The streets of Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, and Mirpur have become arenas of confrontation, where citizens voice frustration at soaring electricity tariffs, wheat shortages, and chronic neglect. What began in August 2023 as sporadic demonstrations has evolved into sustained protests questioning Islamabad's legitimacy itself. By April 2024, when police bullets killed four protesters in Muzaffarabad and scores were injured, slogans shifted from economic grievances to demands for dignity, justice, and autonomy.
For decades, Pakistan projected PoJK as a symbol of Kashmiri liberation a foil to Indian-administered Kashmir. Today, the narrative has inverted. The region, meant to legitimize Pakistan's ideological claims, exposes the contradictions and failures of Islamabad's governance. Anatol Lieven, the author of Pakistan: A Hard Country, observed: "When the peripheries revolt, the center can no longer hold." This is the unfolding reality in PoJK.
The Deep Roots of Discontent
PoJK's crisis is structural. Economic exploitation, constitutional disenfranchisement, and military dominance have converged to erode the social contract. The region contributes nearly 2,500 megawatts of hydropower to Pakistan's national grid, yet experiences rolling blackouts. Wheat subsidies, once a key tool of pacification, have been slashed under IMF austerity measures, leaving households in acute distress. The Mangla Dam's displacement of over 110,000 people decades ago sowed long-term resentment, and contemporary fiscal policies amplify the sense of exclusion.
Constitutionally, PoJK is trapped. Under the 1974 Interim Constitution, its government cannot legislate on security, finance, or major infrastructure. Real power resides in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council, dominated by Pakistani officials. Citizens increasingly view this as a form of internal colonization rather than autonomy.
Protesters' escalation reflects this layered neglect. In October 2023, confrontations in Mirpur led to over 200 detentions. By April 2024, mass mobilizations in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, and Rawalakot combined economic and political grievances, turning everyday hardship into a challenge to Islamabad's narrative. By July 2024, student unions demanded representation in federal decision-making, declaring: "Subsidies are not sovereignty."
Dr. Moeed Yusuf, former Pakistan National Security Advisor, warned: "PoJK has slipped beyond the state's monopoly of narrative. The voices now are local, authentic, and they cannot be silenced by calling them foreign conspiracies." This is no longer a question of protest; it is a crisis of legitimacy.
Pakistan's Narrative in Ruins
The unrest in PoJK is exposing the fragility of Pakistan's most enduring narrative the idea of being the liberator of Kashmiris. For decades, Islamabad framed itself as a champion of Kashmiri rights while denying basic governance to its own administered territories. Now, the protests highlight the stark contrast between rhetoric and reality.
Economically, PoJK receives less than 15 percent of the revenue it generates from hydropower. Politically, representation is constrained, and military oversight dominates civilian life. Even Islamabad's concessions during the May 2024 protests announcing temporary subsidies after mass mobilizations underscore the state's reactive, rather than proactive, governance model.
Experts note the symbolic impact of these developments. Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistani academic and commentator, stated: "PoJK is not Azad. It is the most colonized space within Pakistan." Meanwhile, diaspora activism particularly from the one-million-strong Mirpuri community in the UK has amplified the protests internationally, forcing Western governments to raise questions in parliaments and foreign policy forums.
Regional and Global Reverberations
The unrest carries consequences far beyond PoJK. For India, it offers a strategic and diplomatic opportunity. By contrast, Islamabad's mismanagement erodes credibility and exposes contradictions in its decades-long Kashmir strategy.
India: Investments of USD 20 billion in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, infrastructure development, and record tourism of 20 million arrivals in 2022 contrast sharply with PoJK's unrest. Indian officials have highlighted stability, job creation, and FDI inflows in J&K, projecting a governance model based on integration rather than exploitation. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar remarked: "Our model is one of integration and investment. Across the Line, it is neglect and exploitation."
China: Beijing's USD 60+ billion investment in CPEC is jeopardized by instability in adjacent Gilgit-Baltistan and by PoJK's exclusion from benefits. Attacks on Chinese projects over 250 incidents in 2023 illustrate the risk. Hu Shisheng, Chinese strategist, warned: "China's patience with instability has limits. Pakistan must secure CPEC's foundations, or the corridor will lose its viability."
