Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir on the Periphery

Volume:37
Issue:1
Review Essay

Christopher Snedden, The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir, Hurst & Company, London, 2012, xxi + 435 pp., £50, clothbound, ISBN 97818490041508
Pervez Dewan, The Other Kashmir, Manas Publications, New Delhi, 2011, 439 pp., Rs 1,995, hardback, ISBN 9788170493709
Mohammed Monir Alam and Ajeet Kumar Bali, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir: Constitutional Status and Political Reality, Lancer Books, New Delhi, 2012, x + 329 pp., Rs 630, hardback, ISBN 9788170951224

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) refers to parts of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) which have been under Pakistan’s control since 1947. It comprises the so-called ‘Azad’ Jammu and Kashmir (‘AJK’) and Gilgit Baltistan, which until 2009 was referred to as the Northern Areas by the government of Pakistan. While the ‘AJK’ has been given illusionary trappings of a country-like structure, Gilgit Baltistan is currently administered as per the Empowerment and Self Governance Order of August 2009.