Gilgit-Baltistan

35°35′N 75°9′E / 35.583°N 75.150°E / 35.583; 75.150

This article details only the area administered by Pakistan. For the full region see Kashmir

Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA)
Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA)
Regional Capital	Gilgit
Languages	Urdu Shina Balti Tibetan Wakhi Burushaski Khowar Pashto
Area	72,496 km² (27,991 Sq Miles)
Population	1,500,000 (estimated)
Revenue & NFC - National revenue share - Received share	% (contribution) % (from federal gov't)
Time zone	PST, UTC +5
Number of Districts	6
Number of Towns	7
Administration	Federal Minister of States and Frontier Regions
Northern Areas Official Website

The Northern Areas (Urdu: شمالی علاقہ جات), now known officially as the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), is the northernmost area of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The area west of the Indus River was known as the Gilgit Agency until October 1947.

History

After the partition of India in 1947, the Hindu maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir attempted to turn Jammu and Kashmir into an independent state. This was soon followed by a tribal invasion of Kashmir backed by regular Pakistani troops. Fearing the might of Pakistani Forces, Kashmir sought military help from India and, in return, the maharaja agreed to accede to India. India accepted this, and the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947 was fought to send Pakistani forces back. However, the war was not decisive and a cease-fire was called in 1948. The end of the war saw India gaining most of Kashmir, including the fertile parts of it, with Pakistan securing the northern and western parts of Kashmir. The part of Kashmir to the north and west of the cease-fire line or the Line of Control, known as the Northern Areas (72,496 km²) in the north and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (13,297 km²) in the south, is controlled by Pakistan. The name "Northern Areas" was first used by the United Nations to refer to the northern areas of Kashmir. A small part of the Northern Areas, the Trans-Karakoram Tract, was ceded to the People's Republic of China by Pakistan in 1963.

Subdivisions

The Northern Areas is divided into six districts^[1] in three divisions: the two Baltistan districts of Skardu and Ghanche, two Gilgit districts of Gilgit and Ghizer and two Diamir districts districts of Astore and Diamir. The main political centers are the towns of Gilgit, Skardu, and Chilas.


Division	District	Area (km²)	Population (1998)	Headquarters
Baltistan	Ghanche	6,400	88,366	Khaplu
	Skardu	15,000	214,848	Skardu
Diamer	Astore	8,657	71,666	Gorikot
	Diamir	10,936	131,925	Chilas
Gilgit	Ghizer	9,635	120,218	Gahkuch
	Gilgit	26,300	243,324	Gilgit
Northern Areas	6 districts	69,971	970,347

Geography

The Northern Areas borders the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan to the northwest, the Xinjiang autonomous region of China to the northeast, the disputed State of Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast, the Pakistani-administered state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast and the North-West Frontier Province to the west.

The region is home to some of the world's highest mountain ranges — the main ranges are the Karakoram and the western Himalayas. The Pamir mountains are to the north, and the Hindu Kush lies to the west. Amongst the highest mountains are Godwin-Austen and Nanga Parbat, one of the most feared mountains in the world.

Climate

The climate of the Northern Areas varies from region to region. There are towns like Gilgit and Chilas that are very hot during the day in summers, yet cold at nights, and valleys like Astore, Khaplu, Yasin, Hunza, and Nagar where the temperatures are cold even in summers.

Sites of Interest

The Northern Areas is a major destination for foreign tourists especially for serious mountaineers because it is home to five of the eight-thousanders and more than fifty peaks above 7000m. Gilgit and Skardu are the two main hubs for all expeditions to these mountains.

Mountains and glaciers

Five of the Eight-thousander (above 8,000m) peaks of the world are in the Northern Areas. Three of the world's seven longest glaciers outside the polar regions are also in the Northern Areas, the Biafo Glacier, the Baltoro Glacier, and the Batura Glacier.

Some of the notable peaks include:

Godwin-Austen (K2), 2nd highest in the world at 8,611m.
Nanga Parbat, 9th highest in the world at 8,125m
Gasherbrum I, 11th highest in the world at 8,080m.
Broad Peak, 12th highest in the world at 8,047m.
Gasherbrum II-IV, 13th-17th highest in the world at 8,035m-7,932m
Masherbrum (K1), 22nd highest in the world at 7,821m.
Rakaposhi, 27th highest in the world at 7,788m.

Lakes

There are several high altitude lakes in the Northern Areas.

Deosai Plains

The Deosai Plains, located above the tree line, are the second-highest plains in the world at 4,115 m (13,500 feet). They lie south of Skardu and east of the Astore Valley. The area was declared to be a national park in 1993. The Deosai Plains cover an area of almost 3,000 square kilometers. For just over half the year (between November and May), Deosai is snow-bound.

