DNA EXPLAINED: Importance of Gilgit-Baltistan and why Pak has given status of provisional province to an Indian region

On November 1, celebrated every year in Gilgit-Baltistan as "Independence Day," Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that his government would give the region "provisional provincial status." When this happens, Gilgit-Baltistan will become the fifth province of Pakistan. However, India claims the area as part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed in India in 1947.

Gilgit-Baltistan is the northernmost region administered by Pakistan, providing its only regional frontier and a land route with China, where it meets the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor has made the region necessary for both countries. In a recent analysis conducted by Andrew Small (Returning to the Shadow: China, Pakistan, and the Fate of CPEC), this ambitious project has been viewed as slow for a combination of reasons. But given the strategic interests of the two countries, CPEC will continue.

To the west of Gilgit-Baltistan is Afghanistan, to its south is Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and to the east is Jammu and Kashmir. In the last one year, the plan to grant Gilgit-Baltistan provincial status gained momentum. Although some comments link it to CPEC and Chinese interest, others in Pakistan say India has confirmed its claims after Jammu and Kashmir's reorganization of August 5, 2019.

In September, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that the government and the opposition had "almost reached a consensus" on granting "temporary provincial status" to the region. The newspaper reported that the Pakistan Army was also interested, and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa discussed the matter with the political leadership.

What is the current state of the region?
Although Pakistan, like India, connects Gilgit-Baltistan's fate with Kashmir, its administrative system is different from that of PoK. PoK has its constitution that establishes its powers and its borders as Pakistan. An executive fiat has mostly governed the Gilgit-Baltistan. Until 2009, the region was called the Northern Territory.

It got its current name only with the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009, which replaced the Northern Territory Legislative Council from the Legislative Assembly. NALC was an elected body, but the minister had no advisory role for Kashmir affairs and northern regions, who ruled from Islamabad. The Legislative Assembly is only a minor reform. It has 24 directly elected members, and nine are nominated.

In 2018, the then PML (N) government also passed an order centralizing the limited powers given to the Legislative Assembly, a move linked to greater control over land and other resources needed for infrastructure projects planned under CPEC. The order was challenged, and in 2019, the Pakistan Supreme Court repealed it and asked the Imran Khan government to replace it with governance reforms. This has not been done. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court extended it to the Gilgit-Baltistan jurisdiction and arranged for a caretaker government until the next Legislative Assembly elections.

The last elections were held in July 2015, and the term of the Legislative Assembly ended in July this year. New elections could not be held due to the epidemic. It is not clear whether the provincial position will come before or after the election.

Why different situations?
Pakistan's separate arrangement with Gilgit-Baltistan goes back to the circumstances under which it came to administer. On November 1, 1947, Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, signed an instrument of settlement with India, and the Indian Army landed in the valley to drive out the tribal invaders from Pakistan. There was a revolt against Hari Singh in Gilgit.

A small force to protect Gilgit was conflicting on the part of the Kashmir ruler but led by the Gilgit Agency to serve its administration, which was then the Soviet-British Great Game region. Its commander, Major William Alexander Brown. In 1935, Gilgit was given to the British by Hari Singh. It was returned by the British in August 1947. Hari Singh sent his representative Brigadier Ghansar Singh to the Governor and Brown to take charge of the Gilgit Scouts. But after taking protective custody of the governor on November 1, Brown will raise the Pakistani flag at his headquarters. The Gilgit scouts later managed to bring Baltistan under their control.

Pakistan did not accept the accession of Gilgit-Baltistan, although it took administrative control of the region. After India moved to the United Nations and a series of resolutions were passed in the Security Council on Kashmir's situation, Pakistan believed that neither Gilgit-Baltistan nor PoK is annexed to Pakistan may weaken the international case for a referendum in Kashmir. It has also been said that if there is ever a referendum in Kashmir, then Votes in Gilgit-Baltistan will also be important.

This is why it is being called "provisional" provincial status.
While India has objected to the plan to make Gilgit-Baltistan a province of Pakistan and has recently claimed that it will take control of Gilgit-Baltistan, there is a feeling that it is now impossible to change the map. In this sense, it can be argued that the merger of Gilgit-Baltistan with Pakistan is a move that can help both countries to move forward on the Kashmir issue by putting them in the past, sometimes.

What do the people of Gilgit-Baltistan want?
The people of GB have been demanding for years that it be made a part of Pakistan. They do not have the same constitutional rights that Pakistanis have.

There is virtually no connection with India. Some had already demanded a merger with PoK, but GB people have no real connection with Kashmir. They belong to many non-Kashmiri ethnicities and speak different languages, none of which are Kashmiri.

Most of the estimated 1.5 million G-B residents are Shia. There is anger against extremist sectarian extremist groups targeting the Shias and Pakistan for dictating their use of natural resources. Still, the dominant feeling is that all this will improve once they are part of the Pakistani Federation. There is a small independence movement, but it has minimal traction.