A historic day turned sour.

Byline: Afzal Ali Shigri

ON Nov 1, 1947, the president of the azad government of Gilgit, Raja Shah Rais Khan, telegrammed the government of Pakistan to appoint a civil administrator on behalf of the people. It was an unconditional accession and expression of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan's collective will whereby the civil servants opted for Pakistan and the Scouts revolted against the tyrannical Dogra rule with active support from the local populace.

Shah Rais Khan could not have imagined that the decision would trigger 72 years of uncertainty. In the name of 'national interest', the government of Pakistan supported by collaborators from GB arbitrarily yoked the region to the Kashmir dispute, thus perpetuating bureaucratic rule overseen by an incompetent political leadership.

Despite repeated assurances, no government has taken any concrete steps to integrate the region into Pakistan, with the exception of the PPP, which accorded GB a semblance of provincial status albeit without full provincial empowerment. The people's relentless appeals led the PML-N to establish the Sartaj Aziz committee to examine the matter. Realising the plight of the region, it recommended a provisional provincial status for GB.

Instead of accepting its own committee's recommendations, the PML-N government, influenced by the Kashmiri leadership, deprived the area of even those limited constitutional rights previously conferred to it by promulgating the draconian GB Order of 2018 which concentrated all executive and legislative powers in the hands of the prime minister of Pakistan, who is neither elected by nor accountable to the locals.

Seventy-two years have passed without any resolution of the status of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Frustrated by the brazen presidential decrees, GB's residents approached the Supreme Court. On Jan 17, 2019, a seven-member bench of the court announced a landmark judgement that struck down the 2018 order and issued the following directions to the federation:

'(i) The proposed order which (modified as noted above) is annexed to this judgement shall be forthwith promulgated by the president on the advice of the federal government and in any case within a fortnight thereof.

'(ii) No amendment shall be made to order as so promulgated except in terms of the procedures provided in Article 124 of the same, nor shall it be repealed or substituted without the instrument amending, repealing or substituting (as the case may be) the same being placed...