Rock art and petroglyphs

File:Petroglyphs near Chilas - Pakistan05 007.jpg

Ancient petroglyphs near Chilas

There are more than 20,000 pieces of rock art and petroglyphs all along the Karakoram Highway in the Northern Areas, that are 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 BC, showing single animals, triangular men and hunting scenes in which the animals are larger than the hunters. These carvings were pecked into the rock with stone tools and are covered with a thick patina that proves their age. The archaeologist 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 and the later released Between Gandhara and the Silk Roads - Rock Carvings Along the Karakoram Highway.^{[citation needed]}

Transportation

Road transport

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) connects Islamabad to Gilgit and Skardu, which are the two major hubs for mountaineering expeditions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The journey from Islamabad to Gilgit takes approximately 20-24 hours. Landslides on Karakoram Highway are not uncommon, but bulldozers usually clear the road in little time. KKH connects Gilgit to Taxkorgan and Kaxgar in Xinjiang, China via Sust (the customs and health inspection post on Pakistan side) and theKhunjerab Pass, the highest paved international border crossing in the world at 4,693 metres (15,397 feet).

NATCO (Northern Areas Transport Corporation) offers bus and jeep transport service to the two hubs and several other popular destinations, lakes, and glaciers in the area.

Commuter service between Gilgit and Kaxgar

In March 2006, the respective governments announced that, commencing on June 1, 2006, a thrice weekly bus service would begin across the boundary from Gilgit, Northern Areas to Kaxgar, China and road widening work would begin on 600 kilometers of the Karakoram Highway. There would also be one daily bus in each direction between the Sust and Taxkorgan border areas of the two countries. ^[2]

Air transport

Pakistan International Airlines used to fly a Fokker F27 daily between Gilgit Airport and Islamabad International Airport. The flying time is approximately 50 minutes, and the flight is one of the most scenic flights in the world, as its route passes over Nanga Parbat, and the peak of the mountain is higher than the aircraft's cruising altitude. PIA also offers regular flights of Boeing 737 between Skardu and Islamabad. However, the Fokker F27 was retired after the crash at Multan in 2006.

All flights, however, are subject to weather clearance, and in winters, flights are often delayed by several days.

Demographics

The population consists of many diverse linguistic, ethnic and religious groups due in part to the many isolated valleys separated by some of the world's highest mountains. Punjabis are settled in large numbers. Urdu is the lingua franca of the region, understood by most inhabitants. The Shina language (with several dialects) is the language of 40% of the population, spoken mainly in Gilgit, throughout Diamer, and some parts of Ghizer. The Balti language, a sub-dialect of Ladakhi and part of Tibetan language group is spoken by the population of Baltistan. Minor languages spoken in the area include Wakhi spoken in upper Hunza, and some villages in Ghizer, while Khowar is the major language of Ghizer. Burushaski is an isolated language spoken in Hunza, Nagar, Yasin (where Khowar is also spoken), some parts of Gilgit and some villages of Punyal. Another interesting language is Domaaki, spoken by the musician clans of the region. A sizeable minority also speaks Pashto.

At the last census (1998), the population of the Northern Areas was 870,347. ^[3] Approximately 14% of the population was urban. ^[4]

Recent history

The region used to consist of many small states ruled by hereditary Mirs (in Hunza and Nagar) or Raas (in Gilgit). Some parts of the region were invaded by Kashmir, and nominally the states were governed as a part of Kashmir for many years. Locally, this association with Kashmir is disputed by some who regard themselves as being distinct from Kashmiris, while others choosing to identify themselves as Kashmiris. There is also significant support for the region to become a province of Pakistan, separate from Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The region's lack of representation in the Pakistani parliament has placed it outside the mainstream politics of the country,and is a major cause of frustration among the local population. Unlike Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the Northern Areas is governed directly by Pakistan as a de facto part of Pakistan.

Ancient history

Manuscript of the Buddhist Jyotiṣkāvadāna text written in the Sarada script, from Gilgit.

The southern route of the ancient Silk Road passes through the area, travelled by merchants from many far-off places who may have stopped here and intermarried with the locals. It had long been speculated that the relatively fair-skinned and, in places, light-haired people of the area were descendants of the Greeks who, beginning with the soldiers of Alexander the Great, and continuing into the Greco-Buddhist period, settled in the region (see Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek). However, recent DNA analysis has failed to find any evidence of Greek ancestry. It is now thought that much of the population is descended from various aboriginal peoples as well as the descendants of Indo-Iranian tribes and possibly from Tokharian-speaking Yuezhi people from Gansu, who ruled the region during the Kushan era.

