AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where dozens of people have been killed in clashes between security officials and protesters over the last two months. Control over the heavily militarized region of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan. Seven years ago this week, India’s right-wing Modi government revoked Indian Kashmir’s limited autonomy, bringing it under direct federal rule.

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir earlier this summer, a coalition of local politicians, activists and business leaders called the Joint Action Awami Committee, or the JAAC, began protests over the soaring cost of living, but also demanding more political autonomy for the region. In response, the Pakistani government banned the group under counterterrorism laws and shut down the internet. As protests continued, the government responded with force, killing at least 40 people.

The BBC spoke to a young man who was involved in the protests and did not want to be identified.

PROTESTER: [translated] We only asked for affordable flour, electricity and our basic rights. Instead, our brothers are being killed. Why are live bullets being fired at us?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Pakistani government has now begun a sweeping new crackdown on international media seeking to report from any areas outside the country’s three major cities, and has ordered all foreign media to leave Pakistan-administered Kashmir immediately.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s ruling party is in the lead in the first phases of local elections in the region, and authorities claim an over 50% voter turnout, despite calls for a boycott from the now-banned Joint Action Awami Committee.

This is local resident Ali Omar explaining why people want to boycott the elections.

ALI OMAR: [translated] Muzaffarabad and Azad Kashmir are not in a condition where elections can be held here. The internet is shut down, and everyday life has completely come to a standstill. … I think the reason people are boycotting is basically the action committee, because of the oppression and atrocities that were inflicted on the action committee. People feel sympathy for them.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in London by the award-winning Kashmiri novelist and journalist Mirza Waheed. His books include The Collaborator and The Book of Gold Leaves. His forthcoming book, Maryam & Son.

Thank you so much, Mirza, for joining us. We only have a few minutes. What is happening in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and for the global audience to understand this area?

MIRZA WAHEED: Thank you for having me.

Pakistan-administered Kashmir, you know, for — has long been portrayed as self-governed, autonomous or azad, meaning free. And it’s been relatively safe compared to where I come from, where I grew up, which is in Indian-administered Kashmir. But this changes that. This punctures that picture to some extent, because — and as your clip showed, there’s deep dissatisfaction with local governance structures. So, Kashmiris in that part of Kashmir basically are saying that while the larger issue remains unresolved, their basic rights, political rights, economic rights, they need to be addressed. They can’t wait forever for those rights to be given to them.

And I’ve been reading about what’s been happening on the ground. The discontent is not recent; it’s been simmering under the surface for a while, and now it’s kind of burst out the open. The Pakistan state has not handled this very well at all, because they — you know, the violence that we’ve seen in the last few weeks is chillingly reminiscent of what we used to see in Indian-administered Kashmir. Of course, there are big parallels, big divergences. In Indian-administered Kashmir, there’s been decades of militarization and repression and oppression. Here, the unrest is recent, but some chilling parallels in terms of indiscriminate use of violence, cutting off the entire region from the rest of the world, no internet, people who are wounded not going to hospitals for fear of reprisals. So, this reminded me of, you know, the city I grew up in, Srinagar.

And I think one of the underlying issues also is that the whole region is not as developed as the rest of Pakistan. So, while the Pakistani state has always maintained that this is our favorite child, as one of the government spokesmen recently put it, or Kashmir is the jugular vein of Pakistan, it’s not as developed as the rest of Pakistan. The 27% unemployment among youth, you know, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, that tells you a lot about what’s been going underneath.

And now all these grievances, you know, about increasing prices, unemployment, healthcare, infrastructure, they have coalesced into a larger, broader critique of the political arrangement, by which I mean that this committee that you mentioned, JAAC, they have been demanding that the 12 seats reserved for in the local assembly for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir who came to this part of Kashmir post-Partition, they should be abolished, because they believe that, you know, out of a number of 53 total seats, if you have 12 which are reserved, that undermines local representation. I hope I have kind of clarified this.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Very quickly, Mirza — yes, you have — if you could just say, you know, the history of the region, the division of Kashmir, India, Pakistan, and then also the smallest bit, China, and the colonial legacy that led to this situation in the first place?

MIRZA WAHEED: I think this is — we can see these are the — this is the rupture of the Partition, and we are seeing these splinters, you know, again and again in all parts of Kashmir. So, in 1947, Kashmir was this one state called Jammu and Kashmir state, and it was split between India and Pakistan, because they couldn’t agree on a solution. They said they’re going to solve it later via a referendum, via a plebiscite, which has never taken place. And then they fought wars over Kashmir, at least three wars. And recently, last year, they fought. You know, they fought this air battle after tourists, Indian tourists, were killed in Indian lands in Kashmir. So, it will flare up. It will always flare up.

And the region is now — obviously, both these places are governed by India. India controls Indian-administered Kashmir, you know, with an iron grip. Pakistani state has claimed that this region is relatively free, is azad, but we all know there’s nominal autonomy there. So, it is a legacy of Partition, and the division was quite arbitrary. It was — you know, it’s a line drawn across villages.

AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds, Mirza.

MIRZA WAHEED: Sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds.

MIRZA WAHEED: OK, so, it’s — the division is old, and there are no rights. Basically, it’s a struggle for dignity on both sides.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, and we will continue to follow this. Mirza Waheed, journalist and award-winning Kashmiri novelist.

That does it for our show. I’ll be in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the King’s Theatre on August 11th, and on August 12th, showing of Steal This Story, Please! at the Bertha DocHouse in London. Right now we’re here in New York. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.