By Samuel Baid

In 1972, when he had been made the Chief Martial Law Administrator-cum-President of the just truncated Pakistan by country’s defeated Army, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto said the problem of Baluchistan was its Sardars.  He was hostile to them because in the December 1970 elections, under their influence, Baluchistan totally rejected his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The Sardars demanded that their Victorious National Awami Party (NAP) be allowed to form the government in Baluchistan.  Bhutto did not like it but since the support of this party was unavoidable for the passage of the under-preparation constitution, he gave in. The NAP had unchallenged position in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province- NWFP- (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-KPK).  So, Bhutto willy-willy allowed NAP government in Baluchistan.  However, after the passage and promulgation of the Constitution on August 14, 1973, Bhutto dismissed the NAP government in Baluchistan on charges that it was getting arms from Iraq to attack Pakistan.  He ordered military crackdown on the population of Baluchistan and jailed all top NAP leaders including its Chief Khan Abdul Wali Khan. Wali Khan alleged jailed NAP leaders were subjected to slow poisoning.

The Baluch went up the hills with their weapons to fight the bombing Army.  A large number of the Baluch fled to Afghanistan where Khair Bux Marri organized military training for NAP Chief Minister in the dismissed provincial government. Ataullah Mengal went away to London to return home after about six months with a vow not to speak Pakistan’s national language Urdu.  This Sardar thus, isolated himself from Pakistan’s social and political life.

Nawab Akbar Bugti made himself an object of Baluch distrust and contempt by betraying Ataullah Mengal’s Provincial Baluchistan government by telling Bhutto that this government was getting arms from Iraq.  Bhutto rewarded Bugti with the Governorship of Baluchistan.  But Bugti’s allegation was never proved. It, however, helped Bhutto to fill up the Provincial Assembly with his own party’s defeated candidates just as governor general and Muslim League leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah did in NWFP in 1947 after removing Doctor Khan Saheb’s Congress government.

Bugti must have felt double crossed by the Pakistan establishment when the rival Bugti tribe rose against him. Then he tried to rehabilitate himself by demanding return of natural wealth, including Gwadar, of Baluchistan to its people.  “Our Wasael and Sahil” (our natural resources and coasts) became his slogan for which he was killed by the Army in 2006.

A powerful Sardar, Ataullah Mengal quietened himself. Bugti was removed from the scene and now there is a conspiracy to eliminate Ataullah’s son Akhtar Mengal.  He is a non aggressive but capable politician. The Army does not want to see him in power. He had become chief minister of Baluchistan in the 1990s.  He was removed and subsequently put in a cage in Karachi. But in his media interviews, he showed no cantankerous feelings for anybody. He is now facing threats to his life for demanding Baluchistan’s right to its natural resources.

Like rival Bugti tribe against Akbar Bugti, a death squad headed by one Shafiq Mengal has been set-up to eliminate Akhtar Mengal. Shafiq from Khuzdar has been made very powerful by the Army. He belongs to rival Mengal tribe and said to be responsible for many deaths and disappearances.  He has set up Baluch Armed Defence Organisation, a pro-Army tribal militia. This militia was established ten years after the killing of Bugti. Shafiq Mengal has grabbed Akhtar Mengal’s land, unleashing a war between the two rival armies of Mengal tribes.

Bhutto had cursed Sardar influence in Baluchistan. But, alas, Baluchistan has become a lawless province with official mechanizations.   The rule of lawless elements like Shafiq Mengal is not surprising.

(The Author can be reached at [email protected])

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

The emotion of love and hate that marked India-Pakistan relations in the past did not allow the stalemate between the two neighbors to persist without an end. But Pakistan’s political leadership that replaced seasoned leaders in 2018 did not show any sensitivity about relations with neighbors. In fact, they did not show adequate interest in the four provinces of own Pakistan- then what to talk of the region.  For example, when former Prime Minister Imran Khan talked of Pakistan, he mainly confined himself to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK). Sindh and Baluchistan did not seem to be existing for him.

On the other hand, India is adamant that it will talk to Pakistan only if it drops its policy of using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy.  Pakistan cannot do that. India has experienced that all peace efforts have been sabotaged by the terrorist activities against it or by dismissal of pro-normalization leaders.  Cash-strapped Pakistan has been producing lakhs of terrorists every year.  Their utility is only to the Army by keeping India disturbed. Former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif admitted in February 2023 that terrorists roam around in Pakistan.  Those who breed the army of terrorists do not seem to understand how this always begging country can afford to support an army of unproductive people.