The Kashmir dispute

India does not recognise the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir as part of Pakistan and refers to them as "Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)". Pakistan's position is to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir to determine the will of the people, according to the three resolutions of the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission. The promised plebiscite however, has never been held in the region due to the failure of Pakistan to first pull back their troops and vacate their respective parts of Kashmir, which was the first precondition for the plebiscite to be held.

Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state with a Muslim majority ruled by a Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh until 1947. In 1947, when the United Kingdom granted the Indian subcontinent independence, Hari Singh initially sought to be independent of both India and Pakistan. Soon after independence, Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province invaded the then independent state of Jammu and Kashmir. With no defence forces and a deteriorating human rights condition, the Maharaja turned to India for military assistance. India's then Governor-General, Lord Mountbatten, favored the state's accession to India, to which the Maharaja agreed. After the Instrument of Accession was signed, the National Conference's Sheikh Abdullah became the head of the Kashmir state government. By January 1948, Pakistan had contested the accession and invaded Kashmir. After months of intense fighting, both nations agreed on a cease-fire, separating the region into two controlled areas: Indian-controlled Kashmir and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. In 1962, China fought a war with India and occupied the disputed northeastern part of the Kashmir region known as Aksai Chin, which India claims as an integral part of India. Ever since, a bitter enmity has developed between India and Pakistan. The two countries have been to war twice over Kashmir (1947-1949 and 1965), and clashed there again during the Kargil Conflict of 1999. The region remains one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world. The de facto situation, as of 2007, is that Pakistan controls the western third, India controls much of the rest, apart from two small regions occupied by China. Since the end of the first Kashmir war, the region has not had a clearly defined constitutional status, since Pakistan did not want to integrate it into its constitution until the Kashmir issue was resolved. This resulted in a lack of representation in the Pakistan parliament for the residents of the region and and undetermined legal status, both matters of which have been a cause of continuing concern.^[5] The lack of legal rights and the resultant denial of human rights has created problems in the region.^[6] The Human Right Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has criticized Islamabad over the state of basic human and political rights in the Northern Areas.^[7] This, along with reports of abuse by the Pakistan Army in the region, has created some tensions.^[8]Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, quoted by The Hindu notes that "Though outwardly calm, the Northern Areas of Pakistan are simmering with a crisis that has all the ingredients of boiling over the rim"^[9] A political group which refers to the region as Balawaristan has demanded independence, expressing a desire to gain indepdence, but the group has very limited support among the residents of Northern Areas^[10]^[11] All this has resulted in a steep decline in tourism to the Northern Areas.^[12]

National Honors

The people of Northern Areas are well renowned for their courage and valor. Hence, majority of the Northern Light Infantry is composed of residents of the Northern Areas. The Northern Light Infantry was primarily used during the Kargil War and suffered heavy losses; The Herald, a pakistani publication, stated that more than 500 soldiers were killed and buried in the northern areas^[13]. Lalak Jan from Yasin, Northern Areas was awarded Pakistan's highest medal, Nishan-e-Haider for his courageous actions during the Kargil conflict.

Notes and References

^ "Wrangling over new Astore district headquarters" (HTML). Dawn Newspaper Internet Edition. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
^ "Kaxgar-Gilgit bus service planned" (HTML). Dawn Newspaper Internet Edition. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
^ "Administrative Division and Population of the Northern Areas (1998)" (HTML). Northern Areas Management Information System. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
^ "Population, poverty and environment" (PDF). Northern Areas Strategy for Sustainable Development. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
^ Discord in Pakistan’s Northern Areas Asia Report, International Crisis Group, 2 April 2007
^ matterssww.dawn.com/2007/01/05/nat15.htm Govt’s policy leaves people in the lurch: Status of Northern Areas By Syed Irfan Raza] January 05, 2007 Dawn
^ The Northern Areas' dangerous limbo by M. Ismail Khan September 27, 2005 The News, Pakistan
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ [3]
^ Balawaristan official page
^ Tourism on the decline in Northern Areas By Shabbir Ahmed Mir The News, Pakistan
^ The Herald Special Report on Kargil

Pakistan Trekking Guide, by Isobel and Ben Shaw, 1993.
Raman, Anita D (2004). "Of Rivers and Human Rights: The Northern Areas, Pakistan's Forgotten Colony in Jammu and Kashmir". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. 11: 187–228. doi:10.1163/1571811041631272. ISSN (Print) 1571-8115 (Online) 1385-4879 (Print) 1571-8115 (Online). {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |quotes=, |laydate=, |laysource=, and |laysummary= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)