Opinion: A Case For POJK’s Integration With India — The Time Is Right
It is not just the barbed wire marking the military ceasefire line of 1948 that has come to symbolise the rift between the people of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which legally acceded to India in October 1947. It is also the radically different paths of socioeconomic progress in the two regions on either side of the border. While the land under Pakistan’s illegal occupation — Pakistan-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir or POJK — has become a symbol of systemic exclusion, economic stagnation, and institutionalised neglect, the area incorporated within the Indian Union has witnessed development, governance, and the hopes of a better future.
This dichotomy is not a product of speculation, nor is it a propaganda construct based on vested interests. It is a fact based on empirical evidence, supported by a range of socioeconomic metrics that highlight the gap between the two regions: one under the control of Pakistan in a colonial-appendage-like fashion, without agency or development, and the other thriving in the democratic and economic setup of India, availing of opportunities for growth and prosperity. This has resulted in increasing demands from various quarters, both within POJK and among its diaspora, for the reintegration of the region with Jammu and Kashmir and, indirectly, its incorporation into the Indian Union.
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Let us consider the socioeconomic indicators and political position of these two areas. A comparative study of their constitutional and political structures within the larger state systems of India and Pakistan provides some insights into this. For example, since J&K’s official accession to India on October 26, 1947, under Maharaja Hari Singh, it has existed as a constituent federal unit of the Indian polity, enjoying the institutional stability and democratic principles that have characterised India’s governance path. The past decades have seen J&K experience sustained democracy, reflecting in periodic polls for its legislative assembly as also its participation in national-level electoral exercises. In the face of consistent foreign attempts at destabilisation — particularly Pakistan’s state-sponsored efforts to generate insurgency and terrorism from the latter part of the 1980s — J&K has remained committed to the core precepts of representative government, augmenting political credibility within the Indian constitutional setup.
Even after New Delhi eventually completed the integration process of J&K by de-operationalising Article 370 in 2019, it did not take long for the region’s democratic course to make a comeback, with a record-breaking electoral turnout in 2024 for the national as well as assembly polls.
Meanwhile, ever since Pakistan’s illegal occupation, POJK and Gilgit-Baltistan have been under political and constitutional subordination, with Islamabad deliberately depriving them of any control over their internal affairs. In contrast to J&K’s constitutional development under the ambit of Maharaja Hari Singh’s Accession Accord of 1947 and the Delhi Agreement of 1952, the political nexus between Muzaffarabad and Islamabad was framed under the Karachi Agreement of 1948. It formed the foundation of POJK’s Interim Constitution of 1974, which accorded it titular autonomy in the form of an independent Supreme Court, President, and Prime Minister.
Yet, such an architecture is a tactical gambit to confuse the world. In reality, POJK’s government framework is still weak in its structure and continues to function within Pakistan’s federal Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, and local powers are limited by Islamabad’s agents, political and military. Pakistani political commentator Lal Hussain once stated that while POJK “has a President and Prime Minister”, their authority is weaker than the deputy secretary in the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, which is one of Pakistan's weakest federal ministries.
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Development Disparity
Let us now review the developmental imbalances between these two areas. In spite of weathering decades of Pakistan-backed insurgency since the late 1980s, Jammu & Kashmir has shown meaningful socioeconomic resilience and embarked on a path of steady growth and emerged as one of India’s highest-performing regions in various sectors.
In tourism, education, infrastructure, and economic growth, Jammu & Kashmir marks a developmental success story of the Indian federal structure. The current-price Jammu and Kashmir Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) — $22 billion — was almost four times that of POJK ($6.5bn), as of 2023. Additionally, the poverty ratio in POJK (24.9%) is almost double that of J&K (12.58%), and the unemployment rates are similarly skewed. The infrastructural gap is even more pronounced. J&K is integrated with the rest of India through a comprehensive network of roads, railways, and airports. In 2024, the Srinagar International Airport accommodated more than 28,300 flights, providing transportation to over 4.4 million passengers. POJK, meanwhile, is starkly underdeveloped, lacking even a single functional airport, and is yet to see the arrival of railway connectivity.
These divergences of development are not coincidental but symptomatic of the overall paradigms of governance, with J&K gaining from India’s institutional consolidation and focused economic interventions, whereas POJK suffers at the hands of Pakistan’s framework of systemic neglect and disenfranchisement. The development divide between the two regions goes far beyond economy and infrastructure, into vital spheres like healthcare and education. Within the field of public health, POJK’s poor and under-developed medical facilities are a contrast to the robust healthcare infrastructure of J&K.
The Pakistan-administered area, which includes Gilgit-Baltistan, has a total of around 1,080 health centres, of which a mere 23 are hospitals — only six of them are functioning at the district level — and 225 basic health units. In contrast, J&K has a much more elaborate healthcare infrastructure, with more than 3,840 medical institutions, of which 22 are major hospitals, supplemented by a dozen medical colleges that are centres of advanced medical learning and research. Concurrently, J&K has become a more and more desirable destination for capital flows, indicative of its enhanced economic vitality. As per the J&K Government Economic Survey 2024-25, the state has attracted investment proposals worth a staggering Rs 1.63 lakh crore that have the potential to create direct employment opportunities for more than 5.90 lakh people. The amount of investment reflects well on the effectiveness of J&K’s policy environment that promotes economic growth by enabling infrastructural upgradation, pro-business reforms, and tactical incentives.
In POJK, on the other hand, structural barriers and policy stagnation have prevented any such path of growth and progress. Pakistan exercises militarised colonial rule over the occupied territories, an apparatus that has been maintained through the systematic withholding of basic rights, institutionalised discrimination, and the plunder of local resources. This duality has fuelled mounting demands from within POJK, and from its international diaspora, for the region’s legitimate reintegration with the rest of J&K and, thereby, with India.
Their increasing disillusionment with the exploitative rule of Pakistan has expressed itself in unprecedented popular protests. In the last two years, popular protests in both occupied territories have exposed disenchantment, with protesters calling for global support for their desire to accede to India. But these resistance voices have been systematically silenced by Pakistan’s ubiquitous digital surveillance system, which aims to quash any expression of dissent.
While the Indian establishment and the political class have long been verbalising a recapture of the region, current developments within POJK and Gilgit-Baltistan suggest there may not be a better time than now for commencing such an endeavour. Restoration of the region to its natural place in India would not only satisfy the long-repressed hopes of its people, but also act as a spur for greater regional stability. For more than three decades, South Asia has witnessed the consequences of Pakistan’s state-sponsored militancy, with Kashmir used too frequently as a rhetorical and strategic justification for nurturing instability. The return of POJK to India would alter the equation fundamentally by stopping the very cover behind which terrorism is spread.
Reclaiming POJK, therefore, would not just correct a historical aberration but also lead to the strengthening of peace and security in one of the globe’s most geopolitically charged corridors in the long run.
The writer is a Navy veteran and military historian.
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