Shehbaz admitted the presence of terrorists in his country but tries to deny that they enjoy official patronage or they had safe havens in Pakistan or that they were settled on any tract of Pakistan.  He said they had not been able to settle in any part of the country.  Going by Shehbaz’s claim, it looks Pakistani terrorists are like ghosts who roam around everywhere but the government does not know where they park themselves.  However, the people know where the establishment provides them safe houses in the four provinces.

The fact is that the just gone government of Shehbaz Sharif as also of his predecessor Imran Khan were beholden to the Army for the PM post.  Both of them were new to this post, but they knew no PM can exist in Pakistan if she or he tries to normalize relations with India.

Imran was ousted from power not because he made overtures to India, but because of his tiff with the Army Chief Gen. Javed Bajwa.  As for relations with India, he had blocked chances of normalization by pre-conditioning  them to the restoration of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gave Kashmiris a special status in India.  Imran had miserably failed in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn abrogation of Article 370. He spoke for longer than the time allotted to him and exposed his immaturity in diplomacy.  Muslim countries did not support him. In fact, India and Muslim countries’ relations became cordial as never before.  India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was warmly welcomed in all the Muslim countries he visited in the past two years, i.e. after Imran’s UNGA speech.

The erstwhile Shehbaz Sharif government was hesitant to talk about relations with India. Shehbaz fears the Army’s displeasure and Imran’s reaction just when the general elections are near. However, he made a neither-here-nor-there statement.  In January this year, he told Dubai-based news channel ‘Al Arabiya’ that three wars between India and Pakistan only brought more misery, poverty and unemployment to the people. He said a dialogue between India Pakistan would have no meaning without taking up contentious topics. That was an obvious reference to Kashmir.  And that means as Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto said, restoration of Article 370.

At the inaugural session of the Pakistan Minerals Summit in Islamabad early this month (August) Shahbaz stated that it was equally important that our neighbor (India) understood that we cannot become normal neighbors unless abnormalities are removed and until our serious issues are addressed through peaceful and meaningful discussions.

It is notable here that Shehbaz is emphasizing on Kashmir for peace but he is completely ignoring India’s complaint about Pakistani terrorist activities against it.

One uncharitable truth about Pakistan that we should keep in mind is that terrorism if it does not target the Pakistani Army is no terrorism. A Pakistani terrorist is produced not by economic or national forces but by distortion of religious teachings. Thus a terrorist who targets India is made to believe that he is fighting a jihad. That is why there is no punishment for him. Those terrorist who attack India live in safe houses in Pakistan under the protection of the Army. Was Shehbaz joking when he said India should understand “our serious issue.”

(The Author can be reached at [email protected])

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

United States former Secretary of States Hillary Clinton must have sounded like a voice in the wilderness when she warned Pakistan against rearing poisonous snakes in its backyard. By these snakes she obviously meant terrorists in the garb of Islam. They project Islam as a face of terrorism. This is more satanic than the Islamophobia in Europe, Holy Quran burning in Sweden or Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie.

India’s neighbour Pakistan and now Afghanistan abound with such snakes. Names like Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Lashkar-i-Tayyiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and many others have begun to sound obsolete in the face of about the daily killing of Muslims by the Tehreek-i-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) and its factions and the Islamic states in Iraq and Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda remains active in these countries as a guide of terrorists.

The TTP’s main targets in Pakistan are the Army and the Police.  The ISIL-K’s target in Afghanistan are the ruling Taliban. Pakistan, too, is its target. On December 2 last year it attacked Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul targeting Pakistan’s Charged’ Affaires Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani. He escaped unhurt but his guard was critically injured. Subsequently, the Taliban government killed 8 ISIL-K men who were involved in the attack on Pakistan’s embassy.

Again on July 30 this year, the ISIL-K staged a suicide attack in Pakistan, on a convention of the workers of Islamic Party Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam killing 54 workers in Khar area of Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). As said above, the Army and the police are the targets of the TTP. It has also threatened Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto. A TTP statement said “if these two parties Nawaz Muslim League and Pakistan People’s Party remain firm on their position and continue to be slaves of the Army, action will be taken against their leading people”.

