Va-PoReg Country Report Kashmir, Pakistani 1949–2025

On this date, India and Pakistan signed the Karachi Agreement¹. Both countries agreed on a cease-fire line, which parts Kashmir to this day. Azad Kashmir’s national holiday is on 10/24/1947, which is the date of creation of the first government of Azad Kashmir.²

On this date, Ayub Khan successfully led a military coup and declared martial law (Feit 1973: 63, Mook 1974: 102, Shehab 1995: 248-250, Geddes/Wright/Frantz 2014: 85). On 08/05/1965, 7000 Pakistani troops invaded Indian Kashmir in an attempt to liberate the Muslim population there from Indian rule. The invaders, however, were not supported by the Kashmiri Muslims, because the latter did not identify with Pakistani Islam but rather with the autonomous spirit of Kashmiriyat (Arakotaram 2009: 38). During August and September 1965, the Second Indo-Pakistani War took place. Ayub Khan’s authoritarian rule lasted until 1969, when he was forced to hand over power to General Yahya Khan, who again enforced martial law and suspended the Pakistani Constitution. Trying to legitimize his rule, he held Pakistan’s first general elections on 12/07/1970, but, emerging defeated, he refused to hand over power. Yahya Khans rule was characterized by protests against his illegitimate regime and by the Bangladesh genocide he coordinated to suppress nationalist ambitions.³ After military confrontations on the border to India escalated and the Third Indo-Pakistani War took place from 12/03/1971 to 12/16/1971, the Pakistani troops were defeated, and Yahya Khan was forced to hand over power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on 12/20/1971. Bhutto supplanted the state of martial law for a state of emergency. His government also drafted Pakistan’s current Constitution which was approved by parliament and ratified on 08/14/1973.⁴

On this date, the Interim Constitution of Azad Jammu and Kashmir was ratified, providing a framework for parliamentary self-governance.⁵ In 1989, discontented by political deprivation, instability and the presence of Indian military, large parts of Muslim Kashmiris militarized themselves. Consequently, an approximated 70% of the Kashmiri Pandits (Hindu) sought refuge in other parts of India (Rai 2004: 286).

Under Nawaz Sharif, the Supreme Court ruled on 04/16/1997, that Azad Kashmir was denied its constitutional, and thus its autonomous status.⁶

On this date, Sardar Muhammad Anwar Khan, a former military, was elected President of Azad Kashmir, marking Azad Kashmir’s return to autonomous self-governance (Hasan 2006: 30). FH issues reports on Pakistani Kashmir since 2003. Per FH’s classification, the territory scores between 11 and 12 as not free and is categorized as not free in our interpretation as well. Repression of opposition and of journalists and general police and military brutality are continuous problems (Karatnycky 2000, Puddington 2010). Polity5 only mentions Kashmir concerning the military conflicts. V-Dem and LIED do not provide any data for Pakistani Kashmir.

Part of Other Country [of Pakistan, Electoral Hybrid Regime] as of 07/01/2025 continued.