South Asian History and Culture

ISSN: 1947-2498 (Print) 1947-2501 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsac20

Geopolitics, statehood, violence and space

compression in Gilgit-Baltistan

Muhammad Feyyaz

To cite this article: Muhammad Feyyaz (2019) Geopolitics, statehood, violence and
space compression in Gilgit-Baltistan, South Asian History and Culture, 10:1, 28-45, DOI:
10.1080/19472498.2019.1576297

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2019.1576297

Published online: 20 Feb 2019.

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SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
2019, VOL. 10, NO. 1, 28–45
https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2019.1576297

Geopolitics, statehood, violence and space compression in

Gilgit-Baltistan
Muhammad Feyyaz
School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Existent literature about Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has made remarkable contri- Gilgit-Baltistan; public space;
butions in furthering the understanding about this region which is unique geopolitics; liminal
for its ambiguous constitutional status and multicultural society. This article statehood; organized
violence
aims to complement the existing works specifically in the theoretical
domain of statehood and governance. It argues that the single most
important factor, which crucially accounts for the prevailing woes of GB
and its inhabitants, is the compression of its multidimensional spatial fabric,
which can be explained by applying the epistemology of public space.
Resultantly, a more meaningful and cohesive delineation of the complex
landscape of GB can be engendered, while in the process introducing also a
novel theoretical lens to be applied by future research for studies done in
similar settings. Specifically, a set of three variables – geopolitics, liminal
statehood, organized violence – is interrogated from this distinctive frame-
work. Among other findings including the need to revisit the assumptions
by some scholars construing the Pakistani state as colonial, the space to
enlarge the scope of integration and participation emerges in particular.
The conclusion reflects on the reasons underlying the persistence of con-
ditions produced by the spatial compression and discusses some among
the broad policy implications that affect law and governance in GB.

According to Dani, between the middle of the first millennium BC until the twenty-first century, the
native people of Gilgit-Baltistan have never been separated for long from the so-called civilized world.1
Indeed, local geography prevented the development of a unitary cultural, yet historical evolution has
persisted with cultural multiplicity.2 The proximity to the Chinese Empire, the Silk Route and great
cataracts of migrations during the first millennium AD,3 reflect the influence and human exchanges
that GB has experienced over time. Barring feudal conflicts, peace generally prevailed due to cohesive
social institutions, traditions of empathy and coexistence among the diverse communities.
Importantly, however, the ‘Great Game,’4 the partition of British India, the eruption of the war
over Kashmir, and later the establishment of Communist China, occurring almost sequentially
from the middle of the nineteenth century, gradually heightened the socio-political processes that
were unprecedented in the history of the region. The territory was thus pushed into global
prominence. Out of all the tribulations besetting it in the middle of the twentieth century, the
conflict in Kashmir (GB being a political part thereof) was described in 1947 as ‘the greatest and
gravest single issue in international affairs.’5 GB declared its independence on 1 November 1947
upon wresting the occupied territory from the forces loyal to the Maharaja of Kashmir and
decided to tie its destiny with Pakistan after remaining sovereign for 16 days.6
In essence, since antiquity through to the tumultuous stages of the ‘Great Game’ and finally
with the political accession to Pakistan in 1947, it was expected that this region was poised

CONTACT Muhammad Feyyaz faizy68@googlemail.com

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 29

ultimately to become a politically stable, progressive and socially harmonious entity. On the
contrary, as events unfolded, the odyssey until the present day has broadly eluded this vision.
GB was marked instead by socio-economic woes, social strife and political alienation. The
literature on GB has burgeoned accordingly underpinned by a diverse range of theoretical strands
and emphases.
The embrace of these studies, e.g. those focusing on multiple variables, examines the general
conditions beleaguering the masses and the state’s oblivion to address them.7 Among these
include the ethnographic compilations by B. Raman, Anna-Maria Walter, Emma Varley, Akbar
Ahmed and others who provide incisive insights into sociocultural practices, interactions and
relational processes. Another important and voluminous corpus is religious and sectarian
research, which includes descriptive studies by scores of writers.8 Generally inspired by cause
and effect approaches, these are useful contributions to comprehend and respond to a single issue.
Similarly, cross-sectional inquiries grounded in constructionism, political geography and devel-
opment are helpful explanatory formats. Martin Sökefeld, Caylee Hong, Nosheen Ali, Antía Mato
Bouzas and Hermann Kreutzmann stand out prominently as those who have employed novel
theoretical constructs in generating this discourse – colonialism, liminality, state-formation,
nature of spaces, borderland and geolinguistics. Finally, one of the more illuminating strands of
scholarship dealing with GB relates to its history, which has been written by renowned archae-
ologists, historians, travellers and military experts such as Hasan Dani, Colonel Algernon Durand,
Charles Chenevix, Dr Lintier and Sikandar Baloch.
In all, the above texts represent a major sample of interdisciplinary renditions, which have
contributed immensely to our understanding of GB. This article aims to complement this body of
knowledge by offering an alternative approach to the study of GB. It primarily posits that a clear
identification of the core problem vitiating a context (which can be metaphorically characterized as a
provenance), is crucially important because, if resolved, solutions can be generated for other much less
compelling issues. This article, therefore, argues that the single most important root cause which
purportedly accounts for the prevailing polarization that prevents any scope for a legitimate expres-
sion of public discourse and unity is the spatial compression and the reorganization of space by actors
from within and outside of GB. In addition, it also requires scrutiny of another relevant aspect, i.e. the
presumed charge of the colonial-style domination by the Pakistani state over GB by some of the
aforementioned authors, to corroborate its role in precipitating spatial constriction.
The notion of public space conceptualised as a novel epistemological lens within the field of
human geography potentially allows for a more meaningful understanding and analyses of GB.
Indeed, the concept of space has been deployed by some authors who have used it in sister
disciplines. For instance, the use of the border Line of Control by Bouzas as a method to analyse
borderlands, by Ali as a subjective site, and by Kreutzmann in the signification of territorial
spread during the processes of language development.9 Comparatively, contemporary human
geographers have increasingly applied this notion for exploring the entire landscape of turbulent
contexts.10 Accordingly, the principal analytical lens for this paper draws from this perspective.
The article begins with a brief explanation of the human space nexus to set the theoretical
framework for later discussions. A broad historical overview of GB follows, examining all the
important factors associated with its history including the laws on which various models of govern-
ance have been legitimated since 1947. The following section systematically discusses and identifies
the manifest effects of a chosen set of three proxy variables – geopolitics, liminal statehood and
organized violence11 – on public space, especially the ways in which these have impacted the legal,
administrative and socio-cultural as well as the normative life of people. The reason underlying the
selection of these variables is underscored by their impact in creating much of the prevailing
conditions in GB. These variables are, however, not reckoned to be equal in importance as the
subsequent analysis will indicate; for instance, organized violence shows plausible primacy compared
to the other two. The paper concludes by synthesizing the reasons for the underlying persistence of
conditions produced by the spatial compression in GB coupled with underscoring policy implications.
30 M. FEYYAZ

