Let us stop pretending that Azad Kashmir is an ordinary political playground. It is not. This is a territory of barely 13,297 square kilometres, divided into three divisions and 10 districts and a Line of Control stretching approximately 528 kilometres. In such a place, one burning road is never just one burning road. One day of disorder travels across borders before sunset.
The people of Azad Kashmir have problems. Nobody should deny that. More than 82 per cent of the population is rural. Unemployment is officially put at 9.6 per cent. These figures explain why flour, electricity, jobs and local services become emotional questions. But pain is one thing; the business of pain is another.
A real public movement asks for relief. A fake revolutionary movement looks for fire. A real movement wants cheaper electricity, affordable flour, better hospitals, better schools and dignity for the common man. A fake movement takes the same issues and turns them into hatred, confrontation and anti-state theatre. This is the difference Azad Kashmir’s people now have to recognise.
The federal and AJK governments have not been sitting idle. In May 2024, after protests over wheat and electricity prices, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved a Rs23 billion package for Azad Kashmir. The price of a 40kg bag of wheat flour was brought down from Rs3,100 to Rs2,000. Electricity was fixed at Rs3 per unit for the first 100 units, Rs5 for 100 to 300 units and Rs6 above 300 units.
Today, officers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are serving in some of the highest administrative positions across Pakistan’s provinces and regions.
Then came the 2025 agitation. Again, the demands were presented as public rights. Again, the government negotiated. Protests were called off after the government accepted most demands, including more spending on health, education and other public sectors, and a pledge of Rs10 billion to upgrade local electricity supplies.
So let us ask plainly: if subsidies were given, if negotiations were held, if more than three dozen demands were accepted, if electricity upgrades were pledged, then why does every agitation have to end in rage? Why must every issue be dragged from public relief towards state confrontation? Why does every protest begin with bills and flour but end with slogans that please the enemies of Pakistan?
Those who use public suffering to open the doors of foreign funding and external applause have been exposed before the very people whose pain they claim to represent.
A slogan may sound beautiful. But if a foreign interest is hidden behind it, such a movement is not public politics. It becomes proxy politics.
The state’s enemies understand Azad Kashmir better than some of our own emotional activists do. They know that a peaceful Azad Kashmir strengthens Pakistan’s Kashmir case. They know that a stable Azad Kashmir denies hostile lobbies their favourite footage. They know that a calm Muzaffarabad is harder to use against Pakistan than a burning Muzaffarabad. That is why some elements remain addicted to the politics of fire and disorder.
Azad Kashmir’s citizens must now ask a simple question. Who benefits when schools close, markets shut, and roads are blocked? Does the shopkeeper benefit? Does the student benefit? Does the labourer benefit? Does the mother waiting for cheaper flour benefit? Does the unemployed young man benefit? No. The beneficiaries are those who sit away from the consequences and collect political profit from unrest.
The facts also expose another lie: that Pakistan’s federation is closed to merit or talent from smaller regions. Today, officers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are serving in some of the highest administrative positions across Pakistan’s provinces and regions. Shahab Ali Shah is serving as Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shakeel Qadir Khan as Chief Secretary Balochistan, Arshad Majeed Mohmand as Chief Secretary Gilgit-Baltistan, and Khushal Khan as Chief Secretary Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Merit does not see provinces. It opens doors everywhere.
This is what a federation looks like when it works. From Peshawar to Quetta, from Gilgit to Muzaffarabad, officers rise on competence and serve beyond provincial boundaries. Is the system perfect? No. But is it the prison that separatist propaganda describes? Also no.
There is another number worth remembering. In AJK’s 2025-26 public finance profile, the federal variable grant is budgeted at Rs149 billion, making up 57.04 per cent of revenue receipts. This is national support. Those who shout that Pakistan has turned its back on Azad Kashmir should first explain these figures to the people.
Azad Kashmir is not poor in human potential. Its literacy rate is listed at 77.5 per cent, above the national figure of 62.4 per cent. Its immunisation coverage is 75 per cent, also above the national figure of 66 per cent. Its maternal mortality ratio is listed at 104 per 100,000 live births, better than the national figure of 186. These are signs of a society that can move forward with stability, investment and peace – not with shutdowns and imported rage.
The people of Azad Kashmir are no one’s pawns. They are not raw material for failed politicians. They are not instruments for foreign handlers. Their pain must be healed, not harvested. Their anger must be heard, not hijacked. Their rights must be protected, not rented out.
The writer is a freelance columnist.