The State vs The Activist

Tanveer Ahmed


Shafqat Ali Inqalabi


A little over a month ago on the 4th of March, Shafqat Ali Inqalabi filed a petition in Pakistan’s apex court questioning the legitimacy of the State Executive’s “Empowerment” and “Self-Governance” Order for Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly referred to as “Northern Areas”) on September the 9th last year.

Hailing from Panial in district Ghizar, Mr. Inqalabi is a civil engineer by profession and a passionate activist for the people of his homeland “Balawaristan” by conviction. Shafqat ‘walks the walk’ just as well as he ‘talks the talk’. It was only at the beginning of this year that he obtained a construction contract. In the spirit of a genuine activist, as soon as he received payment for the work done: his instincts immediately directed him to use whatever civil recourse he could adopt to challenge Pakistan’s “illegal” hegemony and oft-repeated unilateral tactic, of depriving the people of the erstwhile and possible future State of Jammu and Kashmir’s northern-most territory of meaningful public representation.

Hence the petition.

This initiative has not been digested well by Pakistan’s clandestine agencies. It matters little that Mr. Inqalabi has invoked his basic right under Article 184(3) of Pakistan’s constitution, which relates to the enforcement of fundamental rights. It probably matters even less that the executive order otherwise known as a “package” encroaches upon the domain of independence of people of that area, indicating a brazen paternalistic attitude on the part of Pakistan’s executive organ of the State.

Consistent with this tradition, Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and IB (Intelligence Bureau) have constantly hounded Shafqat Ali Inqalabi - directly and indirectly - over the phone, since the petition. Their objective has been to intimidate him into withdrawing his case from the Supreme Court. This prompted Shafqat to hold an urgent impromptu press conference in Muzaffarabad (Pakistani-administered Kashmir) on the 26th of March, to air his concerns with the media. It so transpired that he received a phone call from one of these clandestine agencies in the midst of the press conference. Being a man who has developed a knack of thinking on his feet, Mr. Inqalabi immediately put the phone on loudspeaker mode so that the media could sample a taste of the harassment he was undergoing.

He is hereby making an appeal to the international community to stand up for the values that they hold so dear, none more so than the sanctity of life. Shafqat is appealing for empathy from those members of the human race who understand the importance of freedom of expression, conscience, association and destiny. That no community should be forced to subordinate themselves to the narrow, regressive and selfish interest of another, whether by carrot or stick.

It may be appropriate at this juncture, to attempt a brief geo-strategic and historical narrative behind the motivation of a sole activist daring to take a state head on. Irrespective of nomenclature, be it it’s traditional name of Bolor, the northern province of the pre-1947 Dogra State of Jammu and Kashmir, the Northern Areas of Pakistan, Balawaristan (one name amongst various others that signify the possible option of being totally independent from Kashmir as well as from Pakistan and India) or the package-induced Gilgit-Baltistan. This region, upon focus and careful study could be considered amongst the most strategic of regions in the world. Not only does it sit between four nuclear powers viz. India, Pakistan, Russia and China; it is home to Asia’s highest mountain ranges namely the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Karakoram. Furthermore, after the polar regions, it has the largest reservoirs of fresh water in the world. It’s stupendous quantity of glaciers melt and feed into the numerous rivers which dance down south via Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir to give life and fertility to the thirsty plains of Indian and Pakistani Punjab. It possesses a frightfully large amount of untapped resources of uranium, minerals, stones and metal: much sought after by the protagonists of progress in the modern age.

The British empire considered part of it a crucial buffer zone to check Russian encroachment in the region, hence their lease agreement with the Dogras in 1935. This sixty-year lease agreement was effectively nullified by partition of the Indian Sub-continent in mid-August 1947. It reverted back to Dogra rule until a local uprising on the 1st of November of the same year ousted the Dogra’s representative Brigadier Ghansara Singh. By the 16th of November, Pakistan had cajoled and later coerced local liberators into the ‘can of worms’ that emerged as the ‘Kashmir issue’. Hereafter, began a series of vague manoeuvres to uphold Pakistan’s legitimacy of presence (sic) on the territory in international fora combined with guile and suppression of the people of this hapless region. Consequently, approximately 1.8 million people scattered over a wide expanse of 72,496 km² are in constitutional limbo, existing as an unrepresented nation amongst the comity of nations for reasons insurmountable to date.

