Widening gulf between Pakistan and AJK

Highlights

Although most of the demands have been accepted― of course, not before securitizing the political issue by deploying FC, Rangers along with police to use force against the protesters― the people of AJK are unlikely to forget the ordeal they have had to pass through, for the last more than six months, which has certainly steeled their nerves.

• The growing impatience of the people of entire PoK (AJK and GB) with the authorities in Pakistan provides a unique opportunity for India to win the goodwill of the people in the terrain that rightfully belongs to it.
• The success of the protests, both in GB and AJK, shows that the people are not going to give up on their rights and fight in a united manner. At the same time, a strong possibility remains that protests may break out again if the brazen interference, political, social, and economic from Islamabad continues in the future.
• The people are now demanding greater autonomy and even independence from Pakistani illegal occupation. They are also looking towards India favourably and want to uplift their condition, much like the Kashmiris across the LoC.

In early May 2024, Pakistan was caught in a catch-22 situation when protests broke out in the so-called “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” (hereinafter AJK), part of Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). It responded initially by force only to stage a retreat soon afterwards when it was faced with determined resistance of the people, to placate them and accept their demands, warding off the crisis at least for the moment. It is important to critically analyse the situation and find out the sources of disaffection of the people of AJK that has led to episodic outburst of popular anger on the streets of Muzaffarabad in recent years.

Islamabad has been trying to give out a message that whatever happens in AJK is its internal matter, without any interference from Pakistan. The latest protests and turmoil, however, have been caused by the policies adopted by Islamabad towards the people of AJK. Locals have been up in the arms against what they see as the exploitation of their resources and policies imposed on them from Islamabad.

Though called “Azad” (free), in reality, the so called “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” (AJK) has been overly dependent on and controlled by Pakistan. It should not be surprising, therefore, that although the protests are local, neither the Prime Minister of AJK could resolve them nor the local administration had the wherewithal to meet the demands of the protestors, without the patronage of the rulers in Islamabad.

Response to protests, whether to suppress or accept the demands, had to come from Pakistan. The highhandedness from Islamabad to suppress the protestors not only complicated the situation, as it led to the death of at least three protestors, injuring many and numerous arrests, but also intensified it.

Genesis of the protests

The driving factor for the recent protests that escalated over the months was the hike in electricity bills announced by then interim government of AJK Prime Minister Anwar-ul Haq Kakar in the late 2023. High inflation has been eating into the money earned by the common people in Pakistan in general and AJK in particular, where the economy has been in a tailspin for years. The government of Pakistan has been forced to raise revenue from various sectors, including the power sector. This has led to manifold rise in the electricity charges in the country, including in AJK with the price reaching over Pakistani Rupee (PKR) 33 per unit.  

The people in Kashmir refused to pay their electricity bills as per the revised rates  and their argument was that it was their resources from which electricity was being generated and they should not be asked to pay for their own resources. According to the local government, the total requirement of electricity is not more than 350 to 400 megawatt (MW), while the water of the Neelum River flowing through AJK has been diverted for the much hyped Neelum Jhelum Hydro Project (NJHP) for generating 969-megawatt of electricity alone. The refusal to pay highly inflated bills makes every sense against this background. The local protestors, therefore, either burnt their bills or threw them, in a strong symbolic gesture, in the Neelum River.

The Joint Awami Action committee (JAAC), an alliance of traders and civil society groups in AJK, spearheading the protests, released the 10-point demands on 9 May 2024 that asked the government:

• to provide subsidy on wheat―same as given to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) after over a month-long protests in January-February 2024;
• to reduce the heightened tariff on electricity and to determine electricity tariff as per the cost of electricity production from the Mangla Hydropower Project in AJK.
• to scrap unnecessary perks and privileges of the ruling class and officials ;
• to lift restrictions on student unions, and hold elections in local colleges;
• to turn AJK Bank into a scheduled bank;
• to provide funds and powers to Municipal representatives ;
• to standardise cellular phone and internet services;  
• to reduce property transfer taxes;
• to activate Accountability Bureau in AJK after bringing about necessary amendments in the accountability Act;
• to impose practical restrictions on tree-cutting and enact legislations to revitalize the local wood industry.