United States: Washington views the unrest as evidence of Pakistan's declining governance capacity. Analysts like Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center note: "The Kashmir card has been eroding for years. What is new is that the erosion is now visible in the streets of PoJK."
Middle East: Gulf states, hosting over four million Pakistani workers and remitting USD 29 billion annually, have little incentive to intervene politically. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi increasingly direct investment toward India, attracted by stability and higher returns.
Russia: Moscow perceives PoJK unrest as diminishing Pakistan's utility as a regional corridor and partner, indirectly elevating India's strategic importance in Asia.
The convergence of local unrest, economic crisis, and international attention makes PoJK a strategic fault line, whose implications extend well beyond Pakistan's borders.
Predictive Outlook: The Shape of Things to Come
Looking ahead, the trajectory of PoJK is likely to redefine South Asia's strategic landscape. Four interconnected patterns emerge:
1. Emergence of Autonomy Movements
The protests, increasingly organized, civilian-led, and diaspora-supported, may crystallize into broader autonomy demands. Unlike the 1990s militancy, these are grassroots and identity-driven. If Islamabad fails to accommodate legitimate governance and resource claims, PoJK could develop a distinct political identity, independent of both India and Pakistan. Historical parallels from East Timor to South Sudan demonstrate that prolonged neglect and disenfranchisement eventually produce self-determination movements.
2. India's Diplomatic Advantage
India's sustained development investments, coupled with PoJK's unrest, enhance New Delhi's credibility globally. International actors increasingly perceive India as a reliable partner delivering stability, while Pakistan struggles with legitimacy. Strategic messaging, such as showcasing thriving tourism in J&K and contrasting it with PoJK protests, reinforces India's narrative. Ashley Tellis of Carnegie Endowment emphasizes: "India wins by showing results, not slogans. Pakistan loses when PoJK exposes governance failures."
3. China's Strategic Dilemma
CPEC's viability depends on regional stability. PoJK unrest, combined with local resentment at exclusion from benefits, forces Beijing to either demand greater Pakistani security commitments or scale back investments. Both responses weaken Pakistan's sovereignty and ability to govern, while amplifying India's relative influence in multilateral forums.
4. Pakistan's Multi-Front Fragmentation
PoJK unrest is a microcosm of Pakistan's larger internal crisis. With 160 attacks in Balochistan in 2023, resurging militancy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and nationalist protests in Sindh, the federation faces simultaneous pressures. PoJK's consolidation into an autonomy movement could embolden other regions, leaving Islamabad unable to reconcile military control with civilian legitimacy. Lieven's warning is stark: "Pakistan is a state with too many peripheries and too little governance capacity."
Taken together, these trajectories suggest that PoJK's unrest is both a symptom and a catalyst. It may redraw South Asia's balance of power, weaken Pakistan internally, elevate India diplomatically, and force China to recalibrate regional strategies.
The Strategic Imperative
PoJK is no longer just a line on a map or a pawn in a long-running dispute. Its unrest reveals the fragility of Pakistan's governance, exposes the limitations of military control, and challenges decades of ideological narratives. Economic neglect, political disenfranchisement, and systemic exploitation have converged to create a crisis of legitimacy that extends well beyond PoJK itself.
For Pakistan, this is an existential warning. For India, it is a diplomatic and strategic opportunity. For China, it is a potential liability along CPEC corridors. For the global community, PoJK underscores that unresolved grievances in peripheral regions can have cascading geopolitical consequences.
Unless Islamabad undertakes radical governance reform and empowers local populations, the unrest will expand, internationalize, and reshape South Asia's balance of power in the next decade. As Dr. Moeed Yusuf succinctly puts it: "The voices now are local, authentic, and they cannot be silenced."
The unraveling of Pakistan's PoJK narrative is not a passing challenge. It is a strategic turning point one that will determine the region's political, economic, and diplomatic landscape for years to come.
[Major General Dr Dilawar Singh is an Indian Army veteran who has led the Indian Army's Financial Management, training and research divisions introducing numerous initiatives therein. He is the Senior Vice President of the Global Economist Forum AO ECOSOC, United Nations and The Co President of the Global Development Bank.]
