Irish poets and American presidents have long spoken of Kashmir: its beauty and its dangers.<\/p>\n
The question of Kashmir has shaped the trajectories of India and Pakistan since the end of British rule and their birth as nation-states in August 1947. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety, have fought multiple wars over it, and each controls a separate part of the territory. Historically, references to Kashmir have largely focused on the dispute between India and Pakistan, or on the most visible troubles in Indian-administered Kashmir.<\/p>\n
Global attention has rarely lingered on the part of Kashmir administered by Pakistan. Yet, since an outbreak of protests in the region in June, more than 80 people have been killed by security forces. A different kind of political struggle has been gathering momentum there\u2014one that is less a contest over sovereignty than an expression of long-simmering grievances over the conditions of daily life, from unaffordable electricity bills and rising food prices to a scarcity of jobs.<\/p>\n
Pakistan-administered Kashmir has not been insulated from the wider economic crisis in Pakistan. Rising prices, fiscal pressures, energy deficits, and repeated International Monetary Fund bailouts have pushed successive governments to reduce subsidies and raise utility prices. The people of the region, already squeezed by inflation and unemployment, experience these policies not as fiscal prudence but as evidence of how little influence they have over the decisions that shape their lives.<\/p>\n
Kashmir is home to major hydropower projects that feed Pakistan\u2019s national grid, and many residents argue that local tariffs should better reflect the territory\u2019s contribution to power generation. The grievance is not new: protests over rising electricity and basic commodity prices have erupted periodically since 2022.<\/p>\n
The failures of the local government to resolve these issues created an opening for a new form of political organization. Citizens committees emerged across districts, bringing together traders, lawyers, students, and community leaders. In September 2023, these committees coalesced into the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a unified body intended to coordinate mobilization across the region.<\/p>\n
The JAAC initially demanded lower wheat and electricity prices, an end to official privileges for ministers and bureaucrats, and empowered elected local governments. It has remained outside Pakistan\u2019s political party system. Rather than aligning with the major parties\u2014the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the Pakistan People\u2019s Party, and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf\u2014it presented itself as a nonpartisan platform.<\/p>\n
The movement\u2019s appeal seems to rest on its ability to unite constituencies across partisan divides around everyday economic and governance concerns. In response to the JAAC\u2019s organizing, authorities arrested its members on criminal charges and restricted its meetings. But these measures failed to subdue the movement, which pressed on through shutdowns, transportation strikes, and local protests. The protest movement\u2019s strength lies in its decentralized structure, with its chapters across small towns and villages offering a grassroots network that can be activated across the region.<\/p>\n
In May 2024, after the government pledged to consider its demands but delayed making any substantive concessions, the JAAC called a long march and a shutdown strike. The mobilization drew hundreds of thousands of protesters toward the capital, Muzaffarabad, in one of the largest episodes of mass mobilization in the region\u2019s history. Attempts to prevent the march backfired, broadening the movement. Protests continued to swell in Muzaffarabad despite arrests, roadblocks, and restrictions on internet and cellular communications.<\/p>\n
Clashes during the May 2024 march left at least four people dead, including three protestors and a police officer. Islamabad ultimately intervened with a relief package reportedly worth about 23 billion rupees ($82.9 million), which included subsidized electricity tariffs and lower wheat prices. But the government\u2019s repressive response turned a campaign over utility prices into a broader test of whether the people of Pakistan-administered Kashmir could exercise meaningful political agency.<\/p>\n
The May 2024 settlement demonstrated that collective action could compel Islamabad to address immediate economic grievances. But it did not resolve the broader issue of political accountability: how Pakistan-administered Kashmir is governed? The territory has its own president, government, legislative assembly, and courts, but Pakistan retains decisive influence over key administrative, security, and external affairs.<\/p>\n
A council chaired by Pakistan\u2019s prime minister used to be a major source of Islamabad\u2019s formal control over legislation, finances, and development planning. Although a constitutional amendment in 2018 stripped many of its powers, reducing it to a largely advisory body, significant authority still rests with the federal government. Key civil servants\u2014including the chief secretary and the inspector general of police\u2014are appointed by Islamabad, leaving the regional elected government with limited control over crucial aspects of administration.<\/p>\n
Pakistan has long defended this exceptional arrangement in Kashmir as necessary for an exceptional situation: administering a territory whose international status remains contested. For residents, however, it has created a persistent gap between political responsibility and political authority. Elected politicians are expected to answer to voters, but the decisions that shape their daily lives are made in Islamabad.<\/p>\n
The electoral system of the region adds another layer of complexity. The legislature of\u00a0Pakistan-administered Kashmir has 53 seats. Eight of those seats are reserved for women, religious scholars, technocrats, and overseas citizens. Lawmakers are elected for the remaining 45 seats through elections.\u00a0Thirty-three of those lawmakers are elected by the people living in the region. Twelve more seats in the legislature are reserved for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir who live elsewhere in Pakistan\u2014an arrangement introduced in the 1960s and formalized in the 1970s. Critics argue that these 12 seats significantly dilute the political weight of the territory\u2019s voters and make it easier for whichever party rules in Islamabad to shape the assembly\u2019s composition.<\/p>\n
In June, the top court of the region ruled that those 12 seats enjoy statutory protection, and that any change would require a formal constitutional amendment. The ruling affirmed the government\u2019s legal position, but it did not address the political question at the heart of the dispute. Can a legislature in which more than a quarter of directly elected seats are filled from outside the territory truly reflect the will of the people who live there?\u00a0<\/p>\n