The human-space nexus, significance and manifestations

The human act has been connoted as inseparable from the places in which it occurs.12 Public
space is, therefore, a multivalent concept that encompasses a variety of meanings, forms and
manifestations, all of which can be related to the present state of law and governance in GB. In its
more rudimentary interpretation, public space is the material and physical place which can be
empirically identified with specific formations such as shrines, worship places, and rally areas.
This sense of space can be expanded to include key terrain (physical features like peaks and
mountains) which when combined with representational practices around particular artefacts,
structures or sites, converts natural splendour into territorial essence and epitome.13 The physical
architecture thence assumes a form of power because of the meanings and values associated with
these objects in the multifold imagination of people.14 Arguably, because the destruction of such
materials potentially negates power to the social grouping, it can be described as a form of
organized violence.15
Space further manifests itself in social exchanges, institutions and languages. Consequently,
the terms ‘life spaces,’ ‘civilian life’ and ‘worldliness’ developed by Hannah Arendt have
emerged to capture the notion that human life is not only about biology, but includes complex
social interactions, to the extent that to become fully human requires all such activities.16 These
interactions subliminally shape the public sphere according to Jürgen Habermas, denoting a
realm of social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed, i.e. the tasks
of criticism and control, which a public body of citizens performs.17 Although Habermas’s
conception of space was allegedly exclusionary (male, bourgeois, white) in historically specific
European societies,18 human geographers view the public sphere as essentially a non-discrimi-
natory institutionalized space where the citizens of a country gather to exchange ideas and
discuss issues in order to reach agreement about ‘matters of general interest’ or to generate
opinions and attitudes that affirm or challenge the actions of the state.19 Language too assumes a
vital role in these socio-political processes. Social groups tend to use language for its lobbying
potential for regional representation and for access to mass media.20
On the contrary, the imposition of coercive homogeneity or the dominance of consensus
restricts public arguments and resistance. Employing a metaphor from Urdu, this condition can
be referred to as ‘qabza’ – physical seizure or coercion. The more space is tightened, militarized
and monopolized including through political and economic tools, the more it can compromise
social justice, and becomes a material form of violence.21
Besides, space has been coupled with territory and territoriality. Edward Soja conceptualizes
human territoriality as a strategy for access and control.22 For Lefebvre (quoted by Stuart
Elden), space is hence not only the place of conflict, but an object of the struggle itself. It is
for this reason that he claims that ‘there is a politics of space because space is political,’23 which
translates into various modes of power and domination with geopolitical implications. For
example, the aesthetics of nature – geological resources, magnificent topography and mineral
wealth – a mode of inclusion per se projecting principally the spatial appeal of a territorial
segment, can in practice reduce some social groups and individuals to invisibility thereby
producing exclusionary effects.24
An intriguing feature of public space is also its liminality. The notion of liminality, originally
theorized by Arnold van Gennep’s analysis of rites de passages – separation, transition and
incorporation – was further developed by Victor Turner. He described the transition state as a
‘liminal period’ – an ‘unstructured’ in-between phase of rituals where participants transition
from one social status to another.25 Turner saw the ‘structural invisibility of the liminal personae
[as having] a twofold character. They are at once no longer classified and not yet classified.’26
He further unfolded this ‘interstructural state’ wherein ‘liminal entities are neither here nor
there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom,
convention, and ceremonial.’27 Apart from liminality being social and political, it is at the
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 31

same time a function of temporality; Ronald Grimes (cited by Hong) refers to it as a ‘moment’
in a temporary process.’28 It can prove to be critical depending upon the temporal longevity of
liminality by germinating rebellious undercurrents in the long run.
The above discussion essentializes some of the key features of public space, each with its own
perils and dividends. How these variations materialize within the contextual frontier of GB is the
focus of the following sections.

The GB since 1947 – a geo-historical overview

Pre-partition GB was studded with numerous smaller principalities and kingdoms across different
regions which were ruled by local aristocracies, republics, dynasties and foreign invaders.29 The
region has therefore been inherently highly diverse in terms of language, ethnicity and religious
mores, which distinguish it from the remaining provinces and federal territories of Pakistan.
The historical and geo-strategic substance of Gilgit-Baltistan lay in its Hindu Kush and
Himalayan neighbourhood, which has bequeathed it exceptional pre-eminence over the last two
centuries. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, GB, then mostly known as Gilgit, which
later changed to Gilgit Agency, was under the control of rulers who had invaded it from
neighbouring valleys such as Yasin (Suleman Shah and Gohar Aman), Punial (Azad Khan) and
Nager (Tahir Shah). The domination established by these rulers was regarded as ‘colonial,’
because the rulers were perceived by the locals as ‘foreigners’ who had usurped the traditional
dynastically legitimized governance of the rajas.30
The region became lucrative to the Sikhs of Punjab and the Dogras of Kashmir owing to its
geographical location and trade routes linking the Indian Subcontinent to China and Central Asia.31
Troops from Kashmir established their control in Gilgit for the first time around 1842. At that time,
Kashmir was a province of the empire of the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh.32 Soon British interest
materialized by carving out the Wakhan Corridor to prevent the Russians from having direct access to
their possessions in India33 and later by bringing Gilgit under direct rule of the British appointed
political agent in 1877.34 Besides the British Political Agent, there was a Kashmiri Governor in Gilgit,
the Wazir-e-Wazarat; this seemingly equal-footed arrangement came to be known as ‘dual control,’
however in practice the British were wielding significant influence in local affairs.35
The imperial draw down from Gilgit during early 1947 and the Partition of the Indian
Subcontinent accompanied later by the revolutionary struggle in China heralded the onset of
multi-polar geopolitics for the tranquil environment of GB. It became the only territorial part of
Pakistan that shared boundaries with three great powers right from the outset: China, the USSR,
and India. Pakistan thus gained tremendous strategic advantages in South Asia by directly
connecting with Xinjiang, Afghanistan, and Central Asian countries.36 The border agreement
between Pakistan and China during 1963, ceding part of GB to the latter, ‘placed China formally
and firmly on record as maintaining that Kashmir did not, as yet, belong to India.’37
Further, GB is among the few geographical locations in the world where ideological competi-
tion between global powers has played out more than once _ the Great Game, the First Kashmir
War in 1947 and the Afghan Jihad during the 1980s,38 not least the recent launch of the CPEC
(China–Pakistan Economic Corridor), wherein GB forms the linchpin of this strategic enterprise.
In addition to the long-term ramifications of these events, the political history of GB is unique also
due to the major internal reverberations it has experienced each and every decade since its accession to
Pakistan on the 16 November 1947. The Government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) formally
handed over administrative control of these areas to Pakistan in 1949 as part of the Karachi Agreement
on an interim basis that gradually assumed permanence.39 The key markers that set GB on a troubled
course from there onward were the processes and the outcomes associated with governance-experi-
mentation, the nature of various ruling regimes in Pakistan, and the geopolitics catalyzed both around
geography and religion.
32 M. FEYYAZ

