Why
Gilgit Baltistan should be a province of Pakistan
By SABENA
SIDDIQUI JUNE 2, 2018
Connecting Pakistan with China and the Central Asian
states, the Gilgit Baltistan (GB) region is the starting point of the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is also the “flagship corridor”
of China’s Belt and Road Initiative mega-project.
Locked
in by inaccessible terrain, the region was relatively unknown until it was
opened up by the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in 1979. Constructed with
great difficulty, it took Pakistani and Chinese engineers 20 years to complete
the KKH due to the treacherous mountain ranges surrounding it. Apart from this,
the region was famous for its heroic contribution to the Pakistani army – one
of its most valiant units, the Northern Light Infantry, belongs to this region.
Always considered a Pakistani region since the partition of the Indian
sub-continent, it is surprising that the status of Gilgit Baltistan is being
debated nowadays.
Historical background
One of the princely
states comprising Gilgit Baltistan, namely the Gilgit Wazarat, had been leased
in 1935 to Kashmir’s ruling Dogra family by the British for 60 years. In 1947,
a local Gilgiti leader, Colonel Mirza Hassan Khan, overthrew the Kashmiri
Dogra-appointed governor with the help of a British army officer, Major WA Brown,
who was commandant of the Gilgit Scouts. As the entire local population was in
favour of joining Pakistan, no other option was considered feasible and they
approached Mohammad Ali Jinnah to request his permission to
become part of Pakistan. Accepting their offer, Jinnah sent Sardar Alam Khan to
set up the administration in Gilgit Baltistan and the Frontier Crimes
Regulation became the law for Gilgit and its various princely states.
Notably, ever since
its accession to Pakistan, Gilgit Baltistan started celebrating two
independence anniversaries, one being Pakistan’s Independence Day – August 14 –
and the other being November 1, when Brown helped free the Gilgit Wazarat from
the Kashmiri Dogra ruling family. Quite obviously, Gilgit Baltistan considers
itself separate from Kashmir but India insists on counting it as a part of
Kashmir. Sooner or later, India has to face the harsh reality that the people
of Gilgit Baltistan will only demand more rights in the federation of Pakistan
and have never wished to be part of India.
Strategic importance
Having grown in
strategic importance since the geo-economic realignment between China and
Pakistan, the sovereignty of this region has been made controversial by India
as it feels threatened by the Chinese presence in its proximity. Staking claims
over Gilgit Baltistan, the intention is to turn it into a disputed region and
sabotage the project. Interestingly, India not referred to Gilgit Baltistan as
“disputed territory” for many decades; the matter arose only after its two
neighbours started their joint development projects there. Claiming it for the
very first time in 2009, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said, “India believes that Pakistan has been in
illegal occupation of parts of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir since
1947.
The Chinese side is
fully aware of India’s position and our concerns about Chinese activities in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.” Following it up a few years later in 2015, Indian
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval described Gilgit-Baltistan’s Afghan
frontier while addressing Border Security Force officers, saying, “We also have a 106-km-long non-contiguous
border with Afghanistan [the Wakhan corridor] that we need to factor in.”
Notwithstanding the fact that when the Dixon proposals were offered by the British in
1950, Gilgit Baltistan was one of those areas where there was no apparent doubt
about the wish of the locals to align with Pakistan, and India had chosen to
accept the proposal for allotment to Pakistan of these areas.
Even though Kashmir
and Gilgit Baltistan were totally separate areas, both got to be connected
matters as India could not handle the Kashmir Valley and took the matter to the
United Nations. However, the people of Kashmir refused to accept Indian
occupation even though the ruling Dogra family agreed to the annexation of
Jammu and Kashmir by India under a temporary law, Article 370, which would be
effective till the plebiscite was held. As luck would have it, that plebiscite
remains pending to this day as India backtracked from participating in the
mechanism as it had no support in Kashmir.
Unfortunately, GB
suffered as it became classified along with Kashmir by the Pakistani government
of that time to increase the vote count in the impending referendum. At that
time, no one knew that India would keep the matter perpetually held up even
though the referendum was to be held within the year and a plebiscite
administrator was appointed by the UN.
The region of Gilgit
Baltistan could not be formalised as a proper province because of Indian
shenanigans in Kashmir and its after-effects on GB even though it was part of
the Pakistan federation and not a disputed territory
Pending to this day,
the region of Gilgit Baltistan could not be formalised as a proper province
because of Indian shenanigans in Kashmir and its after-effects on GB even
though it was part of the Pakistan federation and not a disputed territory.
Wishing to become a province of Pakistan immediately, Gilgit Baltistan finds
itself in the midst of baseless controversies generated by India which increase
frustration among the locals.
Being highly educated
with a 95% youth literacy rate, they wish to play an active part in the
construction of CPEC and want special economic zones and development projects
to be initiated in their area. Avoiding any constitutional limbo, it is time
that the government of Pakistan accords the Gilgitis their formal
constitutional, parliamentary and budgetary rights to bring them into the national
mainstream. This would be extremely advantageous from an administrative point
of view as well, as nowadays dividing the present four provinces on an
administrative basis is already being mulled over.
Not only that, making
GB a province of Pakistan would not affect the issue of Kashmir, which needs a
referendum to resolve its constitutional status as ordered by the United
Nations. Since GB has never been a disputed area under UN resolutions, it
should not suffer from such a specification and it should be removed from
disputed territory status. Very much an internal matter for Pakistan, giving GB
provincial status would be advisable as Gilgit Baltistanis are as much
Pakistani as Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans and Balochis from the other provinces
of Pakistan. Even the CPEC mega-project requires this legal cover for the
long-term interests of this region to materialise.
Understandably, the
people of GB feel the wait has become interminably long, as a young engineer,
Yawar Abbas, from the Gilgit Baltistan Awareness Forum, said, “All Pakistanis
are requested to listen to the patriotic people of Gilgit Baltistan and ask the
state to give us the same rights as they are enjoying. We are struggling to
completely merge Gilgit Baltistan with Pakistan constitutionally and hope to
contribute in the development of Pakistan with a sense of pride.”
Set to benefit even
more after the four-track CPEC is completed, the region is bound to become a
favourite tourist destination just like neighbouring Nepal, which thrives on
tourism. Home to some of the world’s highest mountains, its three longest
glaciers and 16 famous lakes, Gilgit Baltistan has a lot to gain from the
ongoing upgrade in infrastructure.
Providing employment
and business opportunities, CPEC projects would not only improve the standard
of living in the region, it would also contribute to regional integration as GB
is the gateway to Pakistan, China, India, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
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