By Vazeer M
The part of Kashmir administered by India has drawn all the headlines during last 60 years and more so during the post-nuclearisation of South Asian region. That Kashmiris are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis India has been relatively successfully marketed by Pakistan through its spin-masters during this period. Such clever propaganda has successfully hidden Pakistan’s policy towards the part of Kashmir under its occupation, flaunted to the world as ‘Free’ or ‘Azad’ Kashmir. However, nothing can be farther from truth. The world must patiently hear out the tale of the people of AJK before concluding that it is only the Kashmiris administered by India who are at distress due to the irresponsive attitude of the Indian leadership towards them.
Compared to their hapless brethren in Pakistan administered Kashmir, the people on the other side enjoy lot of freedom and all the advantages that accompany an open democratic system. They can carry out demonstrations, express their voices more freely, vote in and vote out parties according to their choice and even indulge in acts of separatism with relative alacrity. Look at the Hurriyat leaders with their professed separatist ideology moving across the LOC into Pakistan to confer with their Pakistani benefactors and also deliberating with Indian leaders frequently in New Delhi. There have been excesses by security forces which have drawn more criticism within India than outside. There can be no better example of democracy tolerating dissent and indulging in self-criticism.
On this side of the Line of Control things are less sanguine. People here are less free and can breathe and talk only with express recommendation of the army which is omnipresent in the Azad or Free Jammu and Kashmir.
The AJK Legislative Assembly is a cruel joke in the name of responsive administration. The leaders allowed to participate in the elections are a self-aggrandising lot. They have sold their conscience to the ISI and Islamabad in that order. They cannot say or do anything other than what they are prompted to say or do.
The Secretary sitting in Islamabad and managing Ministry of Kashmir and Northern Areas is much more powerful than the President or Prime Minister of the state. The former is an agent and the latter is a popularly elected puppet of Islamabad. The drama of elections and democracy disappear soon after they are sworn in.
This had compelled one of the few rational commentators from Pakistan to argue at the height of Kargil crisis: “What then shall we give to the Kashmiris? An effete and corrupt administration, an undependable political system, a distorted democracy, a press fearful of repression, ethnic strife leading to intolerance and bloodshed and a promise of periodic martial law? For long years the Kashmiris got a better deal from the Indians.”
No wonder, the governance of the state is fully controlled by the 14-member AJK Legislative Council where Prime Minister of Pakistan is the Chairman and has five nominated members from amongst the federal ministers or members of the parliament to support his agenda apart from the President of AJK, who is invariably an agent of Islamabad. It is really unfortunate that the people of AJK have not been allowed to draft a constitution of their choice. They are ruled by an ‘Interim’ Constitution which was drafted by the bureaucrats during Z. A. Bhutto’s rule in 1974. It remains ‘Interim’ even today. No leader from AJK dared to question the Statute fearing a strong rebuke from Islamabad.
As per this constitution any leader who seeks a political career in AJK has to proclaim his/her loyalty to Pakistan and upon election take an oath of office to work towards the state’s accession to Pakistan. It is an irony that the only political outfit that had earlier come under the persuasion of, and was successfully used by, the ISI to start a bloody insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir—the JKLF—has never been allowed to contest the elections in AJK. This is despite General Musharraf’s declaration of open support for the so called ‘third option’ or independence of J&K.
Another important facet of such aggressive pro-Pakistan agenda run by the intelligence and the armed forces is the active promotion of a rabid Islamist world view amongst the population.
Taking a leaf out of the Afghan Jihad, people of AJK were mobilised to fight Jihad in Kashmir in the name of Islam in the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, however, the people of AJK withdrew from the Jihad campaign. This was reflected in the ambivalence of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), which was being supported by the people of Kashmir and AJK. It also explains why more and more people from HM have quit the outfit and returned to J&K as advocates of peace, ‘aman’.
ISI filled the vacuum with recruits from Punjab and Frontier Province. Given the sway of jihadi and sectarian politics in northern Punjab and the Frontier province, the intelligence has found enough recruits to keep the jihad going. General Musharraf did ask the sleuths to slow down the Jihadi tap but it was never turned off as we from AJK know. The camps in Muzaffarabad especially in areas close to the refugee population from Kashmir are all there for all to see.
Organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad and Harkat-ul-Ansar have operated with impunity through out the Musharraf years and they have sprung back after the civilian administration has taken over under Zardari. That Zardari is impotent can be gauged from the increasing assertion of the military personnel in AJK since mid-2008.
The people raised in an environment of active propaganda against India have bought Pakistani position uncritically. However, ever since the start of the peace process the people have started asking themselves if they have been driven on the right path by their self-proclaimed well-wishers. Some of the militants returning from Indian jails have come back with their tales full of appreciation of the system of democracy flourishing across the LoC.
The people living close to LoC also fondly reminisce the generous and spontaneous help which trickled in immediately after the earthquake in October 2005, even before the Lashkar volunteers or the state machinery moved in. The openness shown by India to open surface routes compared to the relative lassitude of the Pakistani leadership has been noticed by the people of AJK during the last few years.
The brilliant emotive account of the dilemmas of the people of AJK has been served very efficiently by a young journalist, editor of Bharosa from Mirpur, in his book Kashmir ki Pukar. The book makes a critical analysis of the role of Jihadi forces and the security agencies in Kashmir militancy and argues how the people of AJK have been taken for a ride by the leaders of Pakistan. The book was promptly banned and taken out of circulation. The author has had to largely fend for himself and has approached the Asian Human Rights Commission for help.
The people of AJK are more aware of the designs of the Pakistan now than ever before. There is a critical mass emerging on the horizon which is itching to reverse the game of Jihad against Pakistan. They know Pakistan army is much worse that the Indian army. They are aware that Pakistani civil society will be less supportive of their genuine demands. But they have started raising their voices. It is about time they pour out into the streets to brave the Pakistani guns.
The European Union’s concern about the lack of democratic accountability, violation of minority and women’s rights in AJK and its 2007 report on instances of torture and mistreatment, corruption amongst government officials, and discrimination against refugees from Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir have energized a whole generation of people who are now spreading their messages through whatever means of communication is available to them. Their slow but emphatic voice would soon, turn into a violent roar. They are more openly claiming their rights for freedom, asking Pakistan to return Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral to AJK and demanding free and fair elections to ensure democratic administration of the areas under Pakistani control.
The international community has a responsibility towards the people of AJK. They are as much the victims of India-Pakistan confrontation on Kashmir as the ‘Kashmiris’, on the Indian administered Kashmir. However, the world is happily unaware of their woeful condition and passes them off as citizens of the troubled state of Pakistan. They deserve a patient hearing.
If they are allowed to have a representative administration in AJK as their brethren on the other side of LoC, and LoC is softened to enable contacts between both parts of Kashmir, then Pakistan bluff on Kashmir as nuclear flash point will be exposed and Pakistan itself will undergo a political metamorphosis leading to delegitimising and deglamourising Army’s role in the country’s politics. Will it ever happen? It may if only the world calls the Pak bluff. In the interests of people of ‘Azad’ Kashmir who have been deprived of their ‘Azadi’. And who are leading a life of deprivation and neglect.
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