In legal parlance, the UN Security Council resolutions 39 and 41 (1948) and 91 (1951) forbidding
arbitrary alteration by the parties to the conflict in the pre-partition milieu of the princely State of J&K
(Jammu and Kashmir) laid the foundation of the contested statehood of GB.40 After taking over
control of GB by the Government of Pakistan in 1947, the FCR (Frontier Crimes Regulation) was
imposed in all the agencies annexed to Pakistan including Gilgit.41 Under this English law for the tribal
areas and GB, a civil servant, called a political agent, in each agency exercised all judicial and
administrative powers.42 The Northern Areas Advisory Council, a representative body of the
Northern Areas was established in 1970 while the area received its first tranche of major adminis-
trative changes under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. For instance, the agency system along with
the FCR and the rule of hereditary princes were abolished in 1974, and Gilgit and Baltistan were
transformed into districts like those in Pakistan’s settled areas. Besides, a Northern Areas Council
replaced the Northern Areas Advisory Council, with members elected by direct adult franchise,43 and
the region became a single administrative territory cryptically called the ‘Northern Areas’.44
The Benazir government in 1994 introduced a ‘reforms package’ termed as the Legal
Framework Order 1994 through which Northern Areas Rules of Business were framed, the office
of Chief Secretary and Civil Secretariats were established and judicial reforms were introduced.45
The powers to manage executive affairs were however retained by the Centre under the federal
minister for Kashmir affairs, Northern Areas, State and Frontier Regions, who was designated as
the chief executive. The Northern Areas also underwent changes to its name at least four times
since independence, culminating with the most current name of GB in 2009.46
Contrary to well-meaning enactments, the liminality of GB was accentuated by an ambiguous
decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the case of Al-Jehad Trust in 1999. While it asserted
Pakistan’s administrative control over the Northern Areas, holding that residents are ‘citizens of
Pakistan,’ concomitantly, the apex court decreed that there is no legal obligation to grant the people of
the Northern Areas representation in the National Assembly.47 The Provisional Legal Framework
(PLF) by former President General Pervez Musharraf in 2007 and the Gilgit Baltistan Empowerment
and Self-Governance Order 2009 under the Peoples Party’s government were helpful to address some
of the issues raised in Al-Jehad Trust by further devolving powers to the region.48 In fact, the 2009
Order was the highpoint of a long-drawn process, which proposed ‘necessary legislative, executive and
judicial reforms for granting self-governance to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.’49 It called the region a
‘province’ for the first time, extended fundamental rights to its residents, and provided the Regional
Legislative Assembly with greater autonomy despite the fact that GB still lacked, and lacks at the time
of writing this paper, critical characteristics of a province and is not included in the constitutional list
of Pakistani territories.50 In some ways, political processes were democratized to a certain degree.
Nevertheless, overall, the whole array of stipulations failed to remove the underlying concerns for
want of constitutional guarantees with inclusive consequences for residents.51
A typical feature of the socio-political environment in GB has also been its correlation with the
types of regimes in power in Pakistan. For example, more militarization and political violence were
experienced during the rule of military dictators _ especially during the major wars of 1965, 1971, the
Siachen and Kargil conflicts with India, the uprising in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) in 1989, the
Afghan Jihad and the war against terrorism. Similarly, the proxy wars by regional powers and the
curricula controversy witnessed the advent and intensification of sectarianism during the military rule
of General Zia ul Haq and Musharraf.52 For a long time, the generals in command of border security
also acted as de facto chief executives to manage the political and administrative affairs of the
Northern Areas.53 These tendencies radiate a contradictory behaviour on the part of the state wherein
Gilgit-Baltistan, one anthropologist notes, is externally reproduced for its unmatched beauty and
natural ambience as an idyllic tourist destination for the urban Pakistani and global trekker but is
internally managed as a suspect security zone.54
Meanwhile, the areas had also witnessed the launch of several developmental projects including
the paving of the Karakoram Highway (KKH).55 The administrative empowerment regardless of
its political potential was generally conferred by civilian governments but with certain downturns
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 33

as well. The landslide disaster of Attabad that took place during the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
government on 4 January 2010 presents a pertinent case: it flooded sections of the KKH, killed 20
people, displaced over 20,000, cut off the Gojal Valley from the rest of Gilgit-Baltistan and blocked
the Hunza River for five months.56 This incident, notes Caylee Hong, brought to the surface
people’s long-standing discontent with the legal and political exclusion of Gilgit-Baltistan from
Pakistan. In particular, people attribute the federal government’s failure to remove the blockage
and provide sufficient aid to them, to the ambiguous constitutional status of the region.57
Whether or not the reasons for this lapse should be directed at the unresolved status of the
area is open to debate. In any case, the fact remains that the simmering continues unheeded.
The subsequent part of the paper analyses the impact of proxy variables upon public space.
This analysis is developed under different subheadings which share the same historical period-
ization as mentioned above.

Public space fragmentation and Gilgit-Baltistan

Role of geopolitics
The politicization of space finds its most vivid application in geopolitics. GB’s imminence to
geopolitics needs to be viewed along the pre- and post-independence continuum. During the
former period, the region attained significance as part of the Great Game involving Czarist Russia
and Great Britain, which enfolded more actors after the partition.
The first reported infiltration of GB up to Hunza by Russian explorers occurred around 1888
spurring heightened imperial concentration in the area.58 Consequently, Gilgit Agency was
reactivated after a closure for some years. At the time, China seemed least concerned beyond
Sinkiang [Xinjiang], which marked the loose limits of Chinese outward interests.59 For the next
five decades, the British and socialist Russia remained locked in a process of consolidating their
territorial holds in the Pamirs and Hunza-Nagar-Gilgit enclaves. The conflict changed the
strategic layout of the region in the aftermath of the defeat of the princely states of Hunza
and Nagar by the imperial forces in 1891. A key consequence of these military operations was
the opening up of Shimshal Pass for safe trading along the Leh-Yarkand caravan route across
the Karakoram Pass.60 Previously Yarkand (now Sashe county) in Sinkiang-Leh was under the
influence of raiders who sallied out from Shimshal to strike travellers.61 The British conquest
connected Sinkiang with Hunza, Nagar and Gilgit, thereby opening the floodgates of immigra-
tion from the north. Both Sinkiang and today’s GB at this juncture were an equally active stage
vis-à-vis the imperial politics of the Great Game, whose influences in the region often over-
shadowed even those of Xinjiang’s Chinese rulers.62 The cross border contacts between the
Muslim communities of borderland China and Pakistan were forged in great numbers around
this time. The first major migrants from Xinjiang numbering in the thousands came to Gilgit
region in the 1940s in fear of communist persecution; their descendants continue to reside
here.63 Almost throughout the period of great power rivalry which commenced since the first
occupation of Gilgit by troops from Kashmir, governance of the region has changed several
hands (see Table 1).
The political creation of the Wakhan Corridor (1873–1893) was a momentous development of
this era. Simultaneously, GB was in the throes of religious confrontations, exclusions and conflicts
on varied accounts.64 There were sizeable migrations from the Afghan province of Badakhshan by
Ismailis, while the Sunnite missionaries approached from the south in the nineteenth century, first
Pathans from Swat and later from other areas.65 During the same period, the region witnessed
violent conflicts by local rajas driven by secular and sectarian motivations. Geopolitics were in
effect in play both from within and outside which can be construed as a figurative form of
domination.
34 M. FEYYAZ

