It couldn’t have been more ironical. Just days after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used the United Nations General Assembly [UNGA] podium to make allegations of “Indian tyranny” in Kashmir, in a barefaced show of brute force, Pakistani forces fired indiscriminately on protesters in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir [PoJK] killing at a dozen and seriously injured several others.
This public agitation is in response to a shut down and wheel jam call given by the Jammu and Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee [JKJAAC] to protest against the government’s failure to fulfil its grand promises of undertaking structural reforms, providing subsidies and ending the extravagant institutionalised privileges being enjoyed by a select elite section of society that serves as the lackey of the government.
That the JKJAAC has put cross a charter with 38 long-outstanding basic demands gives a fair idea of the abysmal state in which people of PoJK are living and massive turnout of protesters
This protest has evoked tremendous public response for two reasons. One, it addresses the very basic and legitimate demands of the marginalised people of PoJK. Two, JKJAAC, which is spearheading this agitation is not a political group but comprises a coalition of grass root level members of society like traders, transporters, lawyers and students-people who genuinely identify with the masses.
The unfortunate part is that the current protests are not the result of some spontaneous incitement but due to unpardonable institutional failure. During May last year, the JKJAAC launched protests across PoJK demanding restoration of subsidies for wheat and electricity in which at least three protesters were killed by the Pakistani forces.
Rather than addressing the core issues and eradicating the root causes of public angst, Islamabad, as is its wont, went in for a ‘quick fix’, dishing out Rs 23 billion to subsidise flour prices as well as reduce domestic and commercial electricity tariffs. PoJK Premier Chaudhary Anwarul Haq declared that this would be a “permanent arrangement” for which requisite provision would be incorporated in the federal budget for 2024-25.
Though it was a classic case of a naked man offering the people of PoJK his shirt, JKJAAC called off the protests in good faith and probably Islamabad thought that it had surmounted this crisis. What the government didn’t realise is that this was one of the few mass movements in Pakistan that despite being apolitical in nature had the backing of a cross section of local political parties, rights groups and above all, it enjoyed overwhelming public support.
Islamabad projects PoJK residents as a happy and extremely content lot and to support its incredulous claim, it has even named PoJK ‘Azad [free] Jammu and Kashmir’ even though its citizens are denied freedom of expression, which is unquestionably the basic and non-negotiable ingredient of freedom.
With Article 7 [3] of PoJK constitution decreeing that “No person or political party in Azad Jammu and Kashmir [PoJK] shall be permitted to propagate against, or take part in activities prejudicial or detrimental to, the ideology of the State’s accession to Pakistan,” isn’t calling PoJK ‘Azad Kashmir’ a cruel joke on its hapless people?
Being denied their fundamental right to freedom of speech isn’t the only woe bedevilling PoJK residents. They are also being subjected to barefaced discrimination and being treated as second class citizens.
An example is the partisan way Islamabad has gone back on its assurance of supplying free electricity to the entire PoJK region and complimentary clean water to Mirpur city- a commitment made by the Government of Pakistan during construction of Mangla dam in PoJK’s Mirpur district.
As Mangla dam produces a whopping 4,000 MW of electricity while the power requirement of this region is a meagre 350 MW, providing this miniscule amount of free electricity to the people of POJK is no big deal. Yet, in 2013, Islamabad reneged on its commitment by unilaterally ending the subsidy on electricity in PoJK.
But exploitation of PoJK residents doesn’t end here. Muzaffarabad based political activist Zahid Mughal, reveals that "Pakistan is buying electricity from us at the rate of Rs 1.5 per unit [and] it again sells it to us at the high rate of Rs 52 per unit.”He complains that when people of PoJK “requested Pakistan to provide the electricity at the same rate, but they started calling us traitors."
And this is where the real problem starts.
Though unproven, the very mention of “traitors” is what brings Rawalpindi into the scene and it has been operating behind the scenes, doing what it is best at-disappearing those suspected of being ‘traitors’. Defence of Human Rights [DHR], a reputed Pakistani non-governmental organisation in its 2023 report has revealed that PoJK recorded 20 enforced disappearances during that year.
Out of these, while 17 individuals who were abducted by the Pakistan army, its intelligence operatives and law enforcement agencies were subsequently released, two persons, though traced, continue to remain in illegal confinement, while one individual has been the victim of extrajudicial execution.
PoJK is under the tight grip of the Pakistan army which will ensure that it makes examples of those whom it perceives to be “traitors” and its high highhandedness has definitely heightened anti-establishment sentiments amongst the masses. And several amateur videos in which protesters can be heard raising anti army slogans like “Yeh jo dahshatgardi hai, iske piche wardi hai” [it’s the uniform [army] that’s behind the ongoing terrorism], endorses this assessment.
In the wake of the 2024 JKJAAC protests, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had stated that Islamabad has evidence of a “neighbouring country” inciting these protests but provided no evidence to support his allegation. However, this has given Rawalpindi the necessary excuse for using uninhibited use of force to crush dissent.
And the whopping four-fold increase in protester fatalities in the ongoing agitation when compared with last year’s protests, reveal the unbridled animosity of Punjabi dominated Pakistani security towards the people of PoJK? Furthermore, by encouraging fringe groups to oppose the JKJAAC protests by taking to the streets in an attempt to conjure a counter narrative in its support Rawalpindi is only adding fuel to fire.
Considering the unprecedented surge in violence levels both in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [KP] as well as Balochistan and the Pakistan army’s failure to decisively defeat the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in KP and armed groups resisting Pakistani military occupation in Balochistan, and now widespread protests in PoJK, it’s obvious that Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, who claims being ordained by God to be “protector of the country,” is certainly not discharging his divine responsibility effectively.
Just feeding the domestic audience with a heady concoction of cherry-picked religious edicts liberally infused with ultra nationalism won’t do. And neither will the announcement of a pejorative moniker to portray JKJAAC as an anti-Islamic organisation working at the behest of a ‘Hindu’ India, help. It would definitely do the newly promoted Field Marshal a lot of good if rather than blaming India for everything going wrong in Pakistan, he puts his own house in order instead!

Email:---------------------------nileshkunwar.56@gmail.com