The polls in the Northern Areas

There was an agreement between the new Kashmiri ‘free’ state, with its capital at Mirpur, and Pakistan, that the new Gilgit Agency would be administered by Pakistan through a political agent. This would continue the old British-era arrangement. However, that arrangement was what the rebellion had been against, and successive Pakistani constitutions preserved the status of the Federally Administered Areas, which formed part of the SAFRON Ministry, which included States, Frontier Regions and Northern Areas. It was sometimes, but not always, joined with the Kashmir Affairs Ministry. At present, the portfolio was held by Qamaruz Zaman Kaira, who became governor of the new ‘province’ by virtue of his office.
While the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulations, and are the cynosure of world attention because of the War on Terror, and non-Pakistani militants having allegedly taken refuge there, FANA has not drawn so much world attention. One reason why the PPP upgraded its status is because it was bound to win there. When last it had been in office, in 1993-6, it had introduced elected institutions to the Northern Areas, and had won the first elections. From that point of view, the present upgradation has been a logical progression. The Northern Areas were actually created under the Yahya regime, becoming needed when the princely states were abolished, as apart from the Gilgit Agency, the states of Hunza, Gilgit, Punial, Ishkuman and Yasin were also merged into it, and given a rather unimaginative name.
However, there is the logical question of how this impacts overall on the Kashmir situation. The main question to be grappled with is whether there has been a substantive change in the status of Kashmir, and whether that change affects the resolutions before the UN Security Council, which call for a plebiscite to ascertain the will of the people of Kashmir. Perhaps most important is the fact that the present changes are in accordance with the will of the people of the area, and represent a temporary solution until the permanent one contained in the UN Resolutions. Then comes the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Interim Constitution, in force since 1974, which has not affected the Kashmir cause. Also, India has long brought the part of Jammu and Kashmir it holds into the Indian Union without affecting any of the parties to the dispute. If it is argued that the present action represents some sort of partition, it can be remembered that the giving of provincial status is probably what Pakistan has in mind when Kashmir is left to accede to it. Gilgit-Balistan does not have any representation in the other federal institutions, such as the Council of Common Interests and the National Finance Commission, where AJK is also unrepresented. The AJK president (not governor) is elected by a council which includes a sprinkling of Pakistanis, unlike Gilgit-Baltistan, where the minister, inevitably a Pakistani, will hold the office ex-officio. This might create an uncomfortable situation when there is a change of government in Islamabad, but not Gilgit, and the minister and the government belong to different parties, but if the AJK experience is anything to go by, the Gilgit-Baltistan government will try to follow Islamabad. That is another factor protecting the Pakistani stance on Kashmir.
Then there is the issue of the level of interest of the UN itself. The level of pro-Indian sentiment shown by the rest of the world can only be explained by India’s being a much larger potential market, as well as its being a pagan civilisation which the West finds more compatible, indeed congenial, than Pakistan, a Muslim country. This sentiment has ensured that the Indian position on Kashmir finds more acceptance among the world community than Pakistan’s. However, if this sentiment was to change, and the world community forced India to let Kashmiris decide their own fate, then changes in status would not be allowed to matter. One example is Czechoslovakia, which came into being in 1918, out of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but which in 1993 split into Czechia and Slovakia, after a referendum, and even though they had more linguistic and ethnic linkages than Kashmiris have with Indians.
E-mail: maniazi@nation.com.pk