Missed out on Day 103 of 2023 by just about a minute.
I will publish notes related to this belated day below:
Work on a #Referendum in #AJK began on the 10th of April 2023, after seeking renowned legal opinion from our diaspora; to research, verify, authenticate, manage and execute public policy in AJK, via public opinion.
Interim research findings:
1) The 5 yearly AJK election process can be commended for its continuity since 1985 and for reaching out to as much as 60% of the population of AJK but its affinity to material inducement and blackmailing fear in the people: are at least 2 of its deficiencies that disallow it from being the sole arbiter of public opinion in AJK.
2) Elections are never an arbiter of questions that are of national or international significance. The examples of Brexit and Scotland make it clear that even political parties with a majority in parliament (ref. Conservative Party in the UK) cannot decide matters that ultimately impact popular sovereignty.
3) JKA PUBLIC AGENCY has produced an accurate representation of public opinion in AJK by conducting a public opinion survey between 2011 and 2016. This produced a sample that was twice the standard of international public opinion survey practice. We are working on obtaining the rich academic eye of the London School of Economics to interrogate, critique and verify our survey's representative character and establish confounding variables, if any.
4) An on the ground referendum is the missing gap in public policy to authenticate the people's sovereignty, which is academically described as 'popular sovereignty'. Pre 1947, we have merely been in transition from 'titular sovereignty' to 'popular sovereignty', just as we have been transitioning from 'autocratic constitutionalism' to 'democratic constitutionalism'.
The king and his subjects were both deprived of sovereignty while India & Pakistan began developing their claims under the guise of an international dispute, minus the king and his subjects.
We have been duped in order to be deprived. We now have the perfect opportunity to democratically address this deprivation.
In the spirit of the word 'Azad' or 'Free' (the A in AJK) referendums have been conducted in this territory in the past by various political parties, so this is not a new phenomenon or a 'ruse'. It is to clarify what Robert Wirsing described as the "calculated constitutional ambiguity of AJK".
The late Abdul Majeed Malik of Mirpur and Dr Nazir Gilani of Baramulla have noted and clarified the legal and constitutional status of AJK and the rest of JKA in their works.
(Instead of the lazy approach to ask for citations I would urge all those unfamiliar with Wirsing, Malik and N Gilani to begin taking their work seriously.
I'll leave you with a clue: all references are available at ajkpublicagency.org)
As always, we need the public's assistance to reinstate popular sovereignty in AJK and by extension to the rest of JKA, subject to the people's will in those territories including but not necessarily restricted to Gilgit Baltistan, Ladakh, Kashmir Valley and Jammu.
They all have a default right to unconditionally secede from this political reunion of the erstwhile princely State but that also requires:
1) Consultation between all the divided parts of the State. Agreeing to disagree where necessary.
2) Unwinding the Indo-Pak bilateral process and the UN template on this territory preceding that or running concurrent to that.
As advised, the referendum question should be confined to 1 sentence with 4 options:
1) Yes
2) No
3) Don't know
4) Explanation of your answer (optional)
The question I put to the people of AJK (people from the rest of JKA can also provide their suggestions) is:
What should that sentence be?
#AJKReferendum2023
#PopularSovereignty
#PublicOpinion
#PublicPolicy
JKA PUBLIC AGENCY Note: #093013042023
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The above note has also been translated into Urdu below:
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