Inserting Pakistan into J&K poll talk makes little sense

Aug 31, 2024 09:07 PM IST

The government of Pakistan took the northern areas, which account for 85% of the territory of POK, under its direct administrative control in November 1947. Its current narrative states that it took over the territory, since re-named Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), under the Karachi Agreement of 1949 between the Pakistan government and Muslim Conference leaders. The agreement was kept secret because Pakistan had changed the territorial status quo without a plebiscite. This came to light in a historic judgment of the POK high court in 1993, which described Pakistani actions as a violation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir. The high court asked Pakistan to restore the territory to POK as demanded by all political parties of that territory. Islamabad got the judgment reversed by the POK Supreme Court on merely jurisdictional grounds. It continues to exercise direct control over this territory. While India is criticised for splitting J&K, Pakistan had partitioned the area under its illegal control seven decades ago and absorbed the bulk of its territory.

The first election on the basis of universal franchise was held in POK in 1970. POK got its Interim Constitution only in 1974. This created a system of parallel government where all substantive powers were vested in the Kashmir Council headed by Pakistan’s prime minister (PM) while the elected assembly and the government remained powerless. Critics called this rule by proxy by Islamabad. In 2018, under the 13th amendment of the POK Constitution, the Kashmir Council was relegated to an advisory role. However, its powers were not transferred to the elected assembly. The government of Pakistan has assumed direct legislative and executive powers over 32 subjects within POK.

The northern areas or G-B are even more tightly controlled than POK by Islamabad due to its strategic location. This is the region where the Indus River, as well as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), enters Pakistan. This is a Shia-majority area, which was given limited powers by the Asif Ali Zardari government under the G-B order of 2009. The entire list of 61 subjects on which the local government was given jurisdiction was abolished under the G-B order of 2018. This vested all legislative and administrative powers in the PM of Pakistan. The copies of the order were torn in the G-B assembly in the presence of Pakistan’s acting PM. The G-B Supreme Appellate Court set aside the G-B order of 2018. The government of Pakistan appealed before the country’s Supreme Court, which sided with Islamabad and, in a judgment in 2019, restored the G-B order of 2018 against which the people of the territory were protesting.

Pakistan has always exercised absolute control over POK and G-B. It has now overtly assumed powers within both territories. The far-reaching changes were made in 2018, a year before the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. They went unnoticed.

POK and G-B are controlled more tightly than Pakistan’s provinces. The provinces can exercise power over subjects allocated to them. But, in the case of POK and G-B, even powers within the territories are exercised directly by Pakistan. These include water, strategic highways, taxation, police, citizenship, and migration. Water and roads are the two key resources of this border region. The ‘state subject’ is loosely defined to allow demographic change. There are no safeguards for land rights. Pakistan did not seek permission from the people of POK or G-B for the construction of the Mangla Dam or Karakoram Highway or gifting a portion to China.

The drama in G-B showed that Pakistan’s Supreme Court exercises jurisdiction over an area that is not part of Pakistani territory under its Constitution. The 2019 judgment was not the first time this was done. The first judgment of Pakistan’s Supreme Court came in May 1999. This asked Islamabad to ensure the region got fundamental rights and representative government within six months. Obviously, both were absent. This was at the time when Pakistan had intruded across the LoC to ostensibly “liberate” Kashmiris from Indian “control”.

The elections in POK and G-B have resulted in the election of the party in power in Islamabad. There is a complete demise of regional parties. In the last assembly election in 2021, the Muslim Conference that had championed J&K’s accession to Pakistan got one out of 53 seats. Power fluctuates between local chapters of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The 2021 election was won by PTI, which was then ruling in Islamabad. After Imran Khan’s ouster, POK PM Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi was replaced by Tanveer Ilyas. He has since been replaced by Chaudhary Anwar-ul-Haq. In G-B, Khalid Khurshid has been replaced by Gulbar Khan as chief minister.

There is, in the meantime, increasing Chinese influence in G-B, where Chinese companies are to build the 4,500 MW Daimar-Bhasha hydropower plant. This will lead to an influx of migrants from outside. Pakistan has decided to go ahead with the project despite the 2022 floods, which underlined the threat to the region’s delicate ecological balance. It will improve power supply for Pakistan. G-B will not benefit as it is not connected to Pakistan’s national grid.

Will dialogue with Pakistan enhance democratic rights within J&K? Pakistan is at odds not only with India but its two Muslim neighbours to the west. It has exchanged missiles and fire with both. There have been food riots in Pakistan. POK saw public protests and clashes with security forces over the scarcity of essential items like aata (flour) and high electricity prices.

DP Srivastava is a former ambassador and author of Forgotten Kashmir: The Other Side of the Line of Control. The views expressed are personal