Table 1. Changes of government in Gilgit.

ca. 1842 First occupation of Gilgit by troops from Kashmir
1846 Conquest of Gilgit by Raja Goharaman from Yasin
1860 Death of Goharaman, reestablishment of Kashmiri domination in Gilgit
1879–81 Establishment of the first British Agency in Gilgit by Colonel Biddulph, parallel with Kashmiri
administration
1889 Reestablishment of the British Gilgit Agency, period of ‘dual control’ by the Kashmiri and British
1935 Lease of the Gilgit Agency by the British, end of dual control
30 July 1947 Transfer of the administration of Gilgit from the British to Governor Ghansara Singh from Kashmir
1 November 1947 Insurgence against Kashmir, establishment of ‘Islamic Republic of Gilgit’
16 November 1947 Establishment of Pakistani administration
Source: Martin Sökefeld, ‘From Colonialism to Postcolonial Colonialism,’ 2005.

The geopolitical significance of GB did not diminish subsequent to the creation of India and Pakistan.
In fact, it multiplied the number of stakeholders seeking out the full potential of their hegemonic designs.
The revolt and war in Kashmir was the first major crisis which stoked up geopolitics to levels never seen
before. Irked by an Anglo-American joint plan to manipulate the environment, Soviet Russia supported
by socialist elements from within the Indian government upscaled the communist intrusion manifold. As
early as 1947, Ladakh became the centre of pro-Russian activity, possibly using routes via Sinkiang and
Hunza. Reports appeared in some Western newspapers about Chinese communists infiltrating these
areas.66 Of more ominous importance were the events of winter 1953, with Pakistan opening negotiations
with Americans for military assistance, and India vehemently opposing it, which dramatically revealed
the role of the problem of Kashmir in the East-West struggle.67 Simultaneously, China began forays into
GB during April 1953. The country was suspected of violating Pakistan’s borders in Hunza besides
closing Pakistan’s diplomatic offices in Tibet and Sinkiang. Many legislators in the Constituent Assembly
of Pakistan hence considered China as a positive threat.68
In the late 1950s, as relations worsened with the Soviet Union and India increasingly drifting
towards it, a de novo drawing-up of a border strategy by China was required.69 The geopolitical fallout
from the Sino-India War of 1962 had shaken the foundations of Pakistan’s security due to the US
turning toward India in making a common cause with India against China.70 A new dimension was
added to Sino-Pak relations in 1963 when the two countries signed a border agreement, which may
seem paradoxical since Pakistan was only a de facto administrator of the disputed territory and not a
de jure authority. The construction of KKH was a landmark achievement in bilateral relations.
However, in spite of the utility and symbolic value of the highway for both Pakistan and China,
much of the exchanges along it throughout the 1990s involved arms, drugs, and religion.71 In general,
the reopening of Xinjiang’s external borders has had a profound economic impact on the region, but
its beneficiaries gradually changed in the later decades, i.e. from trading to religious entrepreneurs. In
addition, it bolstered military links. Upon its completion, China’s then-Deputy Premier Li Xiannian
publicly stated that the highway ‘allows us [China] to give military aid to Pakistan.’72
During the height of the Cold War at the end of 1979, came the Iranian Revolution and the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Both proved calamitous for Pakistan in general and GB in
particular by enabling scale and sustenance to the thus far latent sectarian tensions, and by
fertilizing the ground for proxy wars by Arab states and Iran.73 The representational discourses
generated by Afghan Jihad and Iranian ideological outreach were left unaddressed in the
absence of any state apparatus and regulation, thereby allowing hate politics to grow, flourish
and spatially entrench itself until the present day.74
Thus, geopolitics throughout had imposed an outer layer of power wrangling at the expense of GB's
political sovereignty, social cohesion and representational spaces. The launch of CPEC pivoted around
GB, has added a fresh impetus to the geopolitics of South Asia. India has already raised concerns with
China about the positioning of CPEC in the disputed nature of GB, in addition to apparently baiting
the local population against Pakistan.75 It is likely that the stability of the area will come under strain
due to charged reactions by rival regional and foreign powers.
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 35

Liminal statehood
The GB citizenry has traditionally comprised numerous socially self-sustaining communes or ethnic
groups under local Mirs or Rajas and princes. Individual regions enjoyed more autonomous rights,
but they were far from being democratic due to the old feudal traditions of ‘primitive’ societies,
partly by the necessities of war and the aggression by neighbouring states.76 Their political
organization was limited at best to locales of belonging where the valleys or sub-regions of
habitation served as important references for collective identity.77 The British influence in the
region changed the relation of power with the grassroots. Many Rajas, who needed the recognition
of the British in the first place in order to guarantee their power, were now much less dependent on
local support. Most of them became more and more despotic especially the rulers of Hunza and
Nager,78 thus expanding qabza to compress diverse expressions. Administratively, a characteristic
feature of the British rule was the creation of the agency system along the entire northwestern
frontiers of a united India against increasing Russian activities.79 Besides, FCR was introduced in
1901 for the legal administration of the entire frontier belt adjoining Afghanistan and including
Gilgit; it was originally formulated as a way to control the violent tribes of FATA (Federally
Administrative Tribal Areas),80 which have been merged into the adjacent province of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in May 2018.
The public space latent in these environments is exhibited in varying degrees. Vertically it
existed in a limited sense due to the authoritarian and harsh rule by the rajas. The British rule was
similarly strict but had the reputation of being benevolent among the local population. Reliance
on the indirect rule was instrumental in projecting this image especially by the despising (at least
rhetorically) of the British officers the forced labour and excessive taxes levied both by the local
rajas and Kashmiri rule.81 It was remarkable that though Maharaja Hari Singh abolished beggar
(forced labor) in Kashmir in 1933, it continued to be practised in Gilgit Agency and still after the
lease of the agency by the British in 1935.82 The British extension of the road via Astor to Kashmir
to facilitate the transport of pack animals lessened these hardships considerably.83 An informal
but feigned grievance redress system to record the complaints of the ordinary people by British
officers further created a sympathetic aura for them.84 A vertical space was thus allusively gained
during this time even though more ostensibly and without significant concessions. Nevertheless,
the spatial endowment was at its optimum among the scattered masses within the geographical
swathe of belonging which thrived on egalitarianism and a horizontal distribution of power. The
sense of belonging, notes Bauzas, became a conceptual tool which contextualized cultural, social
and spatial perceptions and experiences of individuals or groups about that space, which is very
different from the objective political forms of membership.85
In 1947, GB successfully rebelled against the Maharaja of Kashmir and supported full integration
into Pakistan.86 Two historic errors were committed by Pakistan at the outset – failure to declare the
northern areas as an integral part of Pakistan when the local population voluntarily acceded to it,
and secondly, the inability to raise and press before the UN Security Council from January 1948
onward the objective boundaries of J&K.87 It is possible that apart from being inundated with
mounting challenges at the time, including border wars, the lack of understanding about regional
dynamics by the national leadership due to the geographical remoteness and likely ignorance of its
legal history, especially concerning the Amritsar Treaty of 1846 about the territorial limits of J&K,
became conceivable causes for this omission.88 Consequently, the claim that Pakistan’s rational split
of the Northern Areas and J&K intended to draw more votes in its favour if and when a plebiscite
was held sounds less persuasive.89 In any case, GB was born with a liminality strain.
After 1947, successive governments in Pakistan have been instituting various measures to upgrade
governance mechanisms aided by developmental work to allow for a gradual political opening-up.90
These reforms should have resulted in favourable outcomes to expand the spatial scope for political
participation. However, there were other developments, which nullified any efficacious impact of the
reformation drive. The Karachi Agreement was the first such major instance, which was criticized for
36 M. FEYYAZ

