Why Gilgit Baltistan should be a province of Pakistan
Written By : SABENA SIDDIQUI
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 anPending 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.
Source Link : Asia Times
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