Pak. finalises Bill to grant new status to Gilgit-Baltistan

• According to a report in Dawn newspaper, Pakistani authorities have finalised a law to award provisional provincial status to strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan.
• Gilgit-Baltistan will become the fifth province of Pakistan. Currently, Pakistan has four provinces – Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh.
• Gilgit-Baltistan has functioned as a “provincial autonomous region” since 2009.

India’s stand:

• India has clearly conveyed to Pakistan that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of the country by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession.

History of the region:

• Gilgit was part of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, but was ruled directly by the British, who had taken it on lease from Hari Singh, the Hindu ruler of the Muslim-majority state.
• When Hari Singh acceded to India on October 26, 1947, the Gilgit Scouts rose in rebellion,
• The Gilgit Scouts also moved to take over Baltistan, which was then part of Ladakh and captured Skardu, Kargil and Dras.
• In battles thereafter, Indian forces retook Kargil and Dras in August 1948.
• Following the India-Pakistan ceasefire of January 1, 1949, Pakistan entered into an agreement with the “provisional government” of “Azad Jammu & Kashmir”.
• Much of its parts had been occupied by Pakistani troops and irregulars and were later taken over by Pak defence and foreign affairs.
• Under this agreement, the AJK government also ceded the administration of Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan.

Why it is not incorporated as a province:

• In 1974, Pakistan adopted its first full-fledged civilian Constitution, which lists four provinces —Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
• Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan were not incorporated as provinces.
• One reason ascribed to this is that Pakistan did not want to undermine its international case that the resolution of the Kashmir issue had to be in accordance with UN resolutions that called for a plebiscite.
• In 1975, PoK got its own Constitution, making it an ostensibly self-governed autonomous territory.
• This Constitution had no jurisdiction over the Northern Areas, which continued to be administered directly by Islamabad (the Frontier Crimes Regulation was discontinued in 1997)
• In reality, PoK too remained under the control of Pakistani federal administration and the security establishment, through the Kashmir Council.
• The main difference was that while the people of PoK had rights and freedoms guaranteed by their own Constitution, which mirrors the Pakistan Constitution.
• However, the people of the minority Shia-dominated Northern Areas did not have any political representation.
• Although they were considered Pakistani, including for citizenship and passports, they were outside the ambit of constitutional protections available to those in the four provinces and PoK.
• In 2009, Pakistan brought in the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009, replacing the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) with the Legislative Assembly, and the Northern Areas were given back the name of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Provincial status:

• On November 1, 2020, observed in Gilgit-Baltistan as “Independence Day”, Imran Khan announced that his government would give the region “provisional provincial status”.

Why Gilgit-Baltistan is in focus now:

• Pakistan began considering changes to its administrative arrangements with increasing Chinese involvement in strategic development ventures.
• Gilgit-Baltistan was vital to those projects, given that it provides only land access between the two countries.

Significance for India:

• The area’s strategic importance for India has increased in light of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor agreement, under which Beijing is investing hugely to develop the area as part of its Belt and Road Initiative,
• Also, it is the concerns of a two-front war after the standoff in Eastern Ladakh last year.
• Gilgit-Baltistan is an integral part of India by virtue of the legal, complete and irrevocable accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947.

Location of Gilgit-Baltistan:

• It shares a geographical boundary with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and India considers it as part of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir, while Pakistan sees it as a separate from PoK.
• Located in the northern Pakistan. It borders China in the North, Afghanistan in the west, and Tajikistan in the North West and Kashmir in the south east.
• Gilgit-Baltistan is the northernmost territory administered by Pakistan, providing the country’s only territorial frontier, and thus a land route, with China, where it meets the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.