Phantoms of Power in Gilgit-Baltistan-I

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By: Aziz Ali Dad

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The region of Gilgit-Baltistan is characterised by linguistic, sectarian, ethnic, regional and cultural diversity. Historically, it was ruled through micro-states or principalities. With the gradual creeping of Dogras and the advent of the British in the nineteenth century, and rule of Pakistan in the second half of the twentieth century, the regional power loci witnessed emaciation and gradual subjugation of the local populace to exogenous power centres and arrangements. In all the systems during the colonial and post-colonial periods, local people did not have any say. Absence of local voice in the upper echelon of power and marginalisation in exogenous rules contributed to the numbing of the indigenous voices. Although the region got rid of Dogra rule from Kashmir, it is still implicated in the Kashmir imbroglio because the Pakistani state appended Gilgit-Baltistan to the Kashmir imbroglio in 1948 in the United Nations.

In post-colonial period, several factors contributed to the liminality of Gilgit-Baltistan in the overall state and society of Pakistan. Foremost among these is the geo-political centrality of the region. Owing to the Kashmir dispute the political status of Gilgit-Baltistan in the state of Pakistan has remained in limbo for past 78 years. Despite being governed by Islamabad, the region still lacks a clear “constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights with Pakistan.” The political liminality has paved the way for exclusion of the region from state building processes, history and discourse.

In this series of essays, I will try to chart out the processes, structures, and mechanisms of exclusion of Gilgit-Baltistan from the history, power and politics of Pakistan. In the end, an attempt will be made to map out the emerging sentiments and discourse of indigeneity as a response to the marginalisation by the polity of Pakistan.

The history of Gilgit-Baltistan has followed a distinct historical trajectory, flowing into Pakistan’s history in 1947. Despite being part of the country for 78 years, the region has remained on the margins of its political, economic, and historical narrative. This distinct historical path and other factors explain why Gilgit-Baltistan celebrates its Independence Day on November 1 each year, while the rest of Pakistan observes the national Independence Day on August 14.

However, majority of analysts and historians in Pakistan are oblivious of the history of Gilgit-Baltistan and the context of its annexation to Pakistan. Before exploring the national historiography of Pakistan vis-à-vis Gilgit-Baltistan and local historiography of independence movement, it is important to understand the context of its independence.

The region came under the control of the Maharajas of Kashmir and British colonial power through a series of conquests in the second half of the 19th century. The Dogras lacked legitimacy for the primary reason of being an outsider to Gilgit-Baltistan. However, the complete conquest of Gilgit by Dogras in 1860 and vanquishing of the last independent principalities of Hunza and Nagar in 1891 by the British, the local power started to wane. At this point of history, the region became more dependent on decisions of external powers than the local potentates.

After August 1, 1947, the British handed over control of Jammu and Kashmir to the Dogra dynasty. The Maharaja of Kashmir sent Ghansara Singh as Governor along with some administrative officers, to Gilgit. In the wake of the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent between India and Pakistan, the Gilgit Scouts, a local paramilitary force created by the British decades earlier, opposed Dogra rule and eventually formed a ‘Revolutionary Council’.

The Gilgit Scouts were still led by a British officer, Major William Brown, who was posted in Gilgit as the British imperial government’s political agent. He played an important but dubious role in the events leading to the independence of Gilgit-Baltistan. Despite lacking a coherent programme, local and external factors allowed the Scouts’ officers to wrest power from the Dogra rulers. These Scouts emerged as leaders of Gilgit’s Independence Movement (Jang-e-Azadi Gilgit), and amid the power vacuum left by Partition, initially asserted their own agency. After 17 days of independence, however, the leaders ultimately relinquished their authority to Sardar Alam, a grade-16 revenue officer (tehsildar) who then became the Political Agent of the region.

Though the local populace succeeded to overthrow the Dogra rule in 1947 through armed struggle, they failed to chalk out a pathway or mechanism to work within the new polity of Pakistan. A critical analysis of the independence movement of Gilgit-Baltistan reveals that while the leadership was clear in their aspiration for independence from external rule, they lacked a coherent vision for the freedom it sought to build. Hence, they struck a Faustian bargain with Pakistan’s establishment, a legacy of the colonial era.

After handing over of the region to Pakistan, the then leadership of independence movement surrendered the fate of the region to the disinterested bureaucratic apparatus of Pakistan. Since then, Gilgit-Baltistan, to quote renowned scholar Hamza Alavi’s idea developed in another context, “got enmeshed in bureaucratic controls by which those at the top of the hierarchy of the bureaucratic-military apparatus of the state are able to maintain and even extend their dominant power in society.”

This enmeshing of local political-cum-military elite can be gauged by the fact that the first president of independent Gilgit-Baltistan, Raja Shah Raees Khan, preferred to abdicate his position to Sardar Alam Khan, a Tehsildar (grade-16 revenue officer) in lieu of the position of Civil Supply Officer. On the other hand, the local ‘Revolutionary Council’ members and rulers of princely states got largesse doled out by the state in the shape of allotment of lands in the region and other parts of Pakistan, honourary military titles, and government jobs. Since then, any form of local political ideology or party has been suppressed. The ultimate subjugation of society to the state hegemony was completed after the abolishment of the last vestiges of local governance and power structure in 1974.

Gilgit-Baltistan’s society and culture have been made subservient to a non-representative oversized state apparatus.

It is important to note that since 1947 Gilgit-Baltistan has been ruled by the state not through constitutional arrangements but by executive mechanism that often ride roughshod over the political aspirations and demands of the local people. Since then, Gilgit-Baltistan’s society and culture have been made subservient to the non-representative and oversized state apparatus. This is done through ever-increasing powers of the state apparatus at the expense of civil society and politics in the region. It is a typical example of an overdeveloped apparatus of state and subjugation of indigenous society as propounded by Hamza Alavi. According to Alavi, “the colonial state is therefore equipped with a powerful bureaucratic-military apparatus and mechanisms of government which enable it through its routine operations to subordinate the native social classes. The post-colonial society inherits that overdeveloped apparatus of state and its institutionalised practices through which the operations of the indigenous social classes are regulated and controlled.”

The size of overdeveloped state apparatus can be gauged from the fact that the government has deputed 12 deputy commissioners (DCs) to manage 1.7 million population in Gilgit-Baltistan. Such is the over-saturation that a new position with the name of additional has been created. For example, additional chief secretary, additional secretary, additional commissioner, additional deputy commissioner, etc. Now the oversized state apparatus is gobbling up the bulk of the region’s budget. For the fiscal year 2025-26, Rs88.19bn have been allocated to non-development expenditures and Rs37bn for development projects. As a result of non-development expenditures of the oversized state apparatus, social development has literally come to a halt. At prima facie, this kind of fund allocation for the state apparatus defies all logics of planning. But there is a method to madness. It is through its overdeveloped apparatus that the state suppresses social movements and dissenting voices in the region. Thus, the state keeps its hegemony over the society and mind.

In the next article, we will explore how the region of Gilgit-Baltistan has been expunged from the mainstream history of Pakistan, and analyse the local historiography about the independence of Gilgit-Baltistan in 1947. (To be Continued)