TTP has been mighty emboldened to attack Pakistan, ironically, after Pakistan planked the Taliban on Afghanistan against its people’s will for the second time in about 20 years in August 2021. Pakistan in its twisted wisdom hoped that with the Taliban in power in Afghanistan it would have practical suzerainty over that country and the Taliban fighter could be used against India in Kashmir. But things would go the other way: the Taliban announced they would not be used against another and the soil of Afghanistan would not be used against another country. This was considered to be the Taliban’s reply to Pakistan’s design. In addition to this, the Taliban’s Pakistan-based ideological juniors, the TTP, announced its programme to increase attacks on Pakistani Army. And true to its word, it increased its almost daily attacks on the Army and the police.

Their biggest attack was early this year when they suicide-attacked a large mosque in Peshawar which was patronised by the policemen.  More than 100 worshippers were killed.  Earlier in December, the TTP took over a police detention centre in the garrison city of Bannu (KPK) and held Army and police official hostages after snatching their weapons and released some prisoners.

On January 2,Pakistan’s National Security Council sternly told the Taliban to stop patronising those terrorists who have fled from Pakistan to safe havens in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s reply is:

1. The TTP has safe heavens in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan.
2. The Taliban tell Pakistan they signed the Doha agreement not to let foreign terrorists operate in Afghanistan with the United States, not with Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan cannot ask them to honour this agreement.

• Pakistan should have direct talk with the TTP

1. To Pakistan’s threat of using its right of hot pursuit into Afghanistan, the Taliban reminded it of its Army’s meek surrender to India’s Army in December 1971

The Taliban who have much to thank Pakistan for their emergence what they are today, don’t seem ready to sacrifice their benefactor’s enemy number 1, the TTP. Perhaps the Taliban seriously believe in the assumption that an unstable country needs an external enemy. It is becoming clear that the Taliban cannot control the TTP. The TTP has come close to al-qaeda and other terrorist groups. There are already emotional issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan like the Durand line and Pakistan’s credibility in the eyes of the Afghans.

Pakistan’s problems like the Taliban, the TTP and many others are the product of its policy of mischievously exploiting the name of Islam. All Pakistani leaders right from the country’s creator Mohammad Ali Jinnah, have depended on the exploitation of Islam because none of them had a clear vision of Pakistan. As a result, poisonous snakes are covering the soil of this “God-given” country.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

From the Karachi newspapers in the early 1970s, one gets an impression that there was harmony between Shias and Sunnis. To some extent, it was reflected in the matrimonial advertisements in the Urdu newspapers. Some of them said: “we are cultured people from UP (India).  Gentlemen from Punjab and Kashmir should not bother to reply.” Such ads did not say Shias or Sunnis should not apply indicating that matrimonially, they were mutually acceptable.

And why not? Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Sunni, married Nusrat, an Iranian Shia. He was made Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) and President of Pakistan after its breakup in December 1971. Later, on August 14, 1973, he became the country’s Prime Minister on the inauguration of the new constitution. But, Shias were not destined to live a peaceful life in Pakistan, which had been created by their fellow-Shia Mohammad Ali Jinnah and where they accounted, it is said, for about 30 percent of the population.

The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran turned out to be the beginning of Shia’s nightmare in Pakistan. Gen Zia-ul-Haq, who had already completed about four years in usurped power after overthrowing Bhutto’s government in Pakistan in July 1975, did not like Ayatullah Khomeni. Khomeni looked askance at Zia’s Islamisation claims. His change in school text books and tax on agricultural income were rejected by Shias because they considered them against Shia’s teaching. They protested. Zia felt the Iran revolution had emboldened them.

Zia decided to tame them not by direct police action but by promoting Sunni hatred for them and the demand that Shias be thrown out from the pail of Islam as were Ahmadiyya’s by the Parliament in 1974.

There already existed Sunni Madarsas like Jamia Benuria in Karachi which preached against Shias. In addition, Shia helped in the establishment of notorious Lal Masjid in the heart of the national capital of Islamabad. This masjid believed in militant Sunni Islam and, therefore, was anti-Shia and home to Sunni terrorists.

At the same time (around 1986), Zia blessed the launching of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Pakistan (SSP). The SSP began a character assassination campaign, calling Shias immoral. This was a reference to the old Iranian practice to allow foreigners, who come to Iran for job, to have live-in relationship with local women and leave behind the woman and children while returning, with some money.

