With wisdom on our side

Apparently, with the inclusion of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) as its fifth province, Pakistan would close the Kashmir cause and accept the August 5, 2019 annexation of Kashmir with India. In between, China, in a show of strength and vilification of India’s hegemonic designs, has also ensured that the Karakoram Highway through Ladakh is not intercepted or hampered in the greater interests of China’s economic ventures embodied in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). That reminds me of a visit to the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) in February 2018, to attend an international conference on Kashmir. Students from G-B studying at NUML attended the conference in large numbers. Disgruntled with the underdevelopment of their region, most of them demanded G-B to be made the fifth province of Pakistan. The Kashmiri leaders at the conference rejected the proposal with an argument that any political change in the geographical composition of Kashmir will harm the struggle for an independent Kashmir. From the mood of the students and their incessant negation of the Kashmiri leaders’ proposal, it was evident that nowhere were the students aligned to the idea of a greater albeit independent Kashmir. Their immediate concern was the development of their region on a par with other provinces of Pakistan. The students had a clear perception about a constitutional status without which their part of the country would never get the wings required to take a flight to a bright future.

Political reforms in G-B have been painstakingly slow to come by. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto recognising democratic loopholes in the management of the Northern Areas, as the region was called then, abolished the feudal system in 1975. In 1994, Benazir Bhutto introduced the Northern Areas Legal Framework Order to further enhance and strengthen the region’s legal ambit. In 2009, the PPP government instituted further reforms through the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009. From then on, the name Northern Areas was replaced by Gilgit-Baltistan and its legislative assembly was formed. A chief minister with his team of ministers and governors was appointed and an economic package of Rs5 billion was promised. The then president, Asif Ali Zardari, also agreed to provide 5,000 jobs for the disgruntled youth of G-B.

All that remained on paper or in the wishful thinking of the political leaders. No serious measure was taken to implement the reform packages with the result that the deprived youth of G-B took to the streets to register their protest against the underdevelopment that had kept them in limbo, as compared to other parts of the country. To douse the anger another attempt was made by then prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. He announced the G-B Reform Order 2018 in front of the G-B Assembly. Having lost trust in the government, the announcement instead of becoming a source of relief sprang the listeners into agitation. Riots broke out on a massive scale.

Two years down the road and G-B is set to become Pakistan’s fifth province. There should be no doubt that this promise would lapse because: one, it is made by Pakistan’s army whose Chief of Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa had invited the members of the major political parties in opposition to a dinner to announce this decision; two, China is eager to see G-B’s legal framework having constitutional cover to secure its investment there. India has objected to the election call like it always did whenever elections were announced or held.

The question is: will India take any tangible action as it has been daring Pakistan of attacks to take away the part of Kashmir in Pakistan’s possession? Or has the standoff with China in Ladakh shrivelled India’s military muscles enough to restrict it to either raising protest or sending demarche only? Another pertinent question is about the UN resolution that Pakistan has been invoking from time to time to remind India that Kashmir is a pending issue and that no unilateral action from either India or Pakistan can decide the fate of the Kashmiri people.

In this scramble of things, it seems that the hue and cry raised over the rights of the Kashmiris and the threat given in its wake to put the opponent on the mat have been empty roars. And that all this while, India, Pakistan, and China have been tacitly redrawing the future topography of the region. Not a bad idea though, if it prevents both the countries from spending billions on buying weapons rather than on food, education, and health from the paucity of which millions die in both the countries in a miserable condition.

This action-packed drama followed by the humanitarian crisis brewing in Kashmir, since its annexation, could have been avoided had the Agra Pact been accepted. It argued that India should accept the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as a hard border and thus end a core dispute with Pakistan. Both Musharraf, the then president of Pakistan who had gone to India for the resolution of the Kashmir issue, and the then minister for external affairs of India, Jaswant Singh, were strong proponents of this resolution’s framework. The BJP’s hardliners bulldozed the ideas to execute their Hindutva policy of denying a peaceful coexistence to the Muslims in India.

Undeniably, the international establishment has decided to settle forever the two festering issues of Israel and Kashmir. It shall be a great favour to the world because Kashmir and Palestine have been flashpoints of terrorism even plaguing the Afghan debacle in its course. Unlike India, Pakistan should not rely on sentimental rhetoric to deny state-level relationship with Israel. With wisdom on our side, may it give respite from lawlessness and misery to the people of Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Palestine.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2020.

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