The scope and support for the protests expanded over time as Islamabad hesitated to concede the demands, even after initially agreeing to consider the demands positively.

Islamabad to blame for the situation

It has become a common practice for the states to label any protest for rights or otherwise as a handiwork of foreign elements. The protests in AJK were no exception to that. Even president of Pakistan, Asif Zardari in a sophisticated message said that the protests should not be allowed to be used by “hostile elements”. 

In April 2024, the JAAC had announced protests after the promises made in December 2023 meetings with the federal government of Pakistan were not kept. Since then tension had been simmering in the region. The JAAC announced in April that they would march on Muzaffarabad, capital of AJK, on 11 May 2024 to protest the “non-fulfilment of the commitments” made in writing by an official reconciliation committee of cabinet members on 23 December 2023, in pursuance of which a notification was also issued on 4 February 2024.

In early May, sensing that the anger of the people might burst sooner rather than later, the local police reportedly detained in a bid to prevent the ‘long march’ to press the government to comply with the December agreements. The government of Pakistan also decided to send the frontier constabulary initially to AJK as a pre-emptive measure to contain the protests. Using harsh tactics to suppress the protestors, police and frontier constabulary picked up local activists and other people. The police conducted raids at the houses of Shaukat Nawaz Mir, the elected leader of traders and head of JAAC, and several other members of JAAC. Three rangers’ battalion were sent into the territory later, generating a lot of political bickering in AJK over the issue. On 10 May, following announcement by JAAC to observe a shutter-down and wheel-jam strike on 11 May, the district magistrate of Muzaffarabad imposed a ban on the gathering of more than five people in Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Kotli, Bhimber, Poonch, Haveli, Sudhanoti, Neelum, and Jhelum valley under Section 144 of CrPC for 10 days.

The day before, on 9 May, about 70 activists associated with JAAC were arrested in a bid to thwart the move by the JAAC to march to Muzaffarabad on 11 May. In response, JAAC advanced the day to 10 March and in various parts of AJK, the protestors did try to march to the capital city of Muzaffarabad based on the call given by JAAC. One of the leaders of JAAC, Umar Nazir Kashmiri delineated the route of the march and said that the march would begin from Mirpur on 11 May via Rawalakot and then the marchers would jointly travel towards Muzaffarabad after 12 noon on 12 March. Interestingly, in Mirpur, the District Bar Association, which was spearheading the movement in the district, had decided to observe the strike but not to participate in the march, while in some other part of Mirpur, in Dadyal, there were clashes with police.

Amid all this, there was talk going on between the JAAC core committee and AJK Chief Secretary Dawood Bareach in Rawalakot on 11-12 May, which was inconclusive, following which, the leaders of JAAC renewed their call for the march and as the protesters marched towards the capital city, there were clashes between the protesters in different parts of AJK. On 12 May, there were violent clashes between the police and the protesters resulting in the death of a sub-inspector of police while he was trying to stop a rally for Muzaffarabad via Kotli and Poonch districts. Other reports suggested that against this backdrop, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif convened a special meeting in Islamabad on 13 May, which was attended by AJK PM Chaudhry Anwarul Haq, local ministers and top political leadership and announced immediate provision of PKR 23 billion to AJK.

At this point, the convoy of the Rangers, comprising 19 pick-up vans and five trucks, then at Brarkot, the last village of AJK on its border with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), should have returned to Pakistan after the announcement. But strangely, the convoy drove to Muzaffarabad to exit the territory via Kohala in the south, in a clear bid to demonstrate the power of the state and drive fear into the minds of the people of AJK. It was natural that the people would take it as a provocation and video clips on social media showed that the convoy, while proceeding to Muzaffarabad, was pelted with stones near Shorran da Nakka village. The Rangers responded with firing and teargas shelling killing three and injuring many. The people of AJK are unlikely to forget this for a long time, especially because the Rangers struck when the JAAC leaders had called off the strike and situation was limping back to normal.