want of representation from the Northern Areas.91 This was particularly so because GB had explicitly
ceded control to Pakistan and there did not exist a plausible reason for its inclusion in this protocol.
Yet, the people were content, as few observers note, in the hope of getting a fair deal from the
Government of Pakistan.92 This observation – contentment – may have been derived from some
metropolitan reactions but it cannot be construed as being representative of the entire population,
which was geographically displaced and devoid of apparatuses of institutional politics. At its core, the
liberation struggle bore no real dividend for the people; critics, therefore, allege that only the modes of
domination changed hands.93
Even though the intent is not fully established, these aspersions mainly draw from some
historical actions by the state. For instance, Pakistan’s administration largely continued with the
colonial system, including colonial law, exploitative taxes and forced labour besides the absence of
local participation in government affairs.94 The princely states were notably oppressive in perpe-
tuating labour practices despite resistance, while the state overlooked excesses. The vagary of FCR
was felt with full impact during the initial 14 years when the subjects came under direct rule by
Pakistan through political agents. Ironically, while the regulation retained its original provisions,
its operational use under Pakistani-appointed political agents seemed far more overbearing than
when under the British.95 Before November 1947, an independent judicial system for the areas
was in place under the State of J&K with a right of appeal before the Kashmir High Court.96 The
FCR scuttled this dispensation altogether. In 1971 the authorities abrogated the State Subject Rule
(SSR), the law introduced by Maharaja Hari Singh for permanent residents in 1927 that until then
protected the local demography against the settlement by non-Kashmiris.97 The action was
discriminatory since the said rule was allowed to operate in AJ&K. The Gilgit League (1957)
and Tanzeem-e-Millat (TM, 1971) were among the first political parties who rose to evoke mass
mobilization for political freedom and democratic rights for the people of GB.98 The widespread
attacks on Gilgit Jail during 1971 to protest against the political agent in charge were spearheaded
by TM. Similarly, right from the outset, all key functionaries in the civil administration came from
South Pakistan.99 In the later period as the size of the civil administration grew, key posts were
reserved for officers from the South, whereas local officers could only hold lower positions within
a judiciary that was totally marginalized. Together, these instruments were construed as the
colonization of civil liberties, in the process of tightening the noose around rhetorical practices.
The militarization of GB that began since the 1965 war with India has continued through the
enhancement of defence and social penetration by intelligence networks. A concomitant and
noteworthy fact is that Pakistani armed forces comprise a considerable representation of the local
population, i.e. Northern Light Infantry and Northern Area Scouts, some of which have risen to
senior ranks (generals). Besides, as opposed to IHK, the military does not occupy the streets and
villages, but as observers note, engage in constant monitoring of the population in addition to
attempts at discouraging criticism of the Pakistani state from above.100
Nevertheless, there has been a hardening of the demand by some minor factions among the
nationalist parties seeking full independence from Pakistan,101 which conceptually reflects the risk
symptoms of the temporal longevity of liminality. Not long ago, in fact, there was not even a
single mentionable voice against Islamabad in the region.102 Partly, the treatment meted out to the
inhabitants by non-local state’s agents contributed to building this ‘in-group’ imagery of inde-
pendence. The eruption of self-consciously-driven identity markers among nationalists from a
minority perspective to a widely shared view albeit confined to the odd locale is essentially a
reaction to the denial of a national and political identity owing to the dualism of the notion of ‘no
longer classified and not yet classified.’103 Though what would have been considered otherwise
positive, but originating from processes of marginalization, the earlier different and intersecting
dimensions of identification have increasingly transmuted into a shared sense of (political)
belonging to Gilgit-Baltistan among the people as opposed to the rest of Pakistan.104 That does
not presuppose that there is a dearth of ambition or demand to become fully legal Pakistanis more
so among the youth.105
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 37

The resentment is however manifest in several writ petitions filed by subjects of GB in higher
courts of law both in Pakistan and AJ&K, challenging the authority and jurisdiction of the
Government of Pakistan on Gilgit-Baltistan, as well as seeking clarification about its legal and
constitutional status.106 Notably, the legislators in the region’s Legislative Assembly have also been
expressing apprehension about the sustainability of the 2009 Order, arguing that it may be
repealed anytime to suit the whims and fancies of successive governments in Islamabad.107 This
argument draws from the viability of the executive order of the president which would not be
legally and constitutionally binding on future governments to continue the reforms.108 This
misgiving echoes the ease with which the democratic government of Yousuf Raza Gilani withdrew
sweeping fiscal and executive powers earlier accorded by the Musharraf regime, in the 2009
reform package and enforcing it with a presidential order rather than an act of parliament.109 The
2009 Order also established the Gilgit-Baltistan Council over and above the Legislative Assembly,
strongly represented by the Centre, thereby mimicking ‘dual control’ as previously.110
This observation undercuts the conventional perception that the development of the social
sector can moderate exasperations.111 The people of GB have also not benefited from the 18th
Constitutional Amendment (2010), which has set new standards for enhanced local autonomy
and parliamentary control over the government.112 The lack of exposure in national print and
electronic media aggravates these reactions and incites activism among the youth.113 The outright
rejection and terming the disqualification of a political ally (former Pakistani prime minister) by
the Supreme Court of Pakistan as ‘rebellion’ by the Chief Minister of GB reflects the mindset
spawned by the protracted liminality even though his remarks were strongly rebuffed by local
political rivals.114 Such outliers notwithstanding, contested liminality is among a variety of other
subjects, e.g. mistrust and the muffling of grievances that warrant greater focus.

