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TOPIC: Genral Studies 2
- International Relations
In News: On November 1, observed every year in Gilgit-Baltistan as “Independence Day”, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that his government would give the region “provisional provincial status”. When that happens, G-B will become the fifth province of Pakistan, although the region is claimed by India as part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu & Kashmir as it existed in 1947 at its accession to India.
Why change the status now?
There is already substantial Chinese civilian presence in Gilgit-Baltistan related to CPEC projects. China is interested in stationing military personnel as well. Delinking the region from the Kashmir dispute would make it easier for the international community to accept Chinese presence in Gilgit-Baltistan. It would also serve Pakistan’s purpose of getting back at India for abrogating Article 370 as well as complicating India’s strategic environment by the implicit threat of turning it into a Chinese staging ground.
India’s Response
India had slammed Pakistan for its attempt to accord provincial status to “so-called Gilgit-Baltistan”, saying it is intended to camouflage the “illegal” occupation of the region by Islamabad.
Spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava said India “firmly rejects” the attempt by Pakistan to bring material changes to a part of Indian territory which is under Islamabad’s “illegal and forcible occupation” and asked the neighbouring country to immediately vacate such areas.
What is the region’s current status?
Though Pakistan, like India, links G-B’s fate to that of Kashmir, its administrative arrangements are different from those in PoK. While PoK has its own Constitution that sets out its powers and their limits vis-à-vis Pakistan, G-B has been ruled mostly by executive fiat. Until 2009, the region was simply called Northern Areas.
It got its present name only with the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009, which replaced the Northern Areas Legislative Council with the Legislative Assembly. The NALC was an elected body, but had no more than an advisory role to the Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, who ruled from Islamabad. The Legislative Assembly has 24 directly elected members and nine nominated ones.
In 2018, the then PML(N) government passed an order centralising even the limited powers granted to the Assembly, 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, and the Assembly’s five-term ended in July this year. Fresh elections could not be held because of the pandemic. It is not clear if the provincial status will come before or after the polls.
Conclusion
A quick glance at a map of the region will display Gilgit-Baltistan’s incredible potential and geostrategic importance. No wonder this was the heart of the Great Game a hundred years ago.
India must calibrate its response carefully because merely by turning up the rhetorical heat, it may play into Chinese and Pakistani hands and escalate the situation. Rhetoric must always be determined by a meticulous assessment of capability.
Connecting the dots:
