The Other Side of Paradise: How Pakistan Crushed Protests in Kashmir

The question of Kashmir has shaped the trajectories of India and Pakistan since the end of British rule and their birth as nation-states in August 1947. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety, have fought multiple wars over it, and each controls a separate part of the territory. Historically, references to Kashmir have largely focused on the dispute between India and Pakistan, or on the most visible troubles in Indian-administered Kashmir. Global attention has rarely lingered on the part of Kashmir administered by Pakistan. Yet, since an outbreak of protests in the region in June, more than 80 people have been killed by security forces. A different kind of political struggle has been gathering momentum there—one that is less a contest over sovereignty than an expression of long-simmering grievances over the conditions of daily life, from unaffordable electricity bills and rising food prices to a scarcity of jobs. Pakistan-administered Kashmir has not been insulated from the wider economic crisis in Pakistan. Rising prices, fiscal pressures, energy deficits, and repeated International Monetary Fund bailouts have pushed successive governments to reduce subsidies and raise utili...