Organized violence
Multi-cultural and multi-lingual GB is historically known for its rare incidences of inter/intra-
societal conflicts.115 The only period plunging it into violent turmoil was between the later part of
the 18th and the earlier decades of the nineteenth century when Gilgit Valley was desolated by
successive invasions by neighbouring rulers; in the 20 or 30 years ending with 1842 there had been
five dynastic revolutions.116 The revolt against the Dogra rulers by the Rajas of Hunza and Nagar,
and its suppression by the British during the nineteenth century were brief military encounters. In
sharp contrast, the region has experienced major episodes of organized violence during the post-
colonial period.
Although the peaceful observance of Muharram (a Shi’a commemoration which entails a month
of mourning) in Gilgit during 2016 was an incredible hiatus after a prolonged bloodied period of
sectarian strife,117 it is difficult to predict stability given that in the last two decades, Gilgit town had
become a visibly divided city characterized by ‘no-go’ spaces for the Shia and Sunni communities,
forcing people to use separate transportation, schools, and hospitals. The last in particular operate as
sites which define, mirror and perpetuate the social segregations and structural inequalities asso-
ciated with Shia-Sunni hostilities.118 Even the public sector hospitals were socially, bureaucratically
and politically configured as sectarian medical infrastructures.119 Practically, these venues present
novel forms of politico-moral effect, segregated geographies and segregated governance – a plague
larger than the liminality problem.120 This typifies the monopolization of pluralism through coerced
consensus. Equally important, travel between Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad had been insecure for
local travellers, traders, and tourists alike due to the targeted killings of Shia commuters.121
Scholarly opinion is divided over locating the roots of the sectarian conflict. Some blame the
abolishment of the SSR, thereby allowing non-indigenous communities from other parts of
Pakistan to buy land and settle,122 joined by others more controversial voices like Sering, who
claims that this materialized as a result of a ‘government-sponsored settlement scheme …[which]
encouraged Pakistani Sunnis to settle in Gilgit town.’123 Farzana Shaikh reckons that the root
38 M. FEYYAZ

cause is essentially local and is incited by Shia hostility to the settlement of Sunni businessmen
from Punjab and KP provinces, who were attracted by the opportunities offered by the opening of
the KKH in 1986.124 On the other hand, language surveys reveal that Pakhuns from the North
West Frontier (currently KP), and more specifically from Bajuar Agency, Koli and Palas areas of
Kohistan had settled in Ghizer and Gilgit during the early 1960s for commerce, leatherwork and
trade. Gilgit bazaar was humming with Pashtuns businesses already in 1963,125 and later the KKH
may have provided incentives for more upward migrations. Furthermore, as earlier discussed,
northward migration by Sunnis (Pashtuns) had begun around the mid-19th century. Evidence to
support a specific ‘SSR-settlement’ or ‘sponsored settlement’ hypotheses is hence scant.
What is definitely known is the genesis of incubation of mutual invective and physical violence
around the late 1980s when in response to the mobilization of Shias in Gilgit, the Sipahe Sahaba
Pakistan (SSP) had spread its tentacles across the region, under the tutelage of the military regime
of Zia.126 Resultantly, the public rhetoric became poisonous, signifying an ‘environment wherein
no sooner one’s words are uttered they are wrenched from one’s mouth to take on a life of their
own,’ to produce ‘one’s vulnerability to slipping into a state of being under the qabza of another.’-
127
The qabza has been quintessentially local, involving contexts over who controls a particular
(discursive) space at a particular point in time.128
In fact, the formation of sectarian discourses as an identity marker originally stemmed from the
ideological qabza of a virtual political vacuum. Two major reasons that account for this metamor-
phosis are to be found in the character of higher politics. First was the brutal suspension of political
socialization in the country by the military regimes of Generals Mohammad Ayub and Zia which
exacerbated this bareness guised in the name of modernization and socio-religious moral
purification.129 The absence of channels for political participation and the restriction on national
political parties hence materialized a conduit for the expression of political unrest in ethnic and
sectarian protests and demands.130 In GB, where organized politics or seasoned leadership was
sparse, if any, the impact was pronounced.131 Secondly and more importantly was the anti-Shia
discourse as a direct consequence of Zia’s impact over religion by enforcing a narrow, Sunni
interpretation of Islamic law.132 His rule was by no means the only factor in creating Sunni-Shia
disputes, as these also occurred under civilian governments. However, Zia greatly accelerated such
developments, as too did the Musharraf military alliance with the hard-line religious element, which
witnessed the textbook controversy during his reign. The use of violence to intimidate civilians, such
as the Shias who suffered discrimination was among several aspects of state suppression that
developed primarily out of Zia’s rule.133 The alleged 1988 state-sponsored Gilgit massacre and the
triggering of a killing spree thereafter meant that the Shia population and their spiritual leaders had
ingrained in them (as much as among local Sunnis) a ‘tendency to be exclusive instead of inclusive
vis-à-vis other communities on the basis of religious belief.’134 The Iranian Revolution fostered
renewed vigour by realigning sectarian identity with the Qum school. In response, the number of
Sunni madrassas in the region increased considerably, propagating a militant form of Deobandi or
Wahabite Islam. Wahabite missionaries also became active in other parts of the Northern Areas. A
new Sunnite mosque in Skardu, for example, was built with money from Saudi Arabia.135 The
surplus conflict capital in the form of Afghan veterans, some of whom belonged to GB, in the hands
of Saudi Arabia and by the military regime of Zia, availed itself with equal fervour in the sectarian
battlefields of GB and Kashmir.136 It can be argued that the 1988 Shia massacre which witnessed the
involvement of Afghan Jihad veterans including from within GB, founded the Jihadi nursery in this
region, which in due time would transform and regenerate into local cells of SSP with sympathetic
backing from the administrative machinery and the Sunni clergy.137
The crowding out of pristine and more uncorrupted spaces (religious, cultural, institutional,
physical) by forceful occupation from above, within and outside has been the most destructive
implication of this internecine inter-sect struggle. Hundreds have perished in the process. What is
more, the poisonous rhetoric spread by the clergy since 1990 has been so pervasive that past practices
of intermarriages among the sects were no longer permitted even among contenders belonging to the
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 39

