Pakistan is exploiting the instability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to create a stir on the Jammu and Kashmir issue. At a recent press conference, the Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs of Pakistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, Ali Amin Gandapur, stated that the Government of Pakistan has decided to change the status of GB and make it a full-fledged province.
He also said that Prime Minister Imran Khan will soon visit the region to make a formal announcement.
In the legal structure imposed on GB by Pakistan, there are two things to consider: first, the laws that govern the region and second, the government agencies that administer the region.
To keep the autonomy of the region intact and legitimize its arguments for authorizing the autonomy of the region, the Pakistani government has been ruling the UK through interim ordinances.
After the Karachi Agreement of 1949, Pakistan began to rule the region through the Border Crime Regulations (FCR) of the British era. These regulations were abolished in 1975 and civil and criminal laws were extended to the area.
In 1994, the area began to be governed by the Legal Framework of the Northern Areas Council. However, in 2009, Pakistan introduced the Gilgit-Baltistan Self-Government and Empowerment Order (2009) and extended the legislature to the UK.
The order was superseded by the Order of Gilgit Baltistan (2018) and, until very recently, the government of Pakistan was working to bring the Gilgit Baltistan Reform Order / Bill 2019.
These rapid and temporary policy changes highlight the fact that Pakistan has always maintained an ambiguity in the GB’s constitutional status.
GB is probably the most crucial strategic location in Asia, as it is the center where three nuclear powers, India, Pakistan and China, converge. It is also a point that connects different regions of Asia, including Central Asia, Southwest Asia, and South Asia.
Even the Middle East countries and Russia are within a short range of GB. This region fits into China’s expansionist plan and control over the region could give it a massive strategic advantage to enhance its geopolitical control in Asia.
In addition to gaining strategic control of the region, China has also rapidly depleted the resources of the mineral-rich region. The area also faces precipitous environmental degradation due to the construction and movement of vehicles related to CPEC.
According to the report ‘Human Lives Matter: A Comparative Study and Analysis of Human Development and Human Rights in J&K and PoJK / GB’ published by the Law and Society Alliance, it is estimated that 36.5 million tons of carbon dioxide would be produced per year due to CPEC, which is equivalent to 25 percent of total national emissions. Such ecological degradation would damage the environment, agriculture, tourism, the water system and general health in the GB region.
Pakistani agencies have arbitrarily detained environmental activists such as Baba Jan for protesting the ecological imbalance caused by CPEC. He remains in detention without a fair trial and the people of GB have no idea of his whereabouts.
The previous report has also highlighted that Pakistani intelligence agencies have been threatening media staff in the UK not to criticize CPEC projects and have been issuing redundant warnings.
The locals informed the Pakistan Human Rights Commission that government agencies have forced residents of the Maqpoon Das area in GB to evict their homes without any compensation, and have seized the land for CPEC-related work. The locals claimed that the hoarded land was later assigned to government authorities for the CPEC. As GB’s natural resources are directly controlled by the Pakistani government, resources are being depleted to benefit Pakistan, while GB’s population remains underdeveloped.
Human rights defenders have raised the issue of arbitrary arrests and involuntary disappearances of GB dissidents. Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri of UKPNP, while speaking at the UNHRC, urged the UNHRC to pressure Pakistan to target GB nationalist leaders. Furthermore, the Pakistani government has not granted land or labor rights to the people of GB.
Even the 1927 State Subject Rules were repealed by the Pakistani government in 1947, the only law that gave land rights to the inhabitants.
More than a dozen civil society groups are political teams that have vehemently opposed CPEC and demanded autonomy for the region. There is a long list of groups such as the Balwaristan National Front, UKPNP, GBNA, BSNO, GBUM, KNM and several others.
It would be appropriate to argue that Pakistan has already been practicing authoritarian rule over Britain and now China is ready to colonize Pakistan. Observers believe that the decision to change the state is due to Chinese pressure to ensure the perfect completion of CPEC projects, establish Chinese municipalities, and eventually colonize the region.
Pakistan has been appeasing China on the Kashmir issue and has even omitted Aksai Chin from the Jammu and Kashmir map it uses. This step can further help Pakistan to score some points in the good China books. However, it would be detrimental to Pakistan’s global campaign on the Jammu and Kashmir issue as Pakistan’s continuing position reflected on global platforms was to push for Jammu and Kashmir autonomy.
By making the UK the fifth province, Pakistan will commit suicide on the diplomatic front and stab Kashmir separatists in the back. Furthermore, Pakistan will lose all moral and logical ground to confront India on international platforms and will not be able to gain legitimacy in its Jammu and Kashmir campaign.
The strategic location has also been used by the top ranks of the Pakistani army to wage an indirect war against India and this region is home to a number of terrorist groups that carry out terrorist incidents in India, including Al-Badr, Harkat-ul-Ansar, LeT , JeM, and many others. In order to unilaterally use the land and capitalize on its important strategic location, Pakistan has chosen to keep this region underdeveloped and disconnected from other parts of the world.
GB is one of the few regions in the world that does not have 3G and 4G services. Before CPEC, the condition of the railways and roads was pitiful. The two airports built in the region, Gilgit and Skardu, were largely non-functional and are now being used to transport CPEC-related goods. Two airports have even been built in the PoJK. However, since they are not required for CPEC, they have remained almost non-functional for more than a decade and a half.
GB has always been an integral part of the unified region of Jammu and Kashmir. The area that was once ruled by Sikhs passed to the British after the Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46). Subsequently, Raja Gulab Singh took over Jammu and Kashmir from the British through the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, in 1899, Gilgit, the Baltistan region and Ladakh were merged to form a border entity.
Later, in 1935, the British took over Gilgit from Maharaja Hari Singh for a sixty-year lease. However, the area continued under the rule of Hari Singh. Therefore, the region has always been ruled as part of the Jammu Kashmir region and has no resonance with Pakistani territory.
However, the most interesting thing to see would be how an area, which is not even mentioned in the Pakistani constitution, would become the fifth province of Pakistan. In fact, GB does not find any mention in Article 1 of the Pakistani constitution, which lists and talks about Pakistani territories. Besides other things, the most interesting thing would be to see how a nation without a state creates a new state without constitutional validity.
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