Gilgit-Baltistan : The Newly Developing Dynamics of Conflict
Pakistan’s Attempt at Provincializing the Region
Presages Racial & Cultural Ruin
By Onkareshwar Pandey
An interesting report by The Pakistani English daily, Dawn, has recently unraveled how the Chinese Government has contributed to distribute some 30,000 food packets among Gilgit-Baltistan’s underprivileged communities. The packets were reportedly delivered to Khalid Khursheed, chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party of Imran Khan.
November 25, 2021
The need for the food packets has arisen as the region is reeling under the debilitating effects of uncontrolled inflation. In fact entire Pakistan is suffering from a huge financial and resource crunch. But while the others have some means to stay afloat, places like Gilgit-Baltistan, already teetering under the burden of extreme poverty, are literally tearing apart.
What chance do these people have when even the lower-and middle-income classes are struggling to buy basic food items? On top of it, the Corona epidemic has severely impacted whatever little business activity was happening in the region.
The people have taken to the streets in order to compel the government to check the spiralling inflation. They are openly putting the blame on the ruling PTI and specifically its leader Prime Minister Imran Khan whom they define as unscrupulous and inept. However, protest did not yet pay any dividends since there is no one to listen to their voice, with the media put behind an iron wall.
The vibrant Diaspora of the region are the only ones to raise their voice but it seems to be quite inaudible and far away to reach or make even an iota of difference in the daily life of the common man.
It is harrowing to witness that the proud people of Gilgit-Baltistan who are hard working, honest and fully capable of looking after themselves, and also the proud inheritors of vast natural resources, have been reduced to a level where they have to subsist on food doled out by a foreign power. The effusive thanks that Chief Minister Khalid Khursheed extended to the Chinese for the same was akin to putting salt on the wounds inflited on his very people by extreme humiliation.
The federal government, through its stooges, is attempting to build trust in the minds of the locals towards the Chinese, whose increased presence in the region, to the extent of permanent settlement, has become a necessity since the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is manned exclusively by them. The few locals who may be employed in small, menial jobs are reportedly required to learn the Chinese language for which many centres have sprung up in the region.
The process of Chinese settlement has already commenced with the tacit permission of the stooge government; there is also a talk of welcoming these foreigners and giving to them a “minority status.” It is just a matter of time before the Chinese will come in enough numbers to change the demography of the region. The Xinjiang model to turn the ethnic population into a minority and onward irrelevance will be applied here also.