 |
||
|
||
|
||
Everyone in Pakistan likes to hold forth on Kashmir, though nine out of ten who do so are unfamiliar with Kashmir’s geography. I have it on good authority that when the army took the disastrous Kargil plan to the prime minister for the final go ahead, he asked, “General Sahib, when will we be marching into Srinagar?” Had the prime minister merely looked at a map, he might have noticed that the distance between Kargil and Srinagar was somewhat longer than, say, between Lahore and Raiwind, and the terrain less friendly. No motorway connected the two points either. Alas.
The Northern Areas are an integral part of the Jammu and Kashmir state but it is the Pakistan government that administers them. In 1935 the British, fearful of an expansionist Soviet Union, took a number of steps to strengthen India’s northern borders. Consequently, on 29 March 1935, a 60-year lease under the Treaty of Jammu was signed with Maharaja Hari Singh for 1,300 square miles of what are now called the Northern Areas. The treaty stipulated that the State flag would continue to fly over the leased territory, and that the State would retain the right to exploit the area’s minerals and Baltistan and Astor would remain under the Maharaja’s control.
On the Maharaja’s birthday and other state occasions, the British garrison in Gilgit presented arms by way of yet another acknowledgment of the State’s sovereignty over the leased areas. Before the British transferred power on 14/15 August 1947, the leased territory was returned to the Maharaja who appointed Brig. Ghansara Singh as his governor. So when Pakistan came into being, the Northern Areas were already an integral part of the Jammu and Kashmir state. Census reports from 1911, 1921, 1931 and 1941 also show these areas as part of the state.
After independence, there was a revolt by the Muslim officers and men of the State army and the Gilgit Scouts, commanded by the 24-year old Scotsman Maj. William Brown. The uprising began on 31 October. The Governor was arrested, as were some non-Muslim soldiers and the Pakistan flag was raised at the Gilgit residency. What happened in Gilgit was unrelated to what we know as the Poonch uprising. Nor did it have anything to do with the entry of tribesmen into the State, a reckless and fatal act that sealed the fate of Kashmir in India’s favour. The Quaid-e- Azam knew nothing about the tribal incursion, it should be added. According to K. H. Khurshid, when he asked Liaquat Ali Khan in Lahore in 1949 if the Quaid had been asked, the Prime Minister remained silent because being a man of honour, he did not want to tell an untruth.
While Pakistan assumed direct control of the Northern Areas, a term unknown before 1947, it chose to administer them until the early 1970s under the notorious Frontier Crimes Regulations. The joint secretary of the Kashmir Affairs ministry replaced the British resident, exercising absolute authority and paying viceroy-like visits to the territory off and on, more for the sake of partridge shoots and perhaps Hunza water than the welfare of the people who lived there on the edge of starvation. It was not until the Karakorum Highway was built in 1978 that the economic conditions of the population improved to some extent. The assumption of control by Pakistan of the Northern Areas is based on the so-called Karachi Agreement which is of doubtful legality, signed as it was by Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas in 1949 in his capacity as head of the Muslim Conference. The Agreement did nothing to secure or advance the rights of the people who lived in the region, nor were they asked. No copy of this Agreement exists in government records. Pakistan’s administrative control over the territory, thus, has little basis in law.
While the Karachi Agreement clearly recognised that the Northern Areas were a part of Azad Kashmir, the writ of the Azad Kashmir government was not allowed to run there. Every Pakistani government, civilian or military, has treated the region as a part of Pakistan but without giving the residents their basic rights. There is a Northern Areas Council but its role is advisory. The people have no recourse to courts either in Azad Kashmir or Pakistan. Under the Pakistan-China boundary agreement of 2 March 1962, Pakistan transferred 2,500 square miles of Hunza south of Mintaka Pass to Beijing, an act that undermines Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir. A provision in the treaty about renegotiating the situation in the event of a change in the status quo does nothing to strengthen Pakistan’s right to have transferred territory to China that did not belong to it.
The agreement does recognise though that the territory transferred to China is part of the State. However, the people and government of Azad Kashmir were not consulted when the agreement was signed. Pakistan’s stand is self-contradictory. It prevents the Azad Kashmir government from administering the area while maintaining that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory under UNCIP resolutions. Elsewhere, Islamabad has maintained that the Northern Areas are part of Pakistan. A map issued by the Pakistan government showed the areas as part of Pakistan. In 1972, the Azad Kashmir Assembly passed a resolution demanding the return of the Northern Areas which had been taken over “temporarily” by Pakistan under the Karachi agreement. The resolution was ignored by Islamabad. It may be added that to this day, the AK Chief Secretary and the IG of Police have to be Pakistani officers “lent” to the Azad Kashmir government. So much then for trust in the Kashmiris.
The Benazir Bhutto government brought in a package of “reforms” which were seen in Azad Kashmir as an attempt to delink the areas from Azad Kashmir. The Kashmir Liberation League called the “reforms” a scheme to divide Kashmir. The Karachi Agreement was repealed by the 1970 Act, which in turn was rendered redundant by the 1974 Act. In 1990, a writ petition was filed in the Azad Kashmir High Court to clarify the status of the Northern Areas, with the governments of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir named as respondents. The Pakistan government took the contradictory position that although the areas were not part of Pakistan under the 1973 constitution, neither were they part of Azad Kashmir. The Azad Kashmir government was pressured into taking the strange position that the writ petition was not “maintainable.”
The court rejected Pakistan’s plea that Muzaffarabad had no jurisdiction “outside” Azad Kashmir. The judgment delivered by the court said, “We have recapitulated the detailed history of the Northern Areas, their legal status and the circumstances surrounding the present position. We, therefore, hold that no legitimate cause has been shown by the respondents No. 1 and No. 2 to keep the Northern Areas and their residents (State subjects) detached from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, under (a) separate and arbitrary administrative system and deprive them of fundamental rights. We accordingly accept the petition and direct that the Azad government immediately assume the administrative control of the Northern Areas and annex it with the administration of Azad Jammu and Kashmir … the residents of the Northern Areas shall enjoy the benefits of the fundamental rights conferred by the Act 1974 … The Azad Government shall take steps to establish administrative and judicial set-up in the Northern Areas within the framework of the Interim Constitution Act.”
This landmark judgment was the subject of an appeal in the Azad Kashmir Supreme Court which decided that while Gilgit and Baltistan were an integral part of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, they were not part of Azad Kashmir. The court did not, however, state that they were part of Pakistan either. Ironically, the AK High Court whose judgment had been overturned had anticipated this and observed at para 194 of its judgment that to hold that the Northern Areas were not part of Azad Kashmir nor a part of Pakistan was self-contradictory. So even under the higher court’s judgment, Pakistan’s takeover of these areas is without legal or constitutional authority.
If people in Pakistan have begun
to wonder why Pakistan’s word on Kashmir is no longer taken seriously by
the world, all they have to do is look at the ambivalent and self-serving
policies successive Pakistani governments have followed to control and
manipulate the “base camp” of the Kashmir liberation movement. Some movement,
some camp, is all I can say.
|
||
|
||
|
||