An organized propaganda campaign is being run against the ongoing people’s movement in Pakistani administered Jammu Kashmir. The state, its media, and its hired social media voices are trying to turn a mass political struggle into a question of disorder, violence, and chaos, because they cannot answer the real questions raised by the people.
This method has a familiar history, in Indian administered Jammu Kashmir, the Indian state and its media used the word “Pattharbaaz” to criminalize a whole generation of Kashmiri youth, reducing a struggle against military occupation to an image of stones and street clashes. Today, the Pakistani state and its propaganda machinery are trying to perform the same operation here by turning the “Timber ka Danda” into a symbol of lawlessness, while hiding the political anger, deprivation, and resistance behind it. A symbol born from people’s defiance is being presented as proof of criminality, so that the state can justify repression against a movement it has failed to defeat politically.
Alongside this, another lie is being peddled that the people of Pakistani administered Jammu Kashmir have never stood against Indian occupation or marched in solidarity with the people across the Line of Control. This is a deliberate distortion of history. In 1990, 1992, 1999, 2000, and 2019, different progressive, nationalist, democratic, and pro-people organizations, including JKNSF, issued calls and marched towards the LoC. These mobilizations were part of the living history of resistance in this region. In these struggles, people were martyred by Indian forces as well as by Pakistani forces. JKNSF also carries its own proud history in this regard, including the march that broke through the imposed division and faced Indian bullets.
This history is being erased today because it exposes the political function of the state narrative. The people of Pakistani administered Jammu Kashmir have always stood with the oppressed people of Indian administered Jammu Kashmir against occupation, military rule, killings, arrests, disappearances, and the denial of the right to self-determination. At the same time, they have also resisted repression, exploitation, and political control on their own side. These two positions come from the same political commitment, the right of the people of Jammu Kashmir to live with freedom, dignity, and authority over their own future.
We also reject the attempts by sections of Indian media and Indian social media to use the present movement for their own state interests. The people of Jammu Kashmir can never stand with a state that has martyred, jailed, disappeared, and brutalized countless Kashmiris. The present movement is rooted in the suffering, anger, and demands of the people here, and it cannot be turned into material for Indian state propaganda.
The purpose of the current propaganda is to isolate the movement, create confusion among ordinary people, justify arrests and raids, and present political activists as criminals. The same state that refuses to answer the demands of the people now wants to bury those demands under labels, edited clips, planted narratives, and abuse from its media loyalists.
JKNSF rejects this entire campaign of vilification. The struggle in Pakistani administered Jammu Kashmir is a people’s struggle for dignity, resources, democratic rights, and political power. Its connection with the wider struggle of Jammu Kashmir is rooted in history, sacrifice, and distinct yet connected experiences of oppression under the unresolved national question of Jammu Kashmir.
We demand the immediate release of all arrested protesters, activists, students, workers, and political organizers. All cases, raids, intimidation, and repression against the movement must end immediately!
Down with Repression!
Down with State Terrorism!
Knowledge, Struggle, Victory!