Time to reclaim Gilgit-Baltistan

Time to reclaim Gilgit-Baltistan

- Claude Arpi

RECENTLY, I came across an interesting announcement published in the 1948 London Gazette which mentioned that the King “has been graciously pleased… to give orders for… appointments to the Most Exalted Order of the British Empire…” The list included “Brown, Major (acting) William Alexander, Special List (exIndian Army).”

Who was he? What was this ‘special list’? Brown is infamous for illegally ‘offering’ Gilgit to Pakistan in 1947.

Complicit Maj. Brown

As we debate the question of nationalities after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed by the Parliament it raises several questions, including the question of the nationality of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.

But first, a little bit of history. In 1935, the Viceroy prevailed upon Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir, “in the interests of the security of the British empire” to lease the Gilgit Agency as well as the hill-states Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ishkoman for 60 years to the British. Thereafter, Gilgit was administered by the Political Department, with a political officer reporting to the Viceroy. In 2017, an article, When the British poured scorn over Gilgit, explained the background of the 1947 rebellion: “A carefully chosen force capable of rapid movement in the mountainous territory controlled by British officers, the Gilgit Scouts, provided the muscle to the administration.”