The SSP also campaigned for the ouster of Shias from Islam and killed them. It was considered the mother of all terrorist organization. But terrorists like Malik Ishaq accused the SSP of being not tough enough against Shia.  Thus Lashkar-e-Jhangvi emerged vowing in 1946 to cleanse Pakistan of Shias. Ishaq was responsible for the death of hundreds of Shias, but courts could not punish him because witnesses did not turn up. He started genocide of Hazara Shias in Quetta (Baluchistan) with impunity. It was very easy to kill Hazara Shias because they are not fighting type; they are more interested in education and progress.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi gave birth to a more poisonous outfit, called Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al Ahami. Thus, today Pakistan is bristling with terrorist groups who consider killing of fellow Muslims as a great service to Islam, thanks to Zia’s Islam.

Zia was irritated by Shia-majority Gilgit-Baltistan’s demand of civil rights and a constitutional identity. Zia gave them two replies:

• Increased the Army’s presence in the occupied territory and;
• Push armed Sunni hordes who destroyed local’s farms, shops and attacked Shias. Consequently, locals demand for civil right changed into Shia-Sunni riots in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Zia had a special grouse against Shias of North-West Frontier Province-NWFP- now, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). During, the Afghan war in the 1980s, a very large number of Shias were butchered in KPK. This news was suppressed because it clashed with America pro-war propaganda blitz. However, much later, some Urdu newspaper briefly reported this by writing that these Shias were accused of trying to stop Pakistani Mujahidin to go to Afghanistan to join American Jihad; Obviously, this killing of Shias were ordered by Zia.

Zia died in a plane crash in 1988.  But it was no cause of relief to Shias.  The SSP he had created led to other Shia killing organizations like Tehreek-i- Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) is also anti-Shia.

KPK’s Kurram district has been a Shia-Sunni battle ground for decades.  The district is a war-like situation. Social media reports claim that Taliban fighters have crossed Pak-Afghan border to join Sunni tribes against Shias in Kurram. Pakistan has not been able to firstly fence the border and disputes, especially, after the merger of FATA with KPK in 2018, are responsible for 3,000 deaths in Shia-Sunni violence. Kurram Agency has already seen prolonged Shia-Sunni riots between 2007 and 2014 which claimed 5,000 lives.

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

Despite all the hue and cry, the crime of kidnapping young Hindu girls to force them become Muslims to marry Muslim men goes on and so goes on destruction of Hindu temples to make them become shopping malls. Last month (July) two heinous crimes took place in Karachi within the space of about more than a week. The first incident of demolishing a 150 year old Hindu temple took place in Karachi’s Soldier Bazar under the very nose of the local police station.

In the second case three daughters of a Hindu businessman were kidnapped in Sindh’s Dhatki area. A leader of the Minority Right Group Shiva Kachhi said inspite of several pleas by his organization the kidnapping, forced conversion of Hindu girls and their forced marriage to Muslim men goes on. He said the police and authorities don’t help at all. It is said that after Seema Haider, a mother of four children ran away to India to join his Hindu boy friend Sachin, attacks on the Hindu community have increased. She had befriended Sachin online.

There is no logic in retaliating against Seema’s escape to India and against Hindus in Sindh. Did Pakistanis retaliate against Chinese in Pakistan when Pakistani girls ran away to China some years ago in search of suitable boys? Coming to the first incident, one hundred and fifty year old Hindu temple Mari Mata in soldier Bazaar was demolished with a bulldozer when the area was pitch dark because of no electricity. When the Hindus got up in the morning, they were shocked: there was no temple, only its boundary walls and gate were there. The residents said the police helped in the demolition. The Soldier Bazar Police station was just there.

Builders are always on loot for derelict Hindus places of worship, which after Hindus left what became Pakistan, became easy target for them because of the confusion about their ownership. For example, builders seem to be sure nobody will have ownership papers of the land (about 500 sq. yards) of Mari Mata temple. .

The Madrasi Hindu community manages the affairs of this temple. A member of the community said two persons were forcing them to vacate the temple. There was also talk the two had already sold the temple land for Rs. 70 million to a party which plans to build a commercial building there.

There is also a talk of a person possessing fake documents to allow transfer of lease. A place of worship is destroyed not merely for land grab but more so for blind hate. Thus it is not only Hindus’ temples, Christians’ Churches, ‘Ahmadiyyas’ places of worship but also Barelvis’ mosques by their fellow Sunni Deobandis we want to destroy or grab their mosques. Notably a Barelvi mosque is burnt together with the copies of holy Quran. No public protests are made.

