Editorial: Rescuing the Northern Areas

Some people think that the self-governance reforms package for the Northern Areas announced on Saturday is already too little too late. But given how many things are nowhere near solution in the country, the PPP government has taken the right step. The Northern Areas will be Gilgit-Baltistan from now on, with its own elected Assembly, albeit in parallel to an independent Council working under a centre-appointed governor.

The PMLN could have opposed it simply because the change will favour the PPP, but it hasn’t, which is a sign of maturity. In its earlier tenure in power, the PPP had allowed party politics in the region, which had immediately led to the dominance of the party there. But in democracy, some things done for short term political gain finally turn out to be good for everyone in the long run. The important thing for this increasingly disturbed border region is that it has got self-rule.

The PMLN has welcomed the big change of status. It is quite clear why it has done so. During its rule it had discovered that the Northern Areas were ruled entirely from the point of view of “national security” and there was little that the central government could do — despite the political parties’ activities there — because the locus of power in Gilgit was firmly in the hands of the army.

The Northern Areas’ nationalism has developed in opposition to the constitutional limbo in the region. It was accepted by the state as a part of Kashmir in international treaties. Azad Kashmir claimed it for that reason and challenged an early law of 1949 that had separated it “administratively”. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan claim they had liberated themselves from Kashmir at Partition and want the status of a separate province. Like Balochistan and the NWFP, this nationalism too is focusing on the possession of natural resources and water and energy assets. Because they were representationally suppressed, a fringe began to call for “Free Balawaristan”.

Representation and freedom of party politics will undo some more serious damage done by two military rulers. General Zia-ul Haq, fighting a relocated Iran-Saudi sectarian war, allowed Sunni lashkars into the region in 1988 to cut the Shia majority down to size. This was a useless bloodletting in an area where the people were generally peace-loving. The Ismaili ethos of tolerance and tranquility represented by Hunza prevailed even among the Twelver Shia.

The tragedy of Gilgit-Baltistan sprang from its designation as an area of “strategic importance”. It faces Ladakh across the border in Indian-administered Kashmir. For countless years, the Pakistan Army eyed Ladakh for a set-piece battle with India, and each army chief was presented with a scenario of victory. Then General Musharraf came along and thought he could pull it off. In the process, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan went into another phase of sectarian massacres.

General Musharraf did not care that some of the “non-state actors” he was using at Kargil were savagely anti-Shia. After the fiasco of Kargil, sectarianism has never stopped raising its ugly head in the region and will take the salve of democracy now to heal. Religious leaders were killed under General Musharraf. Textbooks prescribed by bureaucrats were rejected. People arose against choices made in Islamabad of fundamentalist commissioners at Gilgit. And the local military commanders applied the iron fist indiscriminately.

If there is extremism in Gilgit-Baltistan today it should not surprise us. But the process of election, good governance and sense of participation will gradually lead to acceptance. The Karakoram Highway has opened up the region economically; the construction of Basha Dam will bring wealth and prosperity. Above all, the opening up of this heretofore “strategic” area to the media will tell the people of Pakistan for the first time what has been going on there and what should be done to bind the old wounds.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has opposed the self-governance package because it hopes to liberate Jammu & Kashmir from both India and Pakistan and give it the status of a sovereign state. But anyone who has taken a close look at the people of Gilgit-Baltistan knows that their demand has been for a separate province within Pakistan, based on their belief that they are not Kashmiris. The JKLF can fight the next Gilgit-Baltistan election and see where it stands with the people. That is its right. *