same clan or qawm.138 More than others, a six-month on-off curfew in Gilgit during 2005 is perhaps
the bleakest example of the ferocity of the contest for public space between and among contending
communities.139
Similarly, another mode of inclusion per se based on spatial appeal, i.e. the attraction of
tourism to GB, at the same time has been embodying and creating a number of exclusionary
outcomes. For example, in the textual and visual vocabulary of Pakistani nationalism, Gilgit-
Baltistan has been primarily constructed as a space of nature, ecology, and beauty. Such con-
structions reduce the region to a physical and geographical territory vis-à-vis the ‘people’ of the
region who are abstracted, appear not as living cultural beings but almost as physical features of
the land.140 This, asserts Nosheen Ali, produces a double exclusion: the communities of the
Northern Areas remain largely unimagined within the nationalist imaginings of Pakistan, and
simultaneously, their subjection is obscured from the nation’s view.141 Exclusion thus acts to
reinforce forms of psychological pain and injury, thereby backgrounding the dream of integration.
The textual aspect intrudes further into individuals’ space of faith. The silencing of Shia beliefs
in textbook depictions of Islam is common throughout Pakistan, but for a state that officially
proclaims Islam as its raison d’être – Islam that is implicitly coded as Sunni – the Shia-majority of
the Northern Areas constitutes a significant source of anxiety.142 One instance of homogenization
of official Islam was the amendments made in textbooks during 1999. Shias were critical of
statements and images in Islamiyat (Islamic Studies) textbooks that contradicted their beliefs
which were contained also in Urdu, Arabic, History and Social Studies textbooks, affecting 16
books altogether.143 The emergence of sect-specific schools should not be surprising, therefore,
which have reduced the opportunities for socialization and friendship between the youth of
different sects at interactional sites.144
The penetration and growing build-up of terrorist groups in GB have been another spatial
encroachment of its already fettered environment. In the last few years, Taliban offshoots have
been involved in attacks in Gilgit-Baltistan, killing dozens, including local minorities, police person-
nel, military officials, and tourists. The latter attacks were directed at the fringes of the famous Nanga
Parbat peak.145 The targeting of a historical artefact which occupies a central place in the cultural
heritage of GB, amounted to a symbolic destruction of its spatial imagery. Foreign tourism was
thereafter affected, adding to the financial woes of a dependent industry.146 Terrorists have also
attacked and bombed local girls’ schools to show their opposition to female education.147 Some
security assessments portend strong indications of the emergence of a Taliban-Daesh crescent of
control with its epicentre in Northern Pakistan, which is likely to be facilitated by pre-existing
signatures by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (the current incarnation of SSP).148

Conclusion and policy implications

This article has attempted to explain GB through the lens of public space. In particular, three
proxy variables were pitched against the empirical reality situated in both objective and subjective
domains, to test the viability of the proposed argument: liminality, geopolitics, and organized
violence.
The analysis underscores the doubly anomalous position of GB as a region subordinated to a
polity (J&K) whose territory has long been under dispute between India and Pakistan. At its
surface, therefore, juridical liminality appears as an overarching impediment underpinning an
anomaly syndrome, which has substantially suppressed and still inhibits the emergence of a
vibrant public sphere, let alone frustrations brewing from its perpetuation. The analysis further
reveals the appetite for control by the Pakistani state through its centralizing tendencies and the
militarization of the region. The inclusion-exclusion paradox also sits neatly in this paradigm by
an implication, which suggests the constriction of the public sphere for dissent and open debate.
In some ways, the social and physical space has also been reorganized consistently with the
country’s securitizing agenda.
40 M. FEYYAZ

Conceding these inferences and the well-known externally disputed nature of GB, the evidence,
however, does not explicitly pinpoint or locate policy regimes and political behaviour on the part of
Pakistan for draconian domination. What does come to the fore is the semblance of an assertive
behaviour by political agents, which certainly prevailed during the first 14 years of GB as well as the
political exclusion of the region by military regimes specifically that of Zia and his predecessors.
Nonetheless, the analysis equally highlights that the idiosyncratic conduct by political agents owed
itself to a leadership vacuum and the absence of institutionalized accountability since the country
was grappling with numerous other nation-building challenges including border wars with
Afghanistan and India. Besides, the tyranny of dictatorial rule encompassed the entire Pakistan,
not just GB. Factually, this region remained internally the least affected, barring wars with India,
which singularly impinged upon its social security fabric but at the same time, it specifically
benefited in the form of PLF enacted by the military government of General Musharraf. To be
fair, the post-independent state of Pakistan has made considerable efforts to rid the region of several
politico-legal complexities including creating opportunities for participatory politics. However, what
emerges as problematic underlying these endeavours was the discontinuity, dysfunctionality and the
lack of uniform interest shown by successive governments to enlarge the scope of integration and
representation. Thus, Hong’s construction of the delayed federal response to the Attabad disaster as
a reflection of liminality warrants redefinition from this perspective. Moreover, the existent research,
which likens the post-colonial period to the British era, needs also to take into account the complex
reality that GB became part of Pakistan not by annexation but by accession as well as the fact that
the state is still experiencing a variety of consolidation challenges.
Decidedly, however, when liminality and geopolitics are viewed against organized violence, it
strongly transpires that the violent undertones that have divided the society into vicarious groupings
along ideological fronts, which has monopolized consensus, are incomparable with any precedent
set throughout the history of this province. The communities, localities, worship places, educational
institutions, medical infrastructure, youth, communications, and interactional affinity including civil
administration characterized by inimical qabza are clearly discernible in contemporary GB.
Consequently, it can be concluded that the compression, control and reorganization of public
space along its entire typology has been blighted far more acutely by organized violence than by
other variables. Ideological and sectarian qabza has effectually caused irreversible cracks in the
collective imagery of GB which warrants intellectual reconfiguration and serious persuasion
through long-term policy initiatives to neutralize their sapping effects. A replicable precedent in
the shape of collaborative efforts by stakeholders, as seen during the recent period of harmony
among sectarian groups portends hope.
In a nutshell, no public policy shall succeed unless the ‘public’ is fully integrated as its final
beneficiary in terms of governance. It is thus imperative that policy interventions are underlined
by the dictates of the public space, with their subsets dedicated toward uplifting its different
manifestations – political, institutional, rhetorical, social and physical. Without recourse to
participatory governance, the feelings of marginalization are unlikely to wane from the psycho-
social and sociopolitical memory of the contemporary citizenry and civil society of GB.

Notes
1. Gankovsky, The Peoples of Pakistan, 60–61; and Dani, History of Northern Areas, 400.
2. Ibid.
3. Khalid, Pakistan in the Pamir, 15, 25–30.
4. Durand, The Making of Frontier, 2–3, 41–3.
5. Hussain, Kashmir Question, 3.
6. Ibid.
7. See Bansal, “Gilgit-Baltistan,” 81–101.
8. E.g. Khaled Ahmed, Andreas Rieck, Mariam Zahab, Ashok Behuria, Georg Stöber, Farhan Siddiqi, Seema
Shekkawat, Muhammad Feyyaz, Izhar Hunzai, Karan Sawhny, Nidhi Narain, etc.
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 41