Similarly, churches of Christians, whom they call Ahl-i-Kitab or the people of the same book are destroyed although the same God is worshipped there. During the 1965 war, Pakistani bombers wanted to target Ambala Cantt’s Military hospital but could not do so because the steeple of the Church came in the way of the bombers. Gen. Ayub Khan ordered the pilots to destroy the church. Pilots obeyed and the beautiful church was razed to ground in seconds.

Hindus and Buddhists, have given Pakistan a treasure of ancient temples which if developed as a tourist attraction can attract millions of tourists every year and remove the stigma of world beggar at the doors of non-Muslims in China, America and Europe. But Pakistan will have to first cross the seemingly impossible river of blind hate.

Pakistan is like a foolish man who slaughtered his hen who laid golden eggs every morning.

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

Tehrik-e-Labbaik, Pakistan (TLP) seems to have made anti-Ahmadiyya campaign in Punjab as its election campaign this year end.

The TLP is the re-christened name of Tehrik Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYRA), an organization of Barelvi fanatics who rose from the grave of Mumtaz Qadri, who had been executed for killing Governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer in January 2011 for demanding amendment in blasphemy laws.

The rechristening of the TLYRA came ahead of the 2018 general elections in the wake of rumours that the Army wanted to mainstream Islamist groups as political parties. It was here that the TLYRA decided to take part in elections as the TLP. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) registered it as a political party in 2017. In the following general elections in 2018, the TLP fielded about 750 candidates but won two seats in Sindh. However, it emerged as the fifth largest political party in Pakistan signaling success of the Pakistan Army’s strategy to mainstream Islamist groups as political parties.

The Army had helped TLP’s parent body, the TLYRA, in many ways to emerge as terror for the government. It gave financial help to the participants of the TYLRA’s dharna that kept road communication between Islamabad and Rawalpindi blocked for many days. The Islamabad High Court sternly told the government to use its police force to get this dharna dispersed. But to the chagrin  of the court, the government succumbed to the Army’s intervention to impose a compromise with the TYLRA. The government as a result had to withdraw cases against dharna participants; pay for the damage they had caused and remove the Law Minister who changed the electoral law which did not differentiate between Muslims and Ahmadiyyas in its column of religion of election forms. TYLRA did not want the identities of Muslims and Ahmadiyya to be submerged. That showed its hate for Ahmadiyyas.

As said earlier, the TYLRA had roots in Barelvi philosophy. But Barelvi chief Shah Ahmed Noorani believed in non violence. He had opposed the gun culture being promoted among the Pakistani youth to fight the America’s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Barelvis were among those Islamic groups in united India who opposed creation of Pakistan. But once Pakistan was created they shifted to the new country and joined against Ahmadiyyas who, they said, could not call themselves Muslims in a country created in the name of Islam. Former Chief Justice of Pakistan Muhammad Munir, who held the inquiry into anti-Ahmadiyya riots in Punjab in 1953, does not say in his Book from “Jinnah to Zia” (Lahore 1979) if Barelvis took any part in the riots. We used to get the image of Barelvis as pacifists.

As said above, Barelvi Chief Shah Ahmed Noorani had opposed arming of young people to fight America’s war in Afghanistan. Gen. Ziaul Haq, who was benefitting from this war, became hostile to anyone who opposed this. He was friendly to those who helped in war efforts. Thus Deobandis of Maulana Fazul ur Rehman who produced thousands of young people from his ISI-funded madarsas to fight in Afghanistan freely attacked Barelvi’s mosques and captured them.

Barelvi youths were thus radicalized to protect their mosques. They set up Sunni Tehrik in 1990 and became Sunni sectarian militant outfit. Mumtaz Qadri, who had killed Punjab’s governor for demanding amendment to the Blasphemy laws, was a member of the Sunni Tehrik.

The success of its dharna in protest against the Law Minister’s change in the election form must have convinced the TLYRA that anti-Ahmadiyya plank could be the most vote catching strategy in elections. Perhaps it was because of this that it decided to fight the July 2018 general elections in the name of TLP- and it did well.

The TLP has started a campaign against Ahmadiyyas in Jhelum (Punjab). It has threatened to destroy places of worship of Ahmadiyyas if the police do not destroy them by the end of current month. The police at once came into action and pulled down the minarets of a newly built place of worship of Ahmadiyyas. The TLP said the minarets made the structure look like a mosque – which is illegal, according to rules laid down by Gen. Ziaul Haq. These rules said Ahmadiyyas must not show by word or signs that they are Muslims.

