There is no doubt that the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir have genuine concerns. No responsible government, political party or commentator can dismiss public anxiety over flour, electricity, prices, jobs, health facilities, schools, roads and governance. In fact, the first duty of any state is to listen when people complain. A citizen who asks for affordable bread, fair bills and better services is not committing a crime. He is exercising his right.
But rights also demand responsibility. This is why the proposed June 9 strike by the Joint Awami Action Committee raises a serious question: will another shutdown bring relief to the ordinary Kashmiri, or will it hurt the very people in whose name it is being called?
The easiest slogan in our politics is protest. The hardest work is reform. It is simple to close markets, block roads and paralyse daily life. It is much harder to ensure transparent implementation of agreements, audit subsidies, monitor delivery and force governments to explain where public money is going. Yet that is exactly where the real battle lies.
Azad Kashmir is not an abandoned territory in Pakistan’s national imagination. Its people are close to Pakistan’s heart, and this bond is not merely emotional. Despite Pakistan’s own punishing economic conditions, successive federal governments and the government of Azad Kashmir have continued to provide extraordinary support in the form of flour subsidy, concessional electricity, grants, development funds and assistance in health, education and infrastructure.
Azad Kashmir is not an abandoned territory in Pakistan’s national imagination. Its people are close to Pakistan’s heart, and this bond is not merely emotional.
This fact should not be brushed aside. The ordinary citizen in Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi or Multan pays heavy electricity bills, buys expensive flour, carries the burden of taxes and faces the same economic storm. Yet Azad Kashmir continues to receive special relief because Pakistan considers the welfare of Kashmiris a national responsibility. Cheap flour and subsidised electricity are not empty slogans. They directly protect the household budget of the common Kashmiri.
If there are failures in implementation, they must be exposed. If relief is not reaching the people, the people have every right to ask why. If promises have not been fulfilled, the government must be held accountable. But accountability is not the same as paralysis. A strike does not make flour cheaper. A closed road does not improve the electricity system. A shuttered bazaar does not bring medicine to hospitals or teachers to schools.
The first casualty of a strike is never the powerful man. The wealthy trader can survive a closed market. But the small shopkeeper loses his sale, the daily-wage worker loses his income, the patient misses his hospital visit, the student misses his class or examination, and the transport worker returns home empty-handed.
This is why the moral question must be asked openly. Can a protest be called public service if it blocks the public itself? Can a strike that stops a labourer’s daily wage truly be called pro-people?
The Joint Awami Action Committee and other public representatives should not be demonised. Public pressure has often forced governments to wake up. But public pressure must remain disciplined, targeted and constructive. There is a difference between demanding answers from a government and making life impossible for ordinary citizens. There is a difference between accountability and economic self-harm.
The better path is clear: negotiations, transparent timelines, public oversight and strict monitoring of implementation. If billions of rupees are being provided through grants, subsidies and development support, then the public must know where the money is going. The demand should be: show us the record, show us the delivery, show us the benefit.
The government, too, cannot hide behind appeals for calm. It must earn public confidence.
But the people of Azad Kashmir also deserve to be protected from politics that make their daily life harder. The people have every right to ask for their due. They have every right to question governments. They have every right to demand fairness. But they must also ask those calling for strikes a simple question: after the slogans are over and the markets are closed, who pays the price?
The writer is a freelance columnist