Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan borders province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to
the west, Azad Kashmir to
the southwest, Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the northwest,
the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to
the north, and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast.
Rock
art and petroglyphs
There
are more than 50,000 pieces of rock art (petroglyphs) and inscriptions all along
the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit Baltistan,
concentrated at ten major sites between Hunza and Shatial. The carvings were left by
various invaders, traders, and pilgrims who passed along the trade
route, as well as by locals. The earliest date back to between 5000 and
1000 BCE, showing single animals, triangular men
and hunting scenes in which the animals are larger than the hunters.
These carvings were
packed into the rock with stone tools and are covered with a thick patina that proves their age. The
ethnologist Karl
Jettmar has pieced together the history of the area from
various inscriptions and recorded his findings in Rock Carvings and
Inscriptions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan[1] and the later released Between
Gandhara and the Silk Roads - Rock Carvings Along the Karakoram Highway.[2] Many of these carvings and
inscriptions will be inundated and/or destroyed when the planned Basha-Diamir
dam is built and the Karakoram Highway widened.
British
Raj
Before
the independence of Pakistan and
the partition of India, Maharaja Hari Singh, the Hindu Dogra ruler
of Jammu, extended his rule to Gilgit and Baltistan with the help of British. In
1935 he leased the region to British for an amount of 75,000Rs. After WW II British influence started
declining. British despite decline in its rule, handled the situation cleverly
and gave two options to the states in British Raj under their rule to join
any of the two emerging states, India and Pakistan. Taking advantage of the
situation the populace of Gilgit-Baltistan started revolting, the people of
Ghizer were first to raise the flag of revolution, and gradually the masses of
entire region stood up against the rule of Mahraja, again British played an
important role in war of independence of Gilgit-Baltistan.[3]
End
of the princely state
On
26 October 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh of
Jammu and Kashmir, faced with a tribal invasion from Pakistan, signed the Instrument of
Accession, joining India. Gilgit's population did not favour the
State's accession to India. Sensing their discontent, Major William Brown, the
Maharaja's commander of the Gilgit Scouts, mutinied on 1 November 1947,
overthrowing the Governor Ghansara Singh. The bloodless coup d'etat was
planned by Brown to the last detail under the code name `Datta Khel'. A
provisional government (Aburi Hakoomat) was established by the Gilgit
locals with Raja Shah Rais Khan as the president and Mirza Hassan Khan as the
commander-in-chief. However, Major Brown had already telegraphed Khan Abdul Qayyum
Khan asking Pakistan to take over. The Pakistani political
agent, Khan Mohammad Alam Khan, arrived on 16 November and took over the
administration of Gilgit.[4] According to Brown,[5]
Alam replied [to the
locals],: `you are a crowd of fools led astray by a madman. I shall not
tolerate this nonsense for one instance... And when the Indian Army starts
invading you there will be no use screaming to Pakistan for help, because you
won't get it.'... The provisional government faded away after this encounter
with Alam Khan...[5]
Part
of Pakistan
1947
to 1970 Government of Pakistan established Gilgit Agency and Baltistan Agency.
In 1970 Northern areas council established by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Gilgit
Baltistan was directly administrated by federal government and it was called FANA
(Federal administrated northern areas). In 1963, Pakistan ceded a part of
Hunza-Gilgit called Raskam and
the Shaksgam Valley of Baltistan region to the China pending
settlement of the dispute over Kashmir. This ceded area is also known as
the Trans-Karakoram
Tract. The Pakistani
parts of Kashmir to the north and west of the cease-fire line
established at the end of the Indo-Pakistani
War of 1947, or the Line of Control as it later came to be
called, were divided into the Northern Areas (72,971 km²) in the north and
the Pakistani state of Azad Kashmir (13,297 km²)
in the south. The name "Northern Areas" was first used by the United Nations to refer to the
northern areas of Kashmir.[citation
needed]
Gilgit
Baltistan, which was most recently known as the Northern Areas, presently
consists of seven districts, has a population approaching one million, has an
area of approximately 28,000 square miles (73,000 km2), and shares borders
with China, Afghanistan, and India.
The
local Northern Light
Infantry is the army unit that participated in the 1999 Kargil conflict. More than 500 soldiers
were believed to have been killed and buried in the Northern Areas in that
action.[6] Lalak Jan, a soldier from Yasin Valley, was awarded Pakistan's most
prestigious medal, the Nishan-e-Haider, for his courageous
actions during the Kargil conflict.
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