The question in “Azad” Jammu and Kashmir (“AJK”), as the Pakistan-occupied territory across the Line of Control (LoC) is locally known, is whether elections can resolve tensions that have already taken a heavy toll in lives and property. Those tensions spring from two frustrations: over amenities the state has never provided, and over an identity it has never settled. Self-governing on paper, “AJK” is in practice administered as a dependency of Islamabad, making a mockery of the “Azad” in its name.
It is an open secret that the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a civil rights group, calls the shots in the region. It raises popular demands and dictates the rhythm of daily life, drawing an overwhelming response to its calls for shutdowns. The irony is that a lid has been sought to be put on its activities with a ban as a terrorist organisation, and its leaders are being harassed and persecuted.
Behind-the-scenes developments lay this reality bare. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which has emerged with a majority in Assembly polls that began on July 27 and have run past the August 10 deadline to the time of writing, is evidently uneasy at the prospect of engaging with the JAAC, as it prepares to take office. The electoral process has been lengthened by delays at a few places, and must still be followed by the proportional allocation of eight reserved seats.
The PML-N is happy to be returning to power in “AJK”. Yet it is doubly concerned, because as the government of a sensitive territory it will not be able to present itself as a buffer between the people and the Pakistan Government. Its responsibility, in fact, increases two-fold, since it heads the government in Islamabad as well. Its dilemma is that its biggest political foe in “AJK”, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), is its most important ally in the ruling coalition at the Centre. Wheels within wheels, one may say.
Sharp differences
The polls have generated sharp differences between the two parties. The PPP is upset over what it has alleged was large-scale rigging that deprived it of its due. Its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has not hidden his feeling that the PML-N’s win is illegitimate, and has gone to the extent of raising the spectre of withdrawing his party’s support from the PML-N government in Pakistan, endangering its very survival. “Tick tock, tick tock. Your countdown has begun”, he said in a video message aimed at the PML-N.
On another occasion, Bilawal reiterated that the PML-N was mistaken in believing that it would form the “AJK” Government at a time when its own government in Islamabad was at risk, the countdown having been started “by their own people”. Bilawal, however, would have to wait for a miracle to see the PML-N kept out of office in “AJK” after having secured a majority. It is doubtful that, when he made this statement, Bilawal had fully understood its implications for his own party in Pakistani politics.
So far as the PML-N is concerned, it faces a bigger and far more serious challenge from the JAAC, whose mass protests before and during the first phase of the multi-phase polls in July shook the subcontinent and left 31 people dead on July 27-28. The JAAC has repeatedly taken up causes that benefit ordinary citizens, such as subsidies on food and power and a reduction in the perks and privileges of the elite. It has won some of these battles, but one demand has hit a roadblock: its categorical call for the abolition of the 12 Assembly seats reserved for refugees from this side of the LoC who are based in Pakistan. According to the JAAC, the elected representatives of these constituencies are not required, as they cannot feel the pulse of the natives.
Nawaz jumps into the ring
Given this situation, it is not surprising that PML-N supremo and former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has himself jumped into the ring in an attempt to ensure that his party is effectively in control. At the mountain resort of Murree, in his stronghold of Punjab province, he has held meetings with his senior colleagues – including his brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – to assess the prevailing scenario threadbare. The need has been felt for wooing the PPP in “AJK” and softening the tone about the JAAC, and this is obvious from Nawaz’s public utterances. Even though he described the PPP’s complaints about the elections as “disappointing”, he hastened to extend an olive branch: “We have always maintained cordial relations with our political opponents. Differences are part of politics, particularly during elections, but they should not reach a point where they breed animosity. That is not appropriate.”
Nawaz Sharif likewise appeared to acknowledge the popular sentiment represented by the JAAC, though without naming it, when he told his party workers: “Successive governments have not been able to fulfill their responsibilities or meet the aspirations and wishes of the people, regardless of which party they support.” Applying the same logic to his own party, he said that if the PML-N failed to deliver, the anger of the people would be justified. He left it to his party colleague Rana Sanaullah, the Prime Minister’s aide on political affairs, to state publicly later that the government would hold talks with the JAAC as its first priority and resolve the issues it had raised.
None of the party leaders mentioned the 12 refugee seats, the key bone of contention. Sooner rather than later, they will have to address the issue in a forthright manner and take the bull by the horns. Only when the PML-N, and to some extent the PPP as well, adopts an honest, straight and transparent stance will its real intentions be known. It simply cannot be overlooked that these parties, the PML-N in particular, are major beneficiaries of these seats, given their base in Pakistan.
Dramatic comeback likely for JAAC?
The scenario in the event of an impasse between the PML-N government and the JAAC is easy enough to foresee. There will be a serious law and order problem, of the kind previous governments had to face for ignoring the committee’s basic demands. It will be a confrontation between a government born of elections and a popular movement pushed into a corner and left with no choice but to declare its opposition. Given the serious restrictions the JAAC faces at the moment, its comeback, once the PML-N sits down to talk to it, will be dramatic.
Right now the writing on the wall in “AJK” is clear: no resolution to the political tension is in sight. Rubbing salt into the PML-N’s wounds will be the local leaders of the PPP, who have little reason to share the enthusiasm of those in their party who want to go along with the PML-N in Islamabad. Keen observers have ruled out any danger to the PML-N-PPP arrangement in Pakistan, notwithstanding the PPP’s sense of pique over its losses in “AJK”, because, as one of them has put it, “the fact remains that the PPP is entrenched in the ruling configuration”. At best, it is believed, the PPP would fret and fume for some time, and it provided evidence of its anger and anguish by stalling certain PML-N bills in parliament on August 18.
In “AJK”, however, it will be a free-for-all, with the local leaders of the PPP fighting for their own survival. Another player in the field is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, one of the main political outfits in Pakistan. The winner in 2021, it boycotted the polls this time on the suspicion of electoral fraud, and it has every reason to make common cause with the JAAC whenever the committee takes up popular local causes. What, then, prevents the local leaders of the PPP from acting likewise? They can put questions to the PML-N on the floor of the Assembly and, at the same time, join the JAAC and the PTI in fighting outside it. Where, in that case, is the question of peace? And where is the guarantee that the PML-N will not be on tenterhooks all the time?