9. Bouzas, “The Kashmir space”; Ali, “Spaces of Nature”; and Kreutzmann, “Linguistic Diversity in Space and
Time.”
10. See, Mustafa, Katherine and Tillotson, “Antipode to Terror.”
11. Organized violence includes state-based, non-state and one-sided violence. See Organized Violence,
Human security report project http://www.hsrgroup.org/our-work/security-stats/Organized-Violence.
aspx; and Shah, “Conceptual and theoretical frameworks,” 97–106.
12. Mustafa and Brown, “The Taliban, Public Space, ”497.
13. Ali, “Spaces of Nature,” 115.
14. Inspired by Shah, “Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks.”
15. Mustafa, “Terrorism and Public Place”.
16. Ibid.
17. Habermas, “The Public Sphere,” 49.
18. Gregory et al., Dictionary of Human Geography, 584-85.
19. Nordquist, “Public Sphere.”
20. Kreutzmann, “Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time.”
21. Visweswaran, Everyday Occupations, 3.
22. Kliot and Charney, “The Geography of Suicide,” 355.
23. Elden, “There is a Politics,” 107.
24. See note 13 above.
25. Hong, “Law and Liminality,” 73.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Zain, “A Socio-Political Study,” 183.
30. Sökefeld, “From Colonialism to Postcolonial,” 945.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Matinuddin, Power Struggle in the Hindu, 1.
34. Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, 13.
35. Sökefeld, “Anthropology of Gilgit-Baltistan,” 13.
36. Kalis and Dar, “Geo-Political Significance,” 115.
37. Anwar Hussain, China & Pakistan, 82.
38. Ankit, “Kashmir.”
39. Feyyaz, Pakistan-Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 12; Mahmud, “The Gilgit-Baltistan Reforms.”
40. Feyyaz, “P-5 members and UN, 117”; and History of UNMOGIP.
41. FCR (Frontier Crimes Regulation) was an incentive-punishment imbued legal structure in place since 1901,
introduced by the British originally to control the violent tribes dwelling along Durand Line – boundary
drawn between Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1893. For FCR see, A Bad Law Nobody.
42. Hussain, The Gilgit-Baltistan Reforms.
43. Discord in Pakistan’s Northern, 8.
44. Ali, “Outrageous State,” 3.
45. See note 43 above.
46. E.g. from Northern Areas of J&K (Jammu and Kashmir) to Federally Administered Northern Areas
(FANA) to Northern Areas to Northern Areas of Pakistan and lately GB. Discord in Pakistan’s Northern,
8, 20; and Raman, Unrest.
47. Hong, “Liminality and Resistance.”
48. Ibid.
49. “An Order to Provide Greater.”
50. Hong, “Liminality and Resistance,” 7.
51. Ibid., 8.
52. Stöber, “Religious Identities Provoked,” 404–5; and Zahab, “Regional Dimension of Sectarian,” 115–16.
53. This observation is based on the writer’s personal experience during two years’ stay in GB from 2003 to
2005.
54. See note 24 above.
55. See, e.g. PM announces development package for GB, The Nation, 30 September 2009; see note 45 above,
14.
56. See note 48 above.
57. Ibid.
58. Hopkirk, The Great Game, 446–9.
59. Ibid., 52.
60. Ibid., 451–53.
42 M. FEYYAZ

61. Tarar, Lahore, 161–64.

62. Roberts, “Land of Borderlands,” 217.
63. Rahman, Sinicization Beyond the Great, 60; and See note 62 above, 217–18.
64. See notes 72–74 in Stöber, “Religious Identities Provoked.”
65. Jettmar, “Norther Areas of Pakistan,” 71–4.
66. See note 34 above, 230.
67. Ibid., 269–70.
68. Kizilbash, “Legislative Participation and Foreign,” 87–8.
69. Yunus, Reflections on China, 131.
70. Ibid., 134–35.
71. Haider, “Sino-Pakistan Relations.”
72. Ibid.
73. Zahab, “Regional Dimension of Sectarian,” 115.
74. Fiaz, “Policy Intervention in FATA,” 49–62.
75. Suba. “CPEC fears.”
76. See note 34 above, 202.
77. See note 35 above, 10–11.
78. Ibid., 11.
79. Husain, “FATA,” 18–63.
80. A Bad Law Nobody.
81. See notes 31 and 35 above.
82. See note 30 above, 954.
83. Ibid., 953.
84. Ibid.
85. Bouzas, “The Kashmir space.”
86. See note 43 above (executive summary).
87. See details of debates at the UN by the two countries, see note 34 above, 97–117.
88. For details on Amritsar Treaty see Dani, History of Northern Areas, 272–275.
89. See note 43 above, 16.
90. See note 43 above, 14.
91. Shigri, “Time for change.”
92. Ibid., 42.
93. See note 30 above.
94. Ibid., 959–60.
95. See note 35, 15.
96. See note 30 above, 964.
97. See note 30 above, 964; Sering, “Talibanization of Baltistan.”
98. See note 42 above, 5.
99. See note 35 above, 15.
100. See note 85 above.
101. Martin, “Balawaristan and Other ImagiNations,” 350–368; Mahmud, “The Gilgit-Baltistan Reforms.”
102. Ibid.
103. See note 25 above, 73.
104. See note 35, 11.
105. Waqas and Taqi, “Unheard voices.”
106. Singh, “Gilgit Baltistan”; see note 44 above.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Ali, Naqash and Nagri, “‘Almost’ Pakistan.”
110. See note 35 above, 16.
111. See note 43 above, 14–15.
112. Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 19.
113. Walter, “Changing Gilgit-Baltistan,” 42.
114. “Remarks of AJK premier.”
115. Imran, “True Culture”; and Mange, Muslim diversity, 60.
116. Roy, “A Brief History.”
117. Sarwar, “Peaceful milieu.”
118. Varley, “Exclusionary Infrastructures Crisis.”
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid, “Inhospitable Hospitals”.
121. Hunzai, Conflict dynamics in Gilgit-Baltistan, 2.
 SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 43

122. Parwana, “Truth can never be,” Barooshal Times, 7 July 2014; “Nationalists Demand Revival,” Pamir Times,
25 November 2013.
123. See note 97 above.
124. Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 67.
125. See note 20 above.
126. Malik, The Woes of Gilgit-Baltistan, 20; and see note 125 above, 67.
127. N.Khan, “Mosque Construction or the Violence,” 488–89.
128. Ewing, “Anthropology and the Pakistani National,” 534–35.
129. Toor, The state of Islam, 81–82, 132–33; and see note 125 above.
130. Sawhyny and Narain, “Fratricidal Conflict between Pakistani,” 470.
131. See note 44 above, 8.
132. See note 125 above, 64.
133. Murphy and Tamana, “State Terrorism and the Military,” 57.
134. Siddiqa, “Red Hot Chili Peppers,” 12, 25; and Behuria, “Sunni-Shia Relations in Pakistan.”
135. Stöber, ‘Religious Identities Provoked,’ 401.
136. Dad, “The sectarian specter in Gilgit-Baltistan”; Majid yar, The Shi’ites of Pakistan, 3; and Shekhawat,
“Sectarianism in Gilgit-Baltistan.”
137. Ibid.
138. Ahmed, Sectarian War, 189–90.
139. Khan, “Tourism Downfall”, 158.
140. See note 24 above.
141. Ibid.
142. See note 45 above, 3.
143. See notes 45 and 53 above.
144. See note 45 above.
145. Mir, “Gunmen kill 9 foreign.”
146. See Foreign Tourist Inflow.
147. “Attacks on Schools.”
148. Sering, “Terror Outfits Build Presence.”

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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