If an epitaph on the gravestone of a dead Ahmadiyya suggests he was a Muslim it is blasphemy. Therefore, fanatics like the TLP break such graves. They also do not allow Ahmadiyyas to celebrate Eid. At the time of just- ended Eid-ul-Zuha, sacrificial animals were snatched away from Ahmadiyya faith folks.

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

A fish jumps out of a frying pan for freedom, but, alas, it falls into the fire.  This is the tragic story of the people of Gilgit – Baltistan.  The British, when they held Gilgit on lease from Maharaja Hari Singh of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, treated the locals as slaves, who had no rights or voice.

Before independence in 1947, the British returned Gilgit to Maharaja Hari Singh. Subsequent assessment in Pakistan presume that the Maharaja wanted to make Gilgit a province of Jammu and Kashmir.  But the Gilgit scouts revolted against the Maharaja and temporarily handed over its administration to Pakistan.  This decision of the Gilgit scouts proved hell fire for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Pakistan took over the administration and began considering itself as the successor of the British.  It retained all the inhuman laws with which the British tamed the locals. Pakistan was also not willing to treat them as full-fledged human beings.

Years of suppression by the British, when they had Gilgit on lease, had conditioned the locals to timidly bear their deprivations and humiliation.  They might have had some hopes when fellow- Muslim Pakistan took over the administration of Gilgit.  But they were rudely disillusioned when they found their fellow-Muslims were worse than the non-Muslim whites.

Pakistan just didn’t bother that these people were Muslims.  Perhaps the fact that these Muslims were mostly Shias made Pakistan’s Sunni fanatics hostile to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. It was something they did not suffer even during the British tyrannical rule.

There had been no reports that the British starved the locals to keep them tamed.  Nor were these reports that the locals were deprived of their land. The British, known for their divide-and-rule policy, did not apply this policy by dividing Shias and Sunnis in Gilgit.  They had equal contempt and suspicion of all locals in the territory.

When the people came under the administrative control of Pakistan they got to know how torture, humiliation, and frustration and deprivation go together. They had suppressed aspirations to have some identity and civil rights. They could not possibly struggle when the British controlled them.  They might be having some hope when the British returned the lease to Maharaja Hari Singh. But the Gilgit scouts pushed the people to another phase of slavery by revolting against the Maharaja and offering Gilgit to Pakistan on a platter.

Hoping Pakistan would understand their aspirations for civil rights and a constitutional identity, they started a movement.  But how wrong they were.  How could Pakistan understand them if after 75 years of independence, it has itself not understood democracy and civil rights.

In 1988, military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq decided to put an end to the demands of the people of Gilgit- Baltistan by a three-pronged action:

1. Deployment of the Army which alleged Iranian hand in the Gilgit- Baltistan stir;
2. Invasion of Gilgit-Baltistan by armed Pakistanis who plundered locals farms and shops and snatched their businesses and;

• Divide Shias and Sunnis: From now on Shia-Sunni riots became frequent.  Their demands of civil rights disappeared.

A greater blow to their aspirations was given by then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1994, when she announced new reforms for Gilgit-Baltistan allowing party-based elections.  As a result, all Pakistani political parties and Islamic groups began opening their branches to fight the coming elections.

Now, a new chapter of misery started.  After 1994, Pakistan based political parties took control of Gilgit Baltistan. These parties are ignorant of the problems of this region and its people, but they assert themselves to uphold the interest of Pakistan.  Worse, at the time of elections, the local voters prefer these Pakistan-based parties’ candidates to their own local candidates who know the local problems and their solution very well.

The current crisis in Gilgit-Baltistan is due to the locals’ preference for Pakistan-based candidates who neither are aware of the local problems, nor they want to know them.  Their indifference to the problems of GB is like the British attitude towards them.

Today, the people have been deprived of all fundamental, civic and political rights. If they agitate, their leaders are hauled up illegally under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Law. The so-called assembly of Gilgit-Baltistan does not discuss people’s problems.  The ruling elite allocates funds for luxury and increase their salaries and allowances but for public work, they say, there is no budget.  The government perpetually fails to provide necessities like clean drinking water, electricity, health facilities, roads, wheat, pulses and education facilities.

