29 Oct PoK reunites with India:

PoK reunites with India

Details on Topic “PoK reunites with India”

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh:PoK reunites with India:

• Prelims: geographical locations in the map
• Mains: GS paper 1: Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country. GS paper II: India and its neighbourhood- relations.

Context

• Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister said on Thursday(27th October 2022) that States should have a uniform law and order policy as certain crimes such as cross-border terrorism and cybercrimes transcend regional and international boundaries.
•  Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister stated that by 2024, to counter terror activities, each State would have a National Investigation Agency (NIA) office as the agency had been given “extraterritorial jurisdiction” and additional powers to confiscate property in terror-related cases.
• He called for the centralization of data on terror and other crimes and said that following the principle of “one data, one entry,” the NIA had been entrusted with the task of maintaining a national terror database, the Enforcement Directorate a dataset on financial crimes and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on narco crimes

Where are Gilgit and Baltistan-

• Gilgit-Baltistan, earlier it was  known as the Northern Areas,
•  It is a  region that comes under the administration of Pakistan,  as an administrative territory,
• This region includes the northern part of the larger Kashmir region which has been considered  as  a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and  later on and between India and China from
• The region shared the border with  Azad Kashmir to the south, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north, the Xinjiang region of China, to the east and northeast, and the Indian-administered union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to the southeast.
• The region, together with Azad Kashmir in the southwest, is grouped and referred to by the United Nations and other international organisations as “Pakistan-administered Kashmir”.
• Gilgit-Baltistan is 6 times larger than Azad Kashmir in terms of geographical area.

A brief history of Gilgit-Baltistan

It was a  part of J&K:

•  The beautiful region was a part of the Princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, however, it was directly ruled by the British rule, they took this region on lease from Hari Singh, a Hindu king of the Muslim majority states.

Gilgit Scouts rebellion:

• On October 26, 1947, when King Hari Singh agreed to India, there starts a  rebellious movement from the Gilgit Scouts.
• They headed to take over the Baltistan, but at that time it was a part of Ladakh, they got captured by the Skardu, Kargil and Dras.
• After a battle, Indian forces retook Kargil and Dras in August 1948.

Pak enters into an agreement with Azad J&K govt:

• When India and Pakistan agreed to a truce in January 1949.
• Pakistan agrees with an agreement with the “provincial government ” of “Azad Jammu and Kashmir”  the region which was occupied by Pakistani troops and irregular, to take over the foreign and defence affairs.
• The agreement also Azad Jammu and Kashmir government  gave the administrative control of Gilgit- Baltistan to Pakistan

Gilgit-Baltistan not recognised as a province:

• When Pakistan adopted its first full-fledged civilian Constitution, in 1974, there are only four listed in the constitution. they are

Punjab,

Sindh,

 Balochistan and

Khyber Pakthunkhwa.

• Pok i.e. Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan were not included in the constitutional list as provinces.
• In 1975, PoK adopted its own Constitution, however, it still remained under the control of the Pakistani federal administration and the security establishment, through the Kashmir Council.
• Pakistan brought in the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009, In 2009, changing the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) into Legislative Assembly, and the Northern Areas were given back its original name of Gilgit-Baltistan.
• Gilgit-Baltistan observed November 1, 2020,  as “Independence Day”, Imran Khan also announced that his government would give the region “provisional provincial status”.

What was happening in Gilgit?

• Presently, the Gilgit area is under the possession of Pakistan,
• The area is currently under the possession of Pakistan, in contravention of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolution of 28 April 1949.
• Pakistan occupied the region without the consent of the Gilgit-Baltistan people and, in spite of the UNCIP’s calls for Pakistan to take out their forces from the disputed area, the occupation remains to till date.
• For the last 60 years, the region of Gilgit-Baltistan has lacked a proper constitutional status, a functioning legal system and political autonomy.

What is the significance of  Gilgit-Baltistan?

Political and geographical:

• The region is a trijunction, located between three geographical regions southern, central and eastern Asia, it makes one of the world’s most significant geostrategic points, both in terms of politics and geography.

Military significance:

• In a matter of a two-front war against India, control over the Gilgit-Baltistan region can help with drastically affecting and determining the outcome.
• Setting up an advanced Air Force base in Gilgit-Baltistan can ruin the enemy’s confidence and control the movement of conflict to India’s side.

Rich in resources:

• it is a treasure of many earthy resources, the region is rich in mineral deposits.
• One can find, metallic, non-metallic, energy minerals, precious stones and different rocks of industrial use.
• The southern region of Gilgit-Baltistan is rich with substantial deposits of nickel, lead, copper and zircon.
• Towards the northern part, it has deposits of iron, silver, gold, garnet and topaz.
• Almost all of its mining potential is unused and has the capability to boost our economy.

Strategic importance for India:

•  Under the CPEC(China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) agreement, Beijing is investing a big amount of wealth, to develop the region as a part of its Belt and Road Initiative, and the concerns of a two-front war the standoff in the Eastern Ladakh in 2020, hence the areas has an increase in the strategic significance for India in light of CPEC.

 Sources 

The Hindu 

The Indian Express 

Daily Current affairs for UPSC

Are you eagerly looking for daily updated Current affairs for UPSC exam? Plutus IAS provides you daily updated current affairs at free of cost. Here the topic described above is related to the topic on Subject Indian Polity and Governance. Get such kind of latest  and updated current affairs for UPSC exam from our daily current affairs site.

farhin