Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir are the ethnic

Kashmiri people Kashmiris are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group speaking the Kashmiri language, living mostly, but not exclusively, in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India.(a) (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern ...

who reside in

Azad Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (; ), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir, is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger Ka ...

, a territory which constitutes part of

Pakistani-administered Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompass ...

since the end of the

First Kashmir War First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

. Their demographic includes up to 40,000 registered Kashmiri refugees who have fled the

Kashmir Valley The Kashmir Valley, also known as the ''Vale of Kashmir'', is an intermontane valley concentrated in the Kashmir Division of the Indian- union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The valley is bounded on the southwest by the Pir Panjal Range and ...

, located in Indian-administered Kashmir, to Pakistan since the late 1980s due to conflict in the region. As of 2010, only around 60 percent of Kashmiri refugees had acquired

Pakistani citizenship Pakistani nationality law details the conditions by which a person holds Pakistani nationality. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Pakistan Citizenship Act, 1951, which came into force on 13 April 1951. With few exceptions ...

History and demographics

Christopher Snedden Christopher Snedden is an Australian political scientist and author. He has studied and published on the long-running Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan. In his book, ''The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir'' (2012), he proposed ...

writes that most of the native residents of Azad Kashmir are not of Kashmiri ethnicity; rather, they could be called "

Jammu Jammu is the winter capital of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir. It is the headquarters and the largest city in Jammu district of the union territory. Lying on the banks of the river Tawi Ri ...

ites" due to their historical and cultural links with that region, which is coterminous with neighbouring

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

and Hazara. Because their region was formerly a part of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

of Jammu and Kashmir and is named after it, many Azad Kashmiris have adopted the "Kashmiri" identity, whereas in an ethnolinguistic context, the term "Kashmiri" would ordinarily refer to natives of the Kashmir Valley region. The Neelam and

Leepa Valley The Leepa Valley ( ur, ) is an arable valley situated in the Hattian Bala District of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. It is located approximately from the capital city of Muzaffarabad. The valley is divided into the Nowkot, Kasirkot, Dao K ...

s in northern Azad Kashmir are home to a significant

Kashmiri Muslim Kashmiri Muslims are ethnic Kashmiris who practice Islam and are native to the Kashmir Valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. Quote: "Jammu and Kashmir: Territory in northwestern India, subject to a dispute between India and Pakistan. It has bo ...

population, as these areas border the Kashmir Valley. Many Kashmiris who support their state's accession to Pakistan or had ties to pro-Pakistani separatist parties left their homes out of fear of persecution, settling on the Pakistani side of the border. Some of them came from places as distant as

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...

, and intermarried with locals in Azad Kashmir.

Language

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

is spoken by roughly five percent of Azad Kashmir's population. According to the

1998 Pakistan Census The 1998 Census of Pakistan was the fifth Pakistani national census. It provided a detailed enumeration of the population of Pakistan at the time it was conducted under the authority of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, an agency of the Gover ...

, there were 132,450 Kashmiri speakers in Azad Kashmir. Native speakers of the language were dispersed in "pockets" throughout Azad Kashmir, particularly in the districts of

Muzaffarabad Muzaffarabad (; ur, ) is the capital and largest city of Azad Kashmir, and the 60th largest in Pakistan. The city is located in Muzaffarabad District, near the confluence of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers. The district is bounded by the Pak ...

(15%), Neelam (20%) and Hattian (15%), with very small minorities in

Haveli A ''haveli'' is a traditional townhouse, mansion, manor house, in the Indian subcontinent, usually one with historical and architectural significance, and located in a town or city. The word ''haveli'' is derived from Arabic ''hawali'', mean ...

(5%) and Bagh (2%). The Kashmiri spoken in Muzaffarabad is distinct from, although still intelligible with, the Kashmiri of the Neelam Valley to the north. In Neelam Valley, Kashmiri is the second most widely spoken language and the majority language in at least a dozen or so villages, where in about half of these, it is the sole mother tongue. The Kashmiri dialect of Neelum is closer to the variety spoken in northern Kashmir Valley, particularly

Kupwara Kupwara is a town and a municipal council in Kupwara district in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Municipal council Kupwara is an Urban Local Body with 13 elected members (also in Delimitation in progress for wards), which adm ...

. A process of

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...

is observable among Kashmiri-speakers in Azad Kashmir according to linguist

Tariq Rahman Tariq Rahman (born 4 February 1949) is a Pakistani academic scholar, newspaper columnist, researcher, and a writer. Currently based in Lahore, he is author of many books and other publications, mainly in the field of linguistics. He has been ...

, as they gradually adopt local dialects such as

Pahari-Pothwari The Indo-Aryan language spoken on the Pothohar Plateau in the far north of Punjab, Pakistan, Pakistani Punjab, as well as in most of Pakistan's Azad Kashmir and in western areas of India's Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir, i ...