Revolt is brewing up against Pakistan in Gilgit Baltistan. The locals are questioning Pakistan’s right to divide and alter Gilgit-Baltistan’s geographical make-up.  Perhaps it is a reference to dividing occupied Kashmir into “Azad” Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan and giving away a large chunk of Hunza (Gilgit-Baltistan) territory to China in March 1963.  The local people are intrigued why Pakistan is keeping the boundaries of Gilgit Baltistan unknown. They want United Nations Military Observer Group (UNMOG) to intervene.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.

By Samuel Baid

The Army seems to be cooking political khichri in the messy Kitchen of Pakistan.  It first raised Imran Khan to the Prime Minister’s post.  Then a year before he could complete his term, he was thrown out through opposition’s no-confidence vote with the Army’s backing. The opposition called the ‘Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)’ was helped to form a coalition Government under Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).  The PDM has begun cracking as the elections draw near. Amid this, a new party called Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) has sprouted. The father of IPP is Imran’s former friend and notorious sugar mafia Jahangir Tareen. The Army is said to be behind this party too.

In the next elections (if they really happen), pollsters will find it difficult to make any predictions because of unclear identities of political parties and the Army’s choice. Currently the parties are: (I)Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf  (PTI), which is supposed to have good influence in Pakistan’s most important province, Punjab. His ex-friend Jahangir Tareen has also a great influence in this province.  What is puzzling here is that, it is not known how serious is the Imran-Tareen rift.  It is notable here that after this rift became public, Imran inducted a cousin of Tareen in his Cabinet; keeping the door open for reconciliation with Tareen. Also, Tareen’s IPP is mainly made up of Imran’s former supporters. This mean if the Army decides (on whatever conditions), we cannot rule out a PTI-IPP link up, possibly minus Imran. There were suggestions of in-house change when Imran was facing opposition’s onslaught.  In other words, an Imran less PTI is not impossible. But there are other signals, too which dim the above scenario. This is the future of the Army supported present coalition government. The PDM conglomeration stands on two feet of clay with the Army’s support. These two feet are Nawaz Muslim League (now headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif) and the Pakistan People Party (PPP).  Corruption and inefficiency have eroded people’s confidence in them.   After the 1980s, these two parties gained tremendous political strength not because of their work but because of shameless and merciless loot of their country. PPP leader Asif Zardari did not bother about his country when nick named “Mr 10 percent”.

Between 1988 and 2017, the PPP and the Muslim League (N) ruled Pakistan alternatively and when in power punished each other for corruption. Out of power, they can pretend bonhomie. For example, when they were in exile in London, then chairperson of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto and then president of the Muslim League (N) Nawaz Sharif signed a charter of democracy, vowing to keep aloof from the Army. Army chief Gen. Parvez Musharraf, who overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Government in October 1999, repeatedly said he would not allow these two corrupt leaders to return to Pakistan. But ultimately, he signed an NRO (National Reconciliation Order) to allow them to return home and play a part in its political life.

Back home, Benazir was assassinated in 2007 and in the general elections that followed in 2008, the PPP won and Asif Ali Zardari became country’s President. Zardari was reluctant to reinstate Supreme Court judge whom Musharaf had sacked. Nawaz Sharif came out in favour of the judges against the PPP.  The charter of Democracy bonhomie broke and the PPP and Muslim League (N) parted company. The formation of PDM was inspired by Nawaz Sharif from London to oust Imran from power. First, he emboldened the opposition against the Army. But Army was not the target of the PDM. The target was Imran’s PTI Government.  The Army supported the PDM’s no-confidence motion against Imran’s government and ousted it in April 2022.

Ousted Imran is in trouble-facing about 100 cases.  But ironically Imran’s trouble are weakening the unity of the PDM as its members are getting over-confident. The PPP wants to recapture Punjab in the coming elections challenging Muslim League (N) which it thinks has become weak there. The PPP is condemning the shehbaz Sharif’s government for causing economic mess in the country.

While the PDM is showing signs of cracks, the Army is reportedly toying with the idea of making present Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari next Prime Minister. His father Zardari will surely back it. It was on his insistence that Bilawal was made Foreign Minister. If the Army goes ahead with this reported idea, the PDM will certainly break apart now that the Muslim League (N) has made arrangements for the home return for Nawaz from London to become Pakistan’s Prime Minister a fourth time.

Note: The views  and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.