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 Ali calls being made “unseen”.
GB is governed under the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018, a Presidential decree, with no constitutional provision. It provides no representation for GB in Parliament, does not entitle a share in the NFC Award, and crucially does not guarantee protection under Articles 1 and 8 of the Constitution. Article 60(2) of the 2018 Order gives the Prime Minister of Pakistan power to legislate on any matter in the Legislative List, and Article 60(4) gives veto power to the Prime Minister over GBLA legislation.
Interestingly, GB residents play no role in electing the Prime Minister. Article 117(2) bars courts, including GB’s own courts, from questioning the validity of the Order. The 1999 Supreme Court ruling acknowledged GB’s fundamental rights as citizens but maintained it could not direct parliamentary representation owing to the state’s obligations for a plebiscite in Kashmir. They acknowledged GB’s rights but withheld them in the same sentence. As Hamza Alavi observed of post-colonial states, the Pakistani state administers GB through executive orders precisely because constitutional integration would require accountability.
GB’s exclusion is not intentionally malicious, but it is a structural ambiguity embedded in a legal framework and shielded by a discursive architecture
Islamic solidarity bound with territorial contiguity forms the basis of Pakistani identity. GB is overwhelmingly Muslim and geographically contiguous. Pakistan invokes Islamic solidarity to mobilise GB’s loyalty and keeps aside the fact that it withholds constitutional rights while extending administrative incorporation. Pakistan maintains that the territory is part of the disputed Kashmir region, and thus cannot be legally incorporated.
However, Islamabad conscripts, taxes, and runs state projects in the region, which creates a structural contradiction. In 2016, Beijing pressured Islamabad to extend its constitutional coverage to GB, as CPEC runs through it. The latter refused, citing the same Kashmir conflict. The state uses GB as settled territory for domestic administration while simultaneously positing it as disputed territory for international audiences to preserve its position on the plebiscite in Kashmir. GB bears the cost of both positions.
Article 64 of the 2018 GB Order authorises the Government of Pakistan to acquire any land in GB without judicial oversight over compensation. It is an extractive pattern embedded in the governing architecture. CPEC runs through GB, but it has no right over corridor revenues and has no stake in the vital infrastructure projects traversing its territory. The Diamer Bhasha Dam required GB to cede a large chunk of its territory to federal authorities, and affectees still protest for compensation. Glaciers of GB irrigate the land of Punjab, of which the locals have no constitutional claim. The 2018 Order provides a legal shield for these extractive methodologies of the state.
Gilgit Baltistan is diverse. Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, Balti, Burushaski and Wakhi—all identities are real. Sometimes internal diversity turns into fragmentation and foments conflict. The state effectively uses this fragmentation to administer the region. In 2023, a blasphemy controversy involving scholar Agha Baqir Al-Hussaini was responded to by a 13-day complete internet shutdown across GB. GB Awami Action Committee chairman Adv Ehsan Ali and thirteen other AAC leaders were arrested on terrorism charges for questioning GB’s legal status. Questioning GB’s status is treated as a security threat rather than a legitimate political question.
The Pakistani state does not need to overtly deny GB’s constitutional rights. It simply needs to sustain the narrative framework where rights were never absent. The election turnaround on 7th June will be cited as proof of democratic integration. A new assembly will convene. Representative faces may change, but the underlying constitutional status will remain the same.
GB’s exclusion is not intentionally malicious, but it is a structural ambiguity embedded in a legal framework and shielded by a discursive architecture. Voices from all the political spectrum, ranging from nationalist right to progressive left, operate within a discursive structure that has pre-emptively resolved the question of GB’s belonging. George Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” In GB’s case, the ambient discursive structure issues that command with every election cycle.