Hindko Hindko (, romanized: , ) is a cover term for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pun ...

or move towards the ''lingua franca''

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

This has resulted in these languages gaining ground at the expense of Kashmiri. There have been calls for the promotion of Kashmiri at an official level; in 1983, a Kashmiri Language Committee was set up by the government to patronise Kashmiri and impart it in school-level education. However, the limited attempts at introducing the language have not been successful, and it is Urdu, rather than Kashmiri, that Kashmiri Muslims have seen as their identity symbol. Rahman notes that efforts to organise a Kashmiri language movement have been challenged by the scattered nature of the Kashmiri-speaking community in Azad Kashmir.

Refugees from Jammu and Kashmir

There are also Kashmiri populations spread out across the districts of

The first wave of Kashmiri refugees arrived in 1947–48 against the backdrop of the

partition of British India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. T ...

. More refugees poured in during the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was d ...

and

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decem ...

, followed by a third wave in the 1990s as a result of the

insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger ...

. These refugees included people from the

and

Baramulla Baramulla (), also known as Varmul () in Kashmiri, is a town and a municipality in the Baramulla district in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Baramulla district. It is on the b ...

districts of Kashmir.

Farooq Haider Khan Raja Farooq Haider Khan is a Kashmiri politician and former Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K). He is a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League (N). Early life Raja Muhammad Farooq Haider Khan was born on 14 February 1955. He r ...

, Azad Kashmir's prime minister, claimed that as many as 2.2 million people from Jammu and Kashmir sought refuge in Azad Kashmir between 1947 and 1989. Once refugees become registered, they are eligible to buy land, own businesses and vote in Azad Kashmir elections.

Politics

In the

Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, also known as AJK Legislative Assembly, is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani administered state of Azad Kashmir, which is located in Muzaffarabad, the capital ...

, there are twelve seats reserved for the Jammu and Kashmiri immigrant community across Pakistan. Six of these seats are reserved for immigrants from the Kashmir Valley, and the other six for Jammu Province. The refugees from Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir have been historically overrepresented in the Azad Kashmir legislatures, despite their residence outside Azad Kashmir. In 1961, there were 10,000 refugees of Kashmiri origin in Pakistan, who had voting rights in elections of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. They were given an equal amount of representation in the election as the 109,000

refugees. In 1990, there were 400,000 refugee voters, compared to 1.2 million Azad Kashmir residents. The refugees continued to receive higher representation in the legislatures compared to the residents, Kashmiris being favoured more. This was justified on the grounds of showing "solidary with the Kashmiris in the Indian-administered Kashmir". Snedden remarks that the higher representation given to refugees endows opportunities to the central government of Pakistan to influence the election results. Previously, the

government of Azad Kashmir The Government of Azad Kashmir ( ur, ) is the state government which administers one of the territories of Pakistani-administered Kashmir territories of Azad Kashmir. The Azad Kashmir government consists of a president as head of state and a pri ...

had allocated a quota system of 25 percent in government jobs for Kashmiri settlers; however, following the refugee influx of the 1990s, that quota reportedly dropped to six percent. In Jammu and Kashmiri politics, the phrase ''Muzaffarabad chalo'' ("Let's go to Muzaffarabad") has been used as a call for public protest in response to restrictive state policies, where marchers attempt to symbolically "break the

LoC LOC, L.O.C., Loc, LoC, or locs may refer to: Places * Lóc, a village in Sângeorgiu de Pădure, Mureș County, Romania * Lócs, a village in Vas county, Hungary * Line of Contact, meeting place of Western and Eastern Allied forces at the e ...

" and cross to the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

Culture

The

Sharada Peeth Sharada Peeth is a ruined Hindu temple and ancient centre of learning located in the Neelum Valley of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Between the 6th and 12th centuries CE, it was among the most prominent temple universities in the Indian s ...

temple located in Neelam Valley is one of the three holiest sites for

Kashmiri Pandit The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region ...

s. It lends its name to the

Sharada script The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbourin ...

, which was extensively used in the region to record medieval

Kashmiri literature Literature of Kashmir has a long history, the oldest texts having been composed in the Sanskrit language. Early names include Patanjali, the author of the '' Mahābhāṣya'' commentary on Pāṇini's grammar, suggested by some to have been the sa ...

. As of 2019, the Pakistani government had approved a plan to establish a cross-border corridor allowing Hindu pilgrims access to the site. Altaf Mir is a Kashmiri settler and singer from Muzaffarabad whose rendition of the classical Kashmiri poem, ''Ha Gulo'', on ''

Coke Studio Explorer ''Coke Studio Explorer'' is a Pakistani web television music series created by musicians Ali Hamza and Zohaib Kazi. As a part of new module, it is a spin-off to a ''Coke Studio'' and prequel to its eleventh season. Instead of studio recordin ...

'' remains widely popular and was the first

Kashmiri song "Kashmiri Song" or "Pale Hands I Loved" is a 1902 song by Amy Woodforde-Finden based on a poem by Laurence Hope, pseudonym of Violet Nicolson. The poem first appeared in Hope's first collection of poems, '' The Garden of Kama'' (1901), also kno ...

featured on the show. The city of Muzaffarabad is known for its Kashmiri shawls, which are an iconic product of Kashmir.

References

{{Azad Kashmir topics