For over a year, in the entire Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) consisting of the so-called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) have witnessed significant public protests. This is primarily because of frustrations of the local people with the insensitivity and indifference shown by the government of Pakistan towards their genuine demands.
The local administrations both in Muzaffarabad and Gilgit are regarded as powerless and controlled entirely by the government of Pakistan and in reality, by the powerful military of Pakistan. Therefore, in recent years, as in the past, there have been popular demonstrations on the streets both in AJK and GB against the government in Islamabad, because the people very well know where does the power lie. The protests in 2024 in both the regions point to continuing alienation of the people and their anger and frustration with the way Pakistan has treated them over the years. The protests have panned out in the later half of the 2023 and first half of the present year (2024).
Gilgit Baltistan
In Gilgit Baltistan, protests have been ongoing due to their immediate grievances, including high inflation and electricity shortages. Additionally, there have been demands for greater political autonomy and control over local resources.
The region has seen a series of demonstrations and strikes for many years now, reflecting the broader discontent with the federal government’s policies. The people of Gilgit Baltistan have been denied fundamental rights for a long time and these peace-loving people in the terrain are without any kind of constitutional identity even after years of protest. With political awareness growing over the years, the people of the region have come out openly in protest against the policies of the local as well as the central administration in Islamabad.
The trigger for the movement in the latter half of 2023 was withdrawal of government subsidy on wheat, which has been there for a long time, purely as a concession to people from an area that has contributed a lot to the Pakistani coffers.
GB witnessed the biggest protests in its history in which millions of people from all districts (Diamer, Ghizer, Astore, Shigar, Ghanche, Kharmang, Hunza, Chilas and Nagar) participated.
The protest gained momentum after months of protest when the Awami Action Committee (ACC) called for a complete shutter down and wheel-jam strike across the ten districts on 26 and 27 January 2024 and came out with its 15-point demands: among them, it was asked to freeze wheat subsidy at 2022 rates; cancel GB Finance Act 2023 and end all taxes imposed in GB; end artificially created power crisis in the region and increase electricity production.
In January-February 2024, the protests for wheat subsidy have snowballed into a much larger movement with a sea of people marching from all districts of GB to join the main protest sites, Ittehad Chowk and Yadgar-i-Shuhuda in Gilgit and Baltistan. The protestors raised slogans like Hai Haq Hamara Khudmuktari (Autonomy is our right) which reverberated all over GB.
In September 2024, in addition to economic issues, there are ongoing protests against the misuse of anti-terrorism and cybercrime laws in GB. The AAC and other local groups have argued that these laws are being misused by the government and security forces to suppress dissent and silence voices opposing injustices in the region. These protests have called for the withdrawal of false cases and greater political autonomy for GB.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)
The people of AJK point to constant interference by the government and its military establishment of Pakistan in the governance of AJK. The local stakeholders know that the government in AJK works under the direction of a two-star military general commanding Pakistan Army’s Murree-based 12 Infantry Division in Punjab. The commander in Murree is known to summon the AJK prime minister, president, and other government officials regularly to outline the military’s views on all political and governance issues in the territory.
This was demonstrated in recent years by the coup organised by the military to oust the elected government of Sardar Tanvir Ilyas in April 2023 and install its puppet administration under Chaudhry Anwarul Haq in Muzaffarabad to secure its interests. This recurrent meddling by Pakistan is facilitated by the constitutional arrangement with Islamabad under the AJK Interim Constitution Act of 1974. While the Act provides for the region’s nominal self-governance, its Section 56 nullifies everything by empowering Islamabad with unchecked powers to dismiss any elected government in AJK irrespective of the support it may enjoy in the Legislative Assembly.
This provision reduces the AJK government to a helpless entity functioning under the so-called ‘Azad’ Kashmir Council, which operates under Pakistan’s prime minister and holds unchallenged authority over 52 subjects, including everything of importance to everyday life of people and the region. Additionally, Pakistan deputes its civil services and police officers to oversee the administration in the region to ensure the compliance of the local government. As such, AJK administration is seen merely as an extension of the government in Islamabad. This has contributed to the growing resentment among the common people against the local administration.
The manner in which successive Pakistani governments have handled AJK and pursued discriminatory policies there, virtually relegates its residents to second-class citizens, demonstrating Islamabad’s colonial approach. This is evident in the disproportionate diversion of AJK’s significant resources, particularly hydroelectric power, to Pakistan’s Punjab province, while locals endure extended load-shedding and inflated electricity tariffs. Therefore, the people of AJK have been demanding significant reduction of electricity tariff. In September 2023, the people of the region started a bill boycott movement, where they burned the bills and this movement is still on in the region. However, the toothless local administration was unable to extract any concession from the central government in Islamabad after which the sense of frustration was growing in the region. Since then, demonstrators didn’t get enough answers and satisfaction to their revendications. Hence, there is every likelihood that the protests may restart anytime soon.
