The political crisis unfolding in Pakistan-administered Jammu Kashmir (PaJK) cannot be understood simply as a confrontation between protesters and the authorities. It is exposing how vulnerable the current rights movement has become to the ideologies gathering around it, to the force used against it, and to the vacuum could leave behind.
The movement did not begin as an ideological project. It grew out of concrete grievances: electricity prices, flour subsidies, taxation, employment, political representation, the privileges of the ruling elite, and the magnitude of control ordinary people have over their own government and resources. But since the Joint Awami Action Committee's third Long March reached Rawalakot on June 9 and turned into prolonged sit-ins, it has been pulled toward a very different set of questions.
Since 1947, PaJK has carried an unusual burden. It has been presented as a political entity in its own right but has also been presumed to be also as a "base camp" for the eventual liberation of the rest of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. That idea produced decades of ideological movements - for independence and reunification, for socialist revolution, for Islamic transformation, for various strands of nationalism - all now embedded in the territory's political culture, and all of them have found a stage on the Rawalakot platforms.
That is the movement's central vulnerability. A struggle rooted in electricity tariffs, wages and accountability is carrying demands it was never built for, from organisations whose programmes have had little connection to those everyday concerns and stayed confined to narrow constituencies.
There was hope this time would be different - that they would back the Action Committee without inserting their own long-standing agendas. That hope has not entirely survived. Talk of representation and accountability is increasingly accompanied, and sometimes overshadowed, by slogans of revolution, independence, nationalism and, more recently, religious rhetoric.
A flawed idea, and its history
Much of this traces back to that old "base camp" assumption, and it deserves to be questioned.
Why was PaJK described this way after 1947? The traditional answer was that it would become the base from which the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh would eventually be liberated. But were the people of those regions incapable of deciding their own political future, of organising their own struggles? Why should the people of PaJK assume they are better placed to determine the future of populations living in entirely different political and social conditions?
I have turned this question over many times, and the longer I sit with it, the more the old "base camp" mentality looks like a form of paternalism. The claim that "we will liberate others" quietly reproduces the very hierarchy that liberation politics is supposed to reject. Freedom has to begin with the right of people to speak for themselves - the Valley for itself, Jammu for itself, Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan for themselves, and PaJK, first of all, for itself.
Only then does a meaningful conversation about the wider future of Jammu and Kashmir become possible.
Mistaking reform for revolution
A second flaw is the temptation to read a reforms movement as the opening act of a political revolution.
PaJK has long had parties advocating independence, nationalism, socialism and Islamic transformation, but most have stayed on the margins because their programmes rarely spoke to daily life concerning jobs, bills, schools, healthcare, accountable government. People may see in revolution or independence the promise of an end to their suffering, but that does not mean these ideologies grew out of it.
Too often, activists begin with a ready-made ideology and try to make the society fit into it, rather than building politics from the reality people actually live in.
None of this means such aspirations are illegitimate. It means a movement must be judged by what it can realistically achieve under the conditions in which it exists. The present movement is unlikely, on its own, to produce the independence and reunification of the whole former state, or the socialist or Islamic revolution some imagine.
But it could still achieve something more immediately transformative. It can bring real reform of governance, stronger civil and economic rights, greater local authority over resources, and a relationship with Pakistan built on consultation and trust rather than hierarchy. That alone would be no small thing. Arguably, this could be the most significant political transformation in PaJK for generations.
Putting an aircraft engine into a rickshaw does not turn the rickshaw into an aeroplane. It may simply destroy the rickshaw.
Repression, and the politics of hatred
Lethal force against protesters has already changed the atmosphere. Repression produces anger; anger changes political language; and demands that began as calls for reform can quickly harden into takht ya takhta - victory or destruction. But silence imposed by force is not peace, and rage, however justified, is not automatically a strategy.
The authorities are not dealing with one party or one ideology but a broad public mood, and those inside the movement should recognise that repression can push people toward positions for which neither the organisation nor the conditions yet exist.
Hatred of Pakistan, or India, or any rival ideology, cannot substitute for a programme. Politics conducted purely in the language of enemies and traitors gets skilled at identifying what to destroy, and much less capable of explaining what to build afterwards. Anger can expose exploitation and help bring old arrangements down, but it cannot by itself build democratic institutions or a functioning economy.
Without a constructive project, the collapse of one structure simply leaves a vacuum and vacuums rarely stay empty.
Pakistan's choice
Responsibility does not rest only with the movement. Pakistan has the larger role. A political relationship cannot be sustained indefinitely through coercion and one-sided control over resources.
If Islamabad wants a durable relationship with PaJK's people, consultation must replace command, consent must replace coercion, and local authority must replace excessive interference. This is self-interest as much as morality. When trust collapses, a vacuum opens, and vacuums rarely stay under the control of those who created them. Left unresolved, the crisis could move beyond the control of local leaders, the movement and Islamabad alike, leaving PaJK exposed to outside actors with little interest in its people's welfare.
Both sides need realism. PaJK's ideological leadership must recognise that not every crisis is the start of a revolution, and not every rights movement can be turned into a project to liberate the whole of Kashmir. Pakistan's establishment must recognise that not every demand for autonomy is a conspiracy, and not every disagreement can be answered with force.
The way forward
Reforms within PaJK and future of the entire Jammu and Kashmir region are two different projects, and they should not be confused.
The first is region-specific: reforming PaJK's own governance, its institutions, rights, accountability and control over local resources so that its people can live with genuine political dignity. This is the work in front of the movement now, and it need not wait on the fate of the whole of Jammu and Kashmir.
The second is a much wider, intra-region understanding, and it should start with listening, not declarations. Instead of announcing reunification, revolution or final constitutional arrangements, bring together people who understand each region - the Valley, Jammu, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan and PaJK - and ask them plainly what they want, where interests converge, where they differ, and what cooperation is possible.
The answers may prove uncomfortable for those of us who have read politics through fixed ideology for decades. That discomfort would be useful. The biggest lesson this movement can offer is that reality should not be twisted to fit ideology, which should be tested against reality.
For those turning their back on reality, it is important to understand that before conquering the skies, the ground beneath one’s feet needs to be secured first. Before claiming to liberate others, the freedom at home needs to be more meaningful. Most importantly, without accepting the right of every region including PaJK itself, the future of the whole of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be determined.
If PaJK can build a more democratic, accountable and dignified political system, that will be a beacon of light for Kashmiris. No slogan, armed struggle, or any seventy-eight-year-old idea of a base camp can serve that purpose.
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