THE ISSUE OF GILGIT-BALTISTAN
Gilgit-Baltistan comprises the northernmost administrative territorial unit of Pakistan, known here informally as the “Northern Areas”. Its legal designation is rather ambiguous, being equal to a province in size and scope — however it has been deliberately kept bereft of some of the features of a province as defined in the Pakistani statutes. When asked for clarification in this regard, Pakistani constitutional experts point to the controversy surrounding the Kashmiri territorial dispute with India — which extends to Gilgit-Baltistan also. International treaties mention Gilgit-Baltistan as a part of Kashmir, which is true in a recent historical sense and also in a general ethnic sense, as we shall see below. However there are qualifications to this issue.
Geographically, Gilgit-Baltistan is that region of south-eastern Central Asia which straddles the Hindu-Kush, Karakoram and Himalayan nexus, south of the Pamir massif. It is a remote mountainous wilderness which is home to many of the world’s highest peaks. Badakhshan is located to its north and west, while to the north-east lies Kashghar. In the west is the Dardic principality of Chitral (now a district in Pakistan), while in the immediate east lie both the Indian and Pakistani controlled Kashmir territories and beyond that Tibet. To the south lie the lands of the Pakistani province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which is now considered as that country’s majority “Pashtun” province. These territories consist of Dir and Swat which were historically Tajik territories but were overrun by Pashtun-Afghans of the Sarabani tribal section 500 years ago with the help of the invading Timurids under Babar.
Historically, the area now called Gilgit-Baltistan was a chaotic patchwork of fiefs run by many petty “Mirs” and princelings. Hunza and Nagar are the largest of these states. In the early medieval period the Gokturks, Tang China and Tibet played significant and successive roles in controlling this region as well as local Iranian rulers from the north and west. Later on in the Muslim epoch the vast array of the petty states in the region owed a loose allegiance to Tajik rulers such as the neighbouring Swatis and the Shah Rais Dynasty of Badakhshan — which is considered by many to have been a Swati ally or subsidiary. Islam was introduced here mainly by the famous Swati protégé Mir Sayid Ali Hamadani. The influence of the Tajiks was ended by the arrival of the Timurids, who generally neglected the area. In Kashmir itself, the Shahmiri branch of the Swati Tajiks were the first Muslim dynasty (1339–1561). Although Dards are not Iranian, traditionally they have always been an Iranian political subset in one or another form till now.
The Gilgit-Baltistan area became a political part of Kashmir in 1839 when the latter was conquered by the Sikh Empire of the Punjab. Zorawar Singh, a Sikh general working under Maharaja Gulab Singh — a prince who was the ally of the Sikh King Maharaja Ranjit Singh — captured Gilgit-Baltistan and annexed it to the territory of Kashmir, which the Sikh ruler Ranjit had awarded to Gulab Singh to be a vassal state. After their defeat, the Sikhs were replaced by the British Imperial rulers who maintained the same local political arrangement till 1947 when British India became independent and was partitioned into two states namely India and Pakistan.
Gilgit-Baltistan is dominated by the Dardic ethnic group. This is the third branch of the Indo-Iranian category, being Indo-Aryan in character. Dards are subdivided into numerous big and small tribes — of which the Kashmiris, Chitralis (Kho), Gilgitis (Shina) are prominent while there are scores of tiny fragmented tribes and languages indigenous to the Dardic category which are classified under the general ethnonym “Kohistani” in Pakistan. Besides Dards, Gilgit-Baltistan is also home to Pamiri Tajiks of the Wakhi category who live in Yasin, Ishkoman and the Gojal area of Hunza. Other languages are also spoken here, notably Balti which is Tibetan…and Burushaski — a mysterious ancient linguistic “isolate” which has no other known ethnic connections. The rest of the area’s ethnic composition is derived variously from recent immigrant arrivals in the form of Pashtuns/Pashto-speakers, Gujjars, minor Dardic tribes (Kohistanis) and some Kashmiri settlers.
Under British rule (1846–1947), Gilgit-Baltistan was of major concern to the imperial administrators owing to its link with India and immediate proximity to the Russian and Chinese empires. This far-flung and rugged region was too difficult to be controlled directly by the British, so out of convenience they left that aspect to the Sikh Dogra Raja — the subordinate who ruled it for the Sikh Empire. He became an ally of the British, who appointed their official representative also called a “Political Agent” or “Resident” in Kashmir to oversee, guide and direct the activity of the Dogra Maharaja ruler. Hence Gilgit-Baltistan was officially referred to by the deliberately ambiguous term of “Gilgit Agency” during British rule. Gilgit Agency was a hotbed of geopolitical intrigues, moves and espionage related to the Great Game between Russia and Britain.
It must be noted, however — that although Gilgit-Baltistan is described as being a part of Kashmir in all international documentation and parlance, at the popular level the local Gilgitis and other regional Dards regard themselves as distinct from Kashmiris despite the Dardic ethnic commonality all of them possess.
