Pakistan has spent decades presenting Kashmir internationally as a question of self-determination. Its argument is built around the political rights of Kashmiris and the need for them to have a say in deciding their future. Yet the governance of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir raises a different question: what happens to the principle of self-determination when the people making those demands are already living under Pakistan’s control?
The answer is complicated by the constitutional arrangements that Islamabad has maintained in both territories. Political authority remains closely tied to the federal centre, while questions of representation, resources and local decision-making continue to generate public discontent.
Gilgit-Baltistan’s present political position is rooted in a history that began long before the creation of Pakistan. The Treaty of Amritsar in 1846 transferred Kashmir and adjoining territories to Maharaja Gulab Singh following the First Anglo-Sikh War. The agreement was concluded between the British and Gulab Singh, without a mechanism for popular participation.
The political situation changed during the upheaval of 1947. On November 1, the Gilgit Scouts rebelled against Dogra authority. Pakistan subsequently established control over Gilgit-Baltistan, but the territory was not incorporated into the country as a conventional province.
Instead, Islamabad developed a separate administrative system for the region. The Karachi Agreement of 1949 was an important step in that process, transferring responsibility for the Northern Areas to Pakistan’s federal authorities. Gilgit-Baltistan itself had no representative in the agreement.
That legacy has endured in modified form.
For much of its modern history, Gilgit-Baltistan was administered outside Pakistan’s normal constitutional structure. Islamabad exercised authority through special laws and executive orders, while the territory remained without representation in the country’s National Assembly and Senate.
Several reforms were subsequently introduced. The 2009 Empowerment and Self-Governance Order created elected institutions and expanded local administrative powers, while the 2018 Government Order made further changes. Neither, however, provided the territory with full provincial status or settled its constitutional position.
The result is an unusual political arrangement in which residents elect local institutions but remain outside the parliamentary structure that governs Pakistan as a whole.
That constitutional uncertainty is increasingly intertwined with economic questions.
Gilgit-Baltistan is strategically important because of its geography and its role in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Its mountains, rivers, glaciers, forests and mineral resources also give the region considerable economic value.
Development has consequently become a source of both opportunity and dispute. Local communities have raised concerns over land acquisition, mining, resource management and the extent of their participation in major projects. The argument is not necessarily against development itself. It is increasingly about who makes the decisions and who receives the resulting benefits.
Public protests have provided one outlet for those grievances.
The Gilgit-Baltistan Awami Action Committee has organised demonstrations around wheat prices, electricity, taxation, healthcare, education and political rights. The application of anti-terrorism provisions against activists has also generated concerns over whether ordinary political mobilisation is being treated as a security matter.
Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir has experienced its own political and economic tensions.
Residents have protested over electricity tariffs, taxation, shortages and the rising cost of living, while questions surrounding the distribution and management of local resources have added to public dissatisfaction. Demands for greater accountability and political participation have, at times, been accompanied by confrontations with authorities.
The circumstances of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir are not identical. Their legal histories, administrative structures and political movements differ. But both demonstrate the difficulties created when territories remain governed under arrangements that do not provide the same constitutional position as Pakistan’s provinces.
This presents Islamabad with a broader strategic problem.
Pakistan’s international argument on Kashmir places considerable emphasis on self-determination and political rights. Yet when people in the territories under its administration call for greater autonomy, representation or influence over local resources, Islamabad has not resolved those demands through full constitutional integration.
The government’s position is that the unresolved Kashmir dispute is a reason not to permanently settle Gilgit-Baltistan’s constitutional status. But that creates a paradox of its own. The dispute may remain unresolved internationally while generations of residents continue to live with an unresolved relationship with the state administering their territory.
In geopolitical terms, this ambiguity also has consequences for Pakistan’s relationship with China. Gilgit-Baltistan is central to CPEC and therefore occupies a position of considerable strategic importance. Islamabad has strong incentives to maintain administrative and security control over the area, while local demands for greater participation introduce a competing political consideration.
India has increasingly sought to contrast its approach with Pakistan’s by emphasising development, connectivity and tourism in Jammu & Kashmir as elements of integration. Pakistan, meanwhile, continues to invoke the political aspirations of Kashmiris in its international diplomacy.
That contrast gives the issue significance beyond local governance.
A government cannot easily make self-determination the centrepiece of its international position while treating demands for greater political authority within territories under its own control as matters to be managed indefinitely.
Nor can economic development alone settle the question. Roads, power projects, tourism and other investments may improve living conditions, but they do not determine who possesses political authority over land, resources and constitutional arrangements.
The unresolved status of Gilgit-Baltistan is therefore more than a constitutional technicality. It is part of a larger contradiction in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.
Islamabad has consistently argued that Kashmiris should have a decisive voice in determining their political future. The continuing demands emerging from Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir suggest that the same principle remains contested on Pakistan’s side of the Line of Control.
*Pakistan’s Kashmir argument ultimately faces its hardest test not in international forums, but in the territories where it already exercises power. If self-determination is the principle Islamabad insists upon for Kashmir, the question it must also answer is how much political choice it is prepared to allow Kashmiris under its own administration.*
