It was 1988 when social media was not so popular and the gullible people living on the LoC took the news broadcasted by the exclusive channel of Pakistan Television Network at 9 PM to be the only truth. It was said on PTV that Muslims are being oppressed in Srinagar while rivers of milk are flowing in Muzaffarabad. Going forward, the Pakistani establishment set up a Kashmir cell in Pindi (Rawalpindi). Jihadi camps were established in Balakot, Muridke, Abbaspur Neelam and Sirsaan. In these campuses, the youth of Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir were misled towards jihad. Youth from Srinagar were also brought here for training. This continued till 2006.
Due to this propaganda, the inhabitants of the so-called “Azad Kashmir” began to consider themselves free and the people of Srinagar as slaves. Influenced by this propaganda, hundreds of families from the Kashmir Valley crossed the LoC and came to Muzaffarabad. Thousands of youths took up guns. However, after 9/11 things had begun to change. The year 2000 saw the advent of social media and social media began to highlight the real differences between Pakistan and India, Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, and Kargil, Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan. On the other hand, the arrival of smartphones in 2016 spilled the beans and divulged the truth.
After 2015, India became stronger economically, politically and globally; while Pakistan began to decline economically, politically and globally. The real face of Srinagar started to emerge on social media. Congress governments had given exemptions to Pakistani facilitators in Srinagar. After 2018, Modi-led BJP government started cracking down on the Pakistani agents in Srinagar and on the other hand started a new era of development in Srinagar, Jammu, Poonch, Kargil and Ladakh. Pakistan found it difficult to complete the Hariyam Bridge at Mirpur in ten years, while India built the world’s largest tunnel and brought modern railway train to Kargil-Ladakh.
After the reforms of 2019, the horizon of Srinagar changed. And the people of Srinagar as well as the people of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit saw all of this on social media. Higher educational institutions are running in Srinagar while the condition of education in Gilgit and Muzaffarabad is bad. Handicrafts industry in Srinagar is developing globally. Half of the population of Muzaffarabad is looking for employment in Saudi Arabia and Europe, while employment opportunities are available in Srinagar. India has become the fifth largest economy in the world while Afghanistan is heading towards default.
Even during the festival of Eid the Indian government is providing affordable and quality goods to the people of Srinagar, Jammu and Kargil, while the people of Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Gilgit and Skardu on the other side of the LoC are protesting long for food items.
People of Srinagar are celebrating Eid with enthusiasm while on the other hand in Muzaffarabad, the Pakistani establishment is creating a puppet government that will dance to its tunes. It is only due to the crisis in Pakistani economy, that the people of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit are not able enjoy and celebrate Eid. Now the people of Gilgit and Muzaffarabad have understood that it is no longer possible to love Pakistan and that the people of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit can never be trapped by Pakistani propaganda because they have come to know that Gilgit and Muzaffarabad are the worst slaves of Pakistani establishment while the situation in the Kashmir Valley is a thousand times better than what the Pakistani narrative shows it to be.