It should also be pointed out that under Pakistani control — both Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistani or “Azad” Kashmir are regarded as separate entities, having a rather strange ambiguous status; the former is treated as a province but is not quite one…while the latter is designated as a separate country, which awaits accession to Pakistan once the specified UN plebicite on this issue takes place. For India, Gilgit-Baltistan is very much a part of Kashmir….but then that definition is also politically very expedient for Delhi.
After the division of India in 1947, the Sikh Dogra Raja of Muslim majority Kashmir wanted to accede his state to India — but the departing British helped Pakistan capture a small part of Kashmir by launching a war which included the sending of a force of Pashtun tribal "irregulars" in 1948. They also launched a coup to remove the commander of the Dogra garrison in Gilgit and replaced him with their own loyal officer, thus also preventing Gilgit from passing into Indian hands.
During the Pakistani era Gilgit Agency (renamed as Gilgit-Baltistan in 2009) continued to have a mainly geostrategic role for the neo-colonial rentier Pakistani state: firstly, in its old role as an outpost of the West on the doorstep of the USSR in Central Asia; and secondly, as Pakistan’s direct geographic land bridge to its other patron, China. It was retained in the same ambiguous, neglected and backward capacity. Besides its strategic importance, it is a land which is rich in natural resources such as forests, gems and minerals. Its tourist industry is nowadays its main source of revenue, and Pakistan is also tapping its water reserves to create dams such as the one at Diamer-Bhasha to facilitate generation of electricity, flood control and the provision of irrigation water for the Indus Valley. For Pakistan — constructed as it is around the Indus Valley — Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir have been of vital strategic importance if only because all of the major rivers of the Indus Basin either rise in these areas or flow through them.
A major legal ambiguity regarding the status of Kashmir — and conversely of Gilgit-Baltistan — is that Kashmir is a disputed territory and therefore not part of Pakistan. This furnishes Pakistan with an excuse to renege on major commitments regarding Gilgit-Baltistan.
However the main feature nowadays of importance to both Pakistan and China is the strategic highway called the KKH (Karakoram Highway) which links Pakistan and China via Gilgit-Baltistan. It is a unique engineering marvel which was built in the late 1970s by China at immense cost in terms of the lives of the workers employed.
The society of Gilgit-Baltistan also possesses a complex religious character which is volatile and has become a concern for all concerned including Pakistani and Chinese planners.
The original “Afghan Jihad” of the CIA during the 1980s saw the rise of the Shia-Sunni conflict which was deliberately fostered by Pakistan to achieve Sunni leverage against the Shias, Ismailis and others who dominate by 85%. The fall of the USSR saw the rise of activity by the Ismaili Aga Khan Foundation in the form of non-governmental infrastructural and social development schemes not only in the neighbouring Gorno-Badakhshan province of Tajikistan, but also in the equally backward and neglected Gilgit-Baltistan. The efficient and widespread implementation of these schemes funded by the immense wealth at the disposal of the Aga Khan over the past three decades not only led to a civil war in Tajikistan — but has won grateful new followers for the Ismaili faith. It has led to the accusation that the Ismaili Imam wants to create a “Pamiri Ismaili Emirate” allied to the West in this region. Pakistan remains silent on these matters although officially it has never opposed Ismailis.
Gilgit-Baltistan now witnesses regular outbreaks of Shia-Sunni sectarian discord, with the latest such occurrence taking place in August this year. This incident saw a new factor — the popularity of ousted Pakistani leader Imran Khan — being incorporated with the usual Shia-Sunni dissention, and that formed part of the general public discontent of the local citizens aimed at the national government in Islamabad. The activities of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) are also stepping up in Gilgit-Baltistan and neighbouring Chitral District of KP Province. The area’s backwardness, remoteness and lack of effective government make it a nightmare not only for Pakistani but also Chinese security concerns. For the latter, it is a staging post for Islamic and separatist terrorism against Chinese rule in Kashghar (Xinjiang). Gilgit-Baltistan is the sensitive access point for the latest Chinese geostrategic scheme of CPEC (the China Pakistan Economic Corridor) — however the fall of Pakistan’s Imran Khan government in 2022 saw a general downturn in the pace of the CPEC project…which had already hit snags since its inception in 2015 due to unforeseen effects of Pakistan’s corruption-ridden environment and the unwillingness of its pro-Western ruling apparatus.
Be all that as it may, the importance of Gilgit-Baltistan for the shared security concerns of both Pakistan and China — is not diminished by the downturn in Pakistani enthusiasm for CPEC. Gilgit-Baltistan is an unwanted problem that Pakistan — itself a Western flunky and creation of Indic origin — may be planning to rid itself of, and what better proposition is there in that regard, than to hand it over to China in its entirety? For over a decade it has been rumoured that an entire division of the Chinese PLA has already been stationed inside Gilgit-Baltistan…and that its Pakistan was considering the “leasing out” of Gilgit-Baltistan to China for a fifty year period. The situation now is far worse than what it was in 2012 when this rumour was circulating — as the existence of Pakistan has declined steadily due to its own internal rot, and continues to do so precipitously.
