On 7th June, Gilgit Baltistan will go to the polls. This will be the fourth election since GB got a limited self-governing status under a framework introduced in 2009. GBians got the right to choose representatives for the local Assembly under the 2009 Presidential Order, but electoral participation does not mean constitutional membership. The state narratives bridge that gap by constructing a sense of belonging without constitutional integration.

Pakistani textbooks and official maps show GB as an integral part of Pakistan. The government runs tourism campaigns and issues passports to the residents. The Army issues martyrs’ lists. All this narrative contributes to a constructed sense of national belonging by normalising the constitutional exclusion. The discourse pre-empts the question of GB’s political identity even before it is asked. Even progressive voices often place GB in the same category as Balochistan and KP—peripheral regions with political reservations.

The categorisation is imprecise. Balochistan is protected under Articles 1 and 8 of the Constitution. KPK gets NFC funds. They have representation in Parliament. Balochistan’s and KP’s issues are real, but they are the grievances of constitutional citizens against a state that has failed to deliver. GB’s case does not fit in that category. It is an administered territory whose residents perform citizenship without constitutional guarantees. The progressive discourse’s failure to distinguish this sustains the mainstream Pakistani narrative of GB’s invisibility, what the scholar Nosheen........

© The Friday Times