The wave of democracy, freedom and open societies sweeping the world today seems to be escaping the hilly terrains of Gilgit-Baltistan, situated to the north of Pakistan. It is ruled by Pakistan but does not belong to it. It is theoretically independent but practically under the jackboots of Pakistan. The principles of self-determination, freedom and popular will that are being forged by Pakistan to its rumour mills against India, day in and day out, are denied to the people of the so called Northern Areas, a geographical connotation invented deliberately to ignore the people and their history in this region, shut out from the rest of the world by the icy peaks of the Karakoram range.
The people of the region have been victims of history in many ways. They were under the nominal suzerainty of the King of Kashmir during the colonial period. After partition and the first Kashmir war between India and Pakistan, the area should have formed part of Pakistan held Kashmir which was called Azad Jammu and Kashmir. However, Pakistan quietly divided this part of Jammu and Kashmir State, under its control, into two parts, i.e., Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas.
The people of Gilgit and Baltistan fed with the dream of an Islamic dawn could hardly celebrate their freedom from the yoke of the Hindu King of Kashmir, after they arrested the King’s governor in November 1947. Exactly sixteen days after the local council of Gilgit under Shah Rais Khan declared accession with Pakistan, Sardar Alam Khan, earlier an Assistant Magistrate, was sent in as the political agent with enormous powers to eclipse the authority of the local council. Since then, the central bureaucracy of Pakistan has spread its tentacles all around like an Octopus and held the region hostage to the whims and caprices of the leaders of Pakistan.
Through the rough and tumble of Pakistani politics in the 1950 and 1960s, Pakistan almost forgot that the Gilgit-Baltistan agency was part of the erstwhile kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1963, when Pakistani authorities under Ayub’s leadership bartered away nearly 5180 sq kms of territory the people of the region could hardly utter a word. This region provided Pakistan with the much needed surface communication corridor with China, the only so called ‘all-weather friend’ of China.
These areas were for all practical purposes, annexed to Pakistan. In 1970, the agency was renamed Northern Areas and ruled directly by the Federal government through political agents. In 1974, two more states, Hunza and Nagar along with the valleys of Darel and Tangir were added to the NA. Areas traditionally considered part of Gilgit-Baltistan, like Shinaki Kohistan and Chitral were amalgamated into NWFP. There is a popular demand gaining momentum in Gilgit-Baltistan that these areas should be given back to Gilgit-Baltistan.
Of Pakistan but not in it
Neither the agency of Gilgit-Baltistan, nor its successor, Northern Areas, has found any place in the Pakistani constitutions drafted in 1956, 1962 and even in 1973. It is virtually a forgotten place for the government of Pakistan. They only find scant mention in the Federal rules of Business where a special Ministry in the central government, Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA) was given the responsibility to look after the administration of the area. Although Gilgit-Baltistan did not have representation in the national assembly and Senate, that did not stop the government of Pakistan from collecting direct and indirect taxes from its people, without taking enough care to plough these resources back for development of the region.
The Façade of Democracy
Pakistan has sought to hoodwink the people and the world by maintaining a facade of democratic rule since 1994. An impotent representative body called Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) was introduced as per the Legal Framework Order of 1994 which had an elected head as the Deputy Chief Executive, whereas the Minister for KANA was the Chief Executive of the NALC.
In October 2007, after lot of internal and internal pressures on Musharraf, towards the close of his military rule, some rudimentary and cosmetic changes were introduced through a Presidential directive. NALC was renamed as NA Legislative Assembly with 36 members (24 elected and 12 reserved) and given some nominal powers to legislate over some additional areas. This has been a joke because NALA will never be given the autonomy that it deserves. Even now, the Minister KANA will preside over the affairs of the state as Chairman, if not Chief Executive.
Eye on its Resources
Main street in Gilgit. Expensive vehicles are a common sight. These are smuggled from Afghanistan. Police rarely check registration of vehicles
Surprisingly, an area as large as 73,000 square kilometres and now having about 1.5 million population hardly attracted any attention in Pakistan or in the region until its hydropower capability drew the attention of the Pakistani government. With water resources of Pakistan depleting fast and resistance from Sindh and NWFP rising against the proposed Kalabagh dam, the Pakistani government eyed for the resources of northern areas.
