 33.
This has significant repercussions for the political representation of the local people, especially when no Kashmiri has ever been elected on any of the reserved seats.
Such overarching authority of the federal government is despised in Muzaffarabad as a design to dominate the political landscape undermining the political standing of the local populace.
Therefore, many groups in PoK object to Islamabad's influence over local institutions and decision-making.
This becomes worse when the political voices of the PoK are suppressed through federal government’s diktats of “denying the elected office to any individual who propagates against, or takes part in activities prejudicial or detrimental to the ideology of the State’s accession to Pakistan”, as was seen in the brutal and violent suppression of the protests by the Pakistani state.
Concerns have, therefore, been raised time and again regarding restrictions on political expression, limits on constitutional autonomy, and the concentration of authority in federal bodies rather than elected representatives within AJK.
Besides politics, economic grievances have been among the most visible sources of friction.
Residents have frequently protested over electricity tariffs, taxation, inflation, wheat prices, and the perceived inequitable use of local resources, particularly hydropower generated in the region.
Mangla Dam is a case in point signifying unequal distribution of resources between the province of Punjab and PoK as the latter complains of administrative control and decision-making resting with the Water and Power Development Authority even as the local government spends millions of rupees every year on the operation and maintenance of the distribution network.
The feeling of frustration exacerbates when the people of PoK bear the brunt of floods every year due to incompetent flood management of Pakistan’s federal water resources ministry.
All these factors together have not only antagonized the people of PoK but have exhausted the peace-loving populace of the scenic region who has been unjustly subjected to political oblivion, economic indifference and cultural subjugation for years on end.
The indifference towards political, economic and cultural development of this region and the agitating people are a testament of Islamabad’s folly towards the development of the region.
If ignored for a prolonged time, this will certainly lead to a full-blown conflict of succession.
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It would not be an exaggeration to note that the people of PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan have remained in political incognito with people yearning for someone to own them.
The people of the region fell disempowered even decades of Pakistan’s formation and the right to live with liberty and dignity still remains a distant dream in the fragile region.
(Author is is an Assistant Professor with University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES). Dr. Sharma holds a Ph.D. in International Relations with research expertise in federalism and South Asian politics.)
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