An effective activist is a well-informed one. Shafqat Ali Inqalabi is not only a diligent student of history, he has painstakingly and pro-actively highlighted the plight of his people, as and whenever the opportunity arose. The pinnacle of his efforts thus far is probably the impression that he made on Baroness Emma Nicholson prior to her EU Kashmir Report in 2007: overshadowing and possibly forestalling any impression that Pakistan’s military dictator at the time, Parvez Musharraf could have made vis a vis his “out of the box” thinking on Kashmir. On the 25th of April 2007, the European Parliament Final Report on Kashmir stated, “Gilgit Baltistan enjoys no status or even the semblance of democratic representation…The Northern Area Council set up some time ago, with the boast that it is functioning like a ‘Provincial Assembly’ screens, in reality, a total absence of constitutional identity or civil rights”.

To many a conscientious resident of this region, a set of themes have characterised Pakistan’s control over them. Those most notable that spring to mind are as follows:

Genuine representatives have always been marginalised by the Pakistani establishment in favour of servile yes men.
All agreements or discussions on their political framework and destiny have never consulted or included any individual from the region, let alone taken public will into account i.e The Karachi Agreement of 28th April 1949, UNCIP Resolutions, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s directly elected council in 1974, the Legal Framework Order (LFO) of 1994, Musharraf’s re-hashing of the latter in 2007 or the currently debated ‘package’ of 2009.
Periodic uprisings and nationalist sentiment have been ruthlessly quashed by the non-local military cum civilian bureaucratic rule, most notably at the beginning of 1971. At times, they have fomented sectarian strife to deflect people from real issues, Gilgit 1988 is a case in point.
All three organs of governance remain firmly in Pakistan’s control despite a Supreme Court judgement in 1999 (SCMR 1379) envisaging an independent judiciary and right to self-rule for the people of the region.
Constant lies and misrepresentation by Pakistan, for example it’s contention that the “Northern Areas” were not a part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir pre-1947. A fabrication cited in a debate by their Ambassador in Belgium at the European Parliament in 2007.
Pakistan has levied and collected taxes without legal justification and accountability. In return, there is no university, medical, engineering or other technical college in the region.
Members of Pakistan’s armed forces including ISI, IB and MI have been exempt from prosecution for alleged human rights violations.
Pakistan’s executive in the shape of Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA) in islamabad has in the past and still superimposes all ostensible governance in the region. The local Assembly does not possess the right to legislate on it’s natural resources, including water and minerals.

In light of the above, bold and savvy activists armed with the tools of modern communication technology can - it may be argued - commit themselves to correcting the wrongs of history. Striving for a rules- based system created in consultation with the collective will of the people and brought about through peaceful mobilisation of the masses is no longer a pipe dream. It’s a foreseeable reality made foreseeable by the interaction of society, politics and technology.

If the State wins this duel, it could mean victory for an expansionist agenda. It could mean prolonging the suppression of freedom of movement and free market trade. Many suspect that over time it could cement a change in the legal and constitutional status of the region, de-linking it from the disputed region of Kashmir and solidifying it as a fifth province of Pakistan. A country that has yet to give due rights and autonomy proportionately to the existing four provinces in it’s Islamic republic. Hence, Mr. Inqalabi’s plea to Pakistan’s Supreme Court to declare the “Empowerment” and “Self-Governance” Order for Gilgit-Baltistan of September 2009 as ultra vires (Latin for ‘beyond one’s legal power or authority) and to at the very least give Gilgit-Baltistan (Balawaristan) an AJK (Azad Jammu and Kashmir) like constitution till a final decision on the territory was arrived at.

Shafqat Ali Inqalabi has most of the requisite tools for change in his possession but his life is in grave danger, a fair duel this most certainly is not. Others of his region in particular and the global audience in general should express solidarity with his just cause. It’s a cause that those of us who enjoy living in prosperous democracies should understand. That there were people like Shafqat in history who made it happen for you. Help him and others in the region make it happen here too.