The state of Azadi

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the ramifications of the Kashmir conflict on Kashmiris living on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, a region seldom discussed in conversations on Jammu and Kashmir. Using oral history interviews with refugees who poured in from Indian-administered Kashmir in the 1990s and with women, men and children sandwiched in between Indian and Pakistani army posts, this chapter explores the ways in which the ongoing conflict manifests in everyday lives in the territory known as ‘Azad Jammu and Kashmir’. These narratives highlight the varied and at times conflicting politics, aspirations and grievances of this region, punctuating simplistic statist narratives on the territory. By bringing forth voices from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, this chapter argues that these Kashmiris too are critical stakeholders in the larger Kashmir dispute; their lives continue to be entangled with the conflict on the other side, and they must be brought into the fold of discussions on the future of Jammu and Kashmir if we are to find a lasting solution to the dispute.