Provisional provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan

  • Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan officially announced the provincial status of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) on November 1, which is observed as independence day in Gilgit-Baltistan.
  • Khan said that his government had taken the decision to turn the region into a province, “keeping in mind the UN Security Council’s resolutions.”
  • Khan also used the occasion to blame India for the Shia-Sunni sectarian violence in the country, saying “the most racist government” was in power there.
INDIA'S RESPONSE
  • New Delhi strongly protested Pakistan’s move to make GB its fifth province and to hold legislative elections there later this month.
  • It asserted that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India.
  • India said that Pakistan had “no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied it.”
GILGIT BALTISTAN AND IT'S HISTORY
  • Pakistan previously consisted of four provinces (Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh), two autonomous territories (Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan) and one federal territory (Islamabad Capital Territory).
  • Now, Imran Khan has declared Gilgit Baltistan also as a province of Pakistan.  
  • Gilgit-Baltistan has an estimated population of 1.2 million.
  • It borders Afghanistan and China.
  • Gilgit Baltistan has a chief minister (currently, Mir Afzal) and a Governor (currently, Raja Jalal Hussain Maqpoon).
  • Islamabad abolished the State Subject Rule in Gilgit Baltistan in 1984, which resulted in demographic changes in the territory.
  • People from different parts of Pakistan are free to purchase land there.
  • The 'Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self- Governance Order 2009', was passed by the Pakistani cabinet and later signed by the then President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari.
  • The order granted self-rule to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, by creating, among other things, an elected Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly and Gilgit-Baltistan Council.
  • It has 24 directly elected members and nine nominated ones. 
  • Gilgit-Baltistan, thus, had gained a de facto province-like status without constitutionally becoming part of Pakistan.
  • Until 2009, the region was simply called Northern Areas.
  • Gilgit-Baltistan was neither a province nor a state.
  • It had a semi-provincial status.
RECENT EVENTS
  • In 2018, the then PML(N)(Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz), government passed an order centralizing even the limited powers granted to the Assembly.
  • It was a move linked to the need for greater control over land and other resources for the infrastructure projects then being 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 was not done. 
  • Meanwhile, the Supreme Court extended it jurisdiction to G-B, and made arrangements for a caretaker government until the next Legislative Assembly elections.
  • The last polls were held in July 2015.
  • The Assembly’s five-term ended in July this year. 
  • Fresh elections could not be held because of the pandemic. 

WHY PAKISTAN DID SO?

  • The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the main underlying reason for Pakistan’s attempts to bring about political changes to the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.
  • Balochistan is at the heart of the $65 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor infrastructure development plan.
  • China has been wary of political instability in the region where locals have opposed its implementation due to their land being acquired and the onslaught of Chinese nationals and their culture in their pristine paradise. 
  • Another major issue has been the introduction of Mandarin in the local schools at cost of indigenous languages leading to unrest. 
  • Indian protests to the implementation of CEPC through the disputed territory which it claims as its own is another underlying reason for Pakistan to undertake political recalibration of Gilgit-Baltistan and amalgamate it within itself by extending to it the status of a fifth Pakistani province.
  • The change of political status as territory of Pakistan will also help in setting up of Moqpondass Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Gilgit-Baltistan.
  • The SEZ is proposed to spread over 250 acres and planned for trade-in marble/granite, fruit, mineral and leather processing. 
  • Another important geographical aspect of the region is the Shaksgam tract, a small region along the north-eastern border of Gilgit–Baltistan.
  • It has been provisionally ceded by Pakistan to the People’s Republic of China in 1963.
  • It now forms part of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
WHAT DO THE PEOPLE IN G-B WANT?
  • The people of G-B have been demanding for years that it be made a part of Pakistan.
  • They do not have the same constitutional rights Pakistanis have.
  • There is virtually no connect with India. 
  • Some have in the past demanded a merger with PoK, but the people of G-B have no real connect with Kashmir either. 
  • They belong to several non-Kashmiri ethnicities, and speak various languages, none of these Kashmiri.
  • A majority of the estimated 1.5 million G-B residents are Shias. 
  • There is anger against Pakistan for unleashing extremist sectarian militant groups that target Shias, and for dictating over the use of their natural resources.
  • However, the predominant sentiment is that all this will improve once they are part of the Pakistani federation. 
WHY PAKISTAN DID NOT GIVE PROVINCIAL STATUS TILL NOW?
  • Officially, the Pakistan government has rejected Gilgit-Baltistanis calls for integration with Pakistan on the grounds that, it would Jeopardize its demands for the whole Kashmir issue to be resolved according to UN resolutions.
  • Some Kashmiri nationalist groups, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, also claim Gilgit-Baltistan as part of a future independent state to match what existed in 1947.

SOURCE: IE, FE, TH, STUDY IQ

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