MOHAMMAD Hussain, who hails from Ghanche in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and has been working in a household in Lahore, watched in despair as the whole of Pakistan, except for his own fellow Baltis, went to vote for their preferred candidates in the Feb 8 election. Hussain asked his boss why his folks were not allowed to vote. He could not understand the complex answer to this simple question.

GB’s political fate has been hanging in the balance for the past seven decades, even though on the eve of partition, the people of Gilgit Agency and many other northern areas, who had hardly accepted the suzerainty of the Dogra rulers, expressed their wish to join Pakistan. However, the political fate of these territories got linked to the dispute between India and Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir. Ever since, the territories of Gilgit, Skardu, Diamer, Astore, Ghanche, Ghizer, and Hunza have been under Pakistan’s administrative control. Their people join the civil and armed services, carry Pakistan national identity cards, and for all practical purposes are Pakistanis. Yet, they cannot join our National Assembly and Senate to participate in Pakistan’s governance.

Successive governments have tried to enhance GB’s administrative autonomy, particularly in 2009 and 2018, but have fallen well short of what the people of GB have repeatedly demanded: full integration into Pakistan. In January 2019, the Supreme Court extended its jurisdiction to GB, creating an anomaly, because constitutionally GB was not a part of Pakistan. In March 2021, the GB Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution demanding provisional provincial status with representation in the constitutional bodies of Pakistan. Further, GB residents feel that while Pakistan took from the resources of GB, it was reluctant to give it constitutional status.

There is political consensus in Pakistan to admit GB as a provisional province. Under prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Sartaj Aziz Committee recommended in 2016 giving GB a provisional provincial status. Prime minister Imran Khan’s government had also announced in 2020 that GB would be granted a provisional provincial status. And yet, the status quo is so hard to break, mainly because the integration of these territories into Pakistan could undermine the UNSC resolutions calling for determining the political fate of the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir through a plebiscite under UN auspices. So, for nearly 76 years, the people of GB have been waiting for the plebiscite.

Gilgit-Baltistan’s fate has been hanging in the balance for decades.

Is such a plebiscite likely to happen anytime soon? The ground reality is that India has consistently and brazenly refused to implement UNSC resolutions on the Kashmir dispute. The Modi government went a step further to annex the occupied territory in August 2019, and is currently engaged in demographic and electoral engineering to change the Muslim-majority status of India-occupied Kashmir in blatant violation of the UNSC resolutions. However, given India’s large market and strategic partnership with the US, there is no real pressure of the international community on India to fulfil its obligations under the resolutions. So, in practical terms, the prospects of India agreeing to hold the plebiscite are extremely low. If that is the ground reality, then the people of GB wonder how much longer they have to wait to get their right to self-determination recognised.

Understandably, integrating GB could have implications for Pakistan’s legal position on the Kashmir dispute. Hence, the suggestion has been to keep the integration provisi­onal and su­­bject to the final settlement of the Kashmir di­­spute. How­ever, there are other fa­­ctors that must not be ignored. Firstly, the people of GB have a right to self-determination, which is a fundamental right that overrides other considerations.

Secondly, given the salience of our relationship with Beijing, GB provides the vital geographical link to China and is central to the implementation of CPEC. Formally integrating GB will give full constitutional protection to CPEC-related and other international investments in GB. Thirdly, ignoring the consistently expressed desire of the people of GB to join Pakistan is creating a sense of alienation in GB, which could be exploited by the detractors of Pakistan. As it is, BJP leaders in India have sharpened their rhetoric of claim on these territories.

In view of these arguments, it is a strategic imperative that GB be integrated into Pakistan as a provisional province without further delay and its people be recognised as citizens of Pakistan with full rights admissible under the Constitution of Pakistan, pending a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

The writer, a former foreign secretary, is chairman Sanober Institute Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2024