It has since started the construction of the Bhasha-Diamer dam without ensuring that the royalty from the dam would accrue to the people of NA. In fact, the reservoir spread over an area of 7.3 million acre feet in Diamer in Northern Areas and it would inundate about 32 villages. However, the power house is situated some kilometres away in NWFP and it is supposed to generate 4,500 megawatts of electricity. Given Pakistan’s step-motherly treatment towards the people of NA, it will not be surprising if the royalty from the dam would accrue to NWFP and not NA because the power generating unit is situated in Bhasha in NWFP. The people of Northern Areas are now quite sensitive about the issue and would go to any extent to fight for their rights.
Unleash Sunni Sectarian Forces
Anybody acquainted with the Sunni-Islamic bias of the Pakistani state will understand why the people of Northern Areas have been overlooked by the central administration. It is because majority of the people in the region are Shia (39 per cent is Shia, 27 per cent Sunni, 18 per cent Ismaili and 16 per cent Nurbakhshi.) The Pakistani state authorities have systematically transplanted Sunni Muslims from other parts of Pakistan in this area and brought about a demographic change in an area predominantly inhabited by Shia people. In the headquarters of Northern Areas administration, i.e., Gilgit, for example, Sunnis are in a majority now.
The Sunni assertion in 1980s enjoyed state patronage during and after Zia-ul-Haq’s rule. The Sunni militants buoyed up by their victory against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan spread out into these areas and launched systematic and planned attacks on the Shias in Northern Areas. This has been well documented by various human rights organisations. The world talks about the atrocities of the Indian state in Jammu and Kashmir thanks to efficient propaganda by the Pakistani state. However, that will pale into insignificance if one were to remember the hordes of Sunni militants descending upon the area, backed by forces close to the Bin Ladens and Mullah Omars and the security machinery of the Pakistani state in the late 1980s.
This has gradually united the Shias in the area. They are now much more assertive than they were in the 1980s. In the days to come the sectarian situation is likely to worsen if their genuine demands for protection of their cultural and spiritual heritage are not fulfilled.
Demand for autonomy and secession
A narrow suspension bridge across the river Gilgit. It goes into a tunnel thatopens into Karkorum hills
Some independent analysts in Pakistan have even commented that “decades of economic deprivation, disenchantment with successive civil and military governments, and exclusion of the people from power sharing” would certainly lead people of the region “towards identity/cultural-based mobilization”. Indeed, this has happened and several political movements have come up in the recent years in the region. Chief among them have been ‘Gilgit Baltistan Democratic Alliance’ (GBDA), Gilgit Baltistan United Movement (GBUM) and Balwaristan National Front (BNF). The first two are demanding more autonomy within Pakistani state, while the latter (BNF) has demanded independence and secession.
trangely quite, the leaders of the so called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) have hardly raised their voice in support of the people of Northern Areas. Most of them have colluded with the Pakistani state and looked the other way when the Pakistani state has extended its unjust rule over the terrain. The untold miseries and sufferings of its people accentuated by non-representative rule by Islamabad have hardly attracted their attention. Only in recent months have they shed some cursory light on the plight of the people of Gilgit and Baltistan and declared this area ‘disputed’ and hence demanded autonomy for them. However, largely they have been silent partners in Islamabad’s misrule and endorsed the status quo allowing the area to come up as a ‘fossil of conspiracies’, as the much discredited Kashmiri leader Amanullah Khan would put it.
The Way Ahead
The people of the region are grossly poor, illiterate and vulnerable to pressure by the state. The rise of Sunni militancy, the step-motherly treatment meted out to them by the state and their miserable socio-economic condition has led them to reflect upon their condition seriously and a new generation of youth is coming up to take on the leadership of this unfortunate people labouring under the unjust policies of the Pakistani state forgotten by the world. Whether they will succeed or not will depend on their leadership and the support they receive from the world outside.
The present democratic government had raised high hopes among the people of the region. However, one year down the line, the people have realised that the army is still in charge and its quintessential aversion to democratic rule will come in the way of any proposal for genuine representative rule and devolution of power to these areas.
The wider international community needs to take note of the miseries of the people of this region and put pressure on the Pakistani state not to plunder their resources, stop tampering with their cultural ethos and allow self-governance to the people. Self-rule is their birthright as human beings growing up in a world of democracies. They deserve it. If the world turns a blind eye then for sure, one will witness the movement assuming violent shape in near future and this will disturb the peace of the region.
Good info about Gilgit Baltistan.