OPINION | Pakistan-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir: A Brewing Crisis in South Asia’s Faultline

By Ashu Mann

The eruption of mass protests across Pakistan-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (POJK) has brought into sharp focus Islamabad’s crisis of governance in its peripheries. The region, projected by Pakistan as a symbol of solidarity with Kashmiris, is today a theatre of unprecedented popular resistance, not against India, but against Islamabad itself.

The protests, organised by the Jammu Kashmir Awami Action Committee (JKAAC) under Shaukat Nawaz Mir, have mobilised thousands across Rawalakot, Kotli, Mirpur, and Dadyal. Their demands centre around political representation, equitable access to resources, and relief from decades of economic marginalisation. The violent crackdown by state forces, leaving multiple civilians dead and dozens injured, has only hardened local resolve.

From Strategic Asset to Liability

For decades, POJK has been instrumental in Pakistan’s Kashmir strategy. Towns such as Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad were used as springboards for militancy across the Line of Control, backed by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Today, these same areas have turned into epicentres of civil resistance against the Pakistani state.

This reversal underscores a paradox. The territory once cultivated as a strategic asset is rapidly transforming into a liability. The very population Islamabad sought to mobilise in its proxy war is now articulating its own grievances, ranging from power shortages and resource exploitation to the installation of puppet administrations.

The Governance Deficit

At the heart of the unrest lies Pakistan’s colonial governance model. The so-called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government exists largely as a façade. Real power is exercised by Islamabad’s Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and the Pakistani military. Local elections are tightly controlled, with candidates compelled to pledge allegiance to Pakistan.

Hydropower projects that draw on POJK’s rivers supply electricity to Punjab, while local communities face chronic shortages. Refugee settlers enjoy privileges denied to native residents. This extractive approach, which treats POJK as a reservoir of resources rather than a constituency of people, is now reaching breaking point.

Gilgit-Baltistan, governed through similarly ambiguous arrangements, reflects the same malaise: disenfranchisement, resource drain, and growing alienation.

A Familiar Response

Islamabad’s instinctive response has been repression. Internet blackouts, curfews, aerial firing, and mass arrests echo its handling of unrest in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pro-establishment voices have blamed “external hands,” repeating the well-worn narrative of Indian involvement.

Such denial is short-sighted. The protests are locally driven, shaped by structural neglect rather than foreign intervention. By externalising blame, Pakistan risks further alienating the very populations it seeks to control.

Strategic and Regional Implications

The unrest in POJK carries strategic consequences. It undermines Pakistan’s credibility in international forums, where it has long projected itself as a defender of Kashmiri aspirations. When residents of its own administered territories accuse it of repression, that narrative is severely weakened.

It also strains Pakistan’s internal stability at a time when the state is grappling with economic fragility, political polarisation, and an intensifying insurgency in its western frontier. For India, the developments present both an opportunity and a challenge: an opportunity to expose Pakistan’s contradictions, but also a challenge in managing potential instability across the Line of Control.

In a broader context, unrest in POJK feeds into South Asia’s faultline politics. Pakistan’s inability to manage its peripheries risks creating spaces of instability that external powers, whether China, with its investments in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), or other actors, cannot ignore.

The protests in POJK are a manifestation of a deeper crisis within Pakistan’s state structure: an extractive model of governance that prioritises control over consent. The immediate response may succeed in dispersing crowds, but the long-term trajectory is clear. A population long denied dignity and rights is asserting itself, and Islamabad’s colonial approach is running out of road.

For regional security analysts, the message is unambiguous. Pakistan’s internal contradictions are no longer confined to distant peripheries; they are converging at the heart of its contested spaces, reshaping South Asia’s strategic landscape.

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About Author

Ashu Mann is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. He was awarded the Vice Chief of the Army Staff Commendation Card on Army Day 2025. He is pursuing a PhD in Defence and Strategic Studies from Amity University, Noida. His research focuses include the India-China territorial dispute, great power rivalry, and Chinese foreign policy.