Opinion | The Kashmir Protest Pakistan Cannot Blame On India

Historically, a common narrative regarding Kashmir administered on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) has rested on the assumption that violence in these regions can only be understood through the lens of India-Pakistan rivalry. The ongoing anti-establishment uprising in Rawalakot, Muzaffarabad, and Mirpur, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), challenges that assumption, given its origins in Pakistan's own political history and deep-rooted grievances between the federal government and peripheral regions. 

Islamabad has long viewed political mobilisation in PoK through an external lens of alleged Indian interference, so-called foreign conspiracies, and opposition party machinations. A closer examination shows the grievances driving the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) movement remain localised, with serious concerns over electricity pricing, fiscal extraction, political representation, broken agreements, and the denial of meaningful local autonomy. 

To put this in the context of Pakistan's political history, since its partition from India in 1947, Pakistan has found it challenging to reconcile a highly centralised federal state structure with the demands of its ethnically diverse regions. The federal framework has operated less as a mechanism for power-sharing and more as an instrument of the federal administration's overreaching authority. Similar grievances have echoed across Pakistan's peripheries - from Balochistan's demands for greater control over natural resources, to Sindh's concerns about federal encroachment, and Pashtun calls for political accountability in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In each case, political activism has centred on discontent over resource distribution, political representation, and provincial rights.

At the core of this recent uprising are 12 seats in the 49-member Legislative Assembly of PoK reserved for refugees from India's Jammu, after their migration to mainland Pakistan post-Partition. Despite settling in Pakistan's Sindh and Punjab provinces, these communities and individuals participate in PoK's electoral practices. The Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a cross-party coalition of traders, lawyers, students, and civil society groups formed in 2023, argues that this arrangement has diluted local representation and undermined federal accountability. Tensions flared up when the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled in June that the refugee seats had constitutional cover. The verdict represented a rejection of the movement's key political demands, leading to region-wide protests. Consequently, the Pakistani government banned JAAC, and used force against protesters by opening fire. In 2023, the dispute over rising electricity prices propelled the JAAC movement, indicating a new chapter involving diverse sectors and civil society members in the longstanding story of state neglect. 

While the territory is administered by Pakistan, it remains outside the country's constitutional framework. As such, Islamabad views the reserved seats as sustaining its position of representing all of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, the local grievances perceive this mechanism as a tool to dilute local participation, thereby reflecting the competing political logics of this region. It is in this context that this issue also separates itself from an externalized lens of the broader India-Pakistan conflict. The mobilisation has remained devoid of cross-border issues. 

For Pakistan, the issue of refugee seats remains critical to its international claims on Kashmir. The existence of these seats bolsters Pakistan's legal position at the UN to project the representation of all of Kashmir - including Indian territory. Should Islamabad give up on these seats, it seemingly concedes that the territory is a settled part of Pakistan instead of a disputed region awaiting a plebiscite. In similar symbolism, New Delhi has kept parliamentary seats vacant to represent the entire former princely state, parts of which are controlled by Islamabad. 

These protests reemphasise the brazen contradiction of Pakistan's Kashmir policy, which centres on self-determination. This gap between global posture and domestic conduct has long existed, despite little international attention. 

The protests, however, will not have a direct impact on the Kashmir Valley. While the two territories share a dispute, their ethnic identity, language, and even political movements remain distinct. The native residents of PoK, predominantly Pahari, Gujari, and Punjabi-speaking are technically distinct from the Kashmiri-speaking population in the Valley. There remains no shared political structure or common leadership between JAAC and any Jammu & Kashmir political formation. While the optics of Pakistan deploying federal paramilitary forces and imposing an internet and communication blackout will temporarily weaken Pakistan's credibility and talking points in global forums on the Kashmir issue, the reputational costs are unlikely to last much longer in the transactional nature of international relations.

In the coming period, the suppression of JAAC and the Supreme Court verdict will continue to inflame anti-government discontent. With PoK elections scheduled for July 27, Islamabad will face difficult choices - either to hold elections in the territory under heavy security deployment or postpone the elections and compound the legitimacy questions. 

(Aishwaria Sonavane is a research analyst at the Takshashila Institution)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author