Reactions to use of force

The measures taken by the authorities to suppress the movement turned out to be counter-productive. Instead of being cowed down by harsh tactics, the protests intensified and the protesters came out in even larger numbers. Violent clashes between the police and the protestors, more importantly, caught the eye of the Pakistani as well as international media. Even before the 13 May killings, former President, Arif Alvi, leader of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had tweeted on 11 May: “The imagery emerging from [AJK] today….is the real brutal input of those who think, believe & act on their rudimentary idea that: "Force is the only solution to all human problems"”.  Al Jazeera reported that the JAAC had rejected the allegations that the protests were supported by external elements. The New York Times wrote that “The current unrest poses a challenge for the Pakistani military, which maintains a heavy presence in the region, and the civilian leadership in Islamabad.” On 17 May, PTI chief Imran Khan reportedly told the media that he would write about it to the army chief and inform him about what was happening in AJK and that they must think about the country’s direction: “The army and the people should not be brought face to face.” A day later, PTI leader and chief minister of KP, Ali Amin Gandapur also made a statement in the KP Assembly and said  that protests in AJK for one day deflated (aap ki hawa nikal di) the ego of both the establishment and the government in Islamabad and threatened them with consequences if funds were not made available to his government as per the existing rules. The success of JAAC reportedly encouraged traders in other parts of Pakistan, according to some commentators in the electronic media, to place their demands on the government and many of them held that it was an unwise step on the part of the decision makers to concede to the demands of the JAAC so soon. However, most of the analysts in the national media of Pakistan blamed the policies of Islamabad towards AJK for the crisis. An editorial in Dawn lamented that “At the heart of the protests appears to be lack of service delivery on the part of the AJK administration, as well as Islamabad’s apparent indifference to the local people’s plaints.” In a similar vein, an editorial in The Express Tribune pointed out that “The change of government in AJK and the cabinet that was ushered in as a mark of political engineering has been the root-cause of all ills, and day to day issues such as misgovernance and wheat shortage had led to an unprecedented civil discord.”

Vernacular media was critical as well. An editorial in the most circulated daily in Pakistan, Jang wrote after the government’s decision to accept the demands put forth by the JAAC, “If all these demands put forth for over a year were genuine then why no efforts were made talk to Awami Action Committee to prevent the situation from going out of control”. 

Looking at the speed with which the federal government responded to the demands of the AJK people, it can be concluded that the powerful establishment and the federal government considered it in the best interests of Pakistan to salvage the situation by conceding the demands and normalising the situation in AJK, lest it would have spiralled out of control, especially because the protesters were raising slogans that signalled their growing inclination towards India. However, accepting these demands will increase the burden on the country’s exchequer, particularly at a time when the country is in a deep economic crisis and is being run on various bailouts and aid. By allocating funds for subsidising the cost of electricity and wheat, the government of Pakistan has also violated the commitments it made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is likely to be more stringent while delivering the next tranche of the bail-out money in the coming days. Given the scale of the protests, however, Islamabad was left with no other option but to announce such a substantial relief package for the area.

What lies next!  

The use of force against the protesters to muffle their voices underlines the indifferent attitude of the rulers in Islamabad towards the people of AJK. Although most of the demands have been accepted― of course, not before securitizing the political issue by deploying FC, Rangers along with police to use force against the protesters― the people of AJK are unlikely to forget the ordeal they have had to pass through, for the last more than six months, which has certainly steeled their nerves and made them compare their lot with that of the Kashmiris across the LoC in India. The growing impatience of the people of entire PoK (AJK and GB) with the authorities in Pakistan provides a unique opportunity for India to win the goodwill of the people in the terrain that rightfully belongs to it.

The protests in PoJK show that the policies of the (post)colonial state of Pakistan, which exploits the resources of these areas disregarding the ownership rights of the local population, are strongly being resisted. The success of the protests, both in GB and AJK, shows that the people are not going to give up on their rights and fight in a united manner. At the same time, a strong possibility remains that protests may break out again if the brazen interference, political, social, and economic from Islamabad continues in the future. It is also very much probable that the people of PoJK are likely to raise their voices in favour of greater autonomy, and even independence, as Pakistan is likely to become both politically and economically unstable in the coming days.

* Dr Nazir Ahmad Mir is a research analyst associated with the Pakistan Project at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). He is also a life member of ICPS.