Gilgit-Baltistan activists protesting against Pakistani administration. The activists have been demanding a separate Balawaristan with no control of Pakistan. (Photo: Twitter/@SengeHSering)

At the time of partition of India in 1947, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir consisted of five regions: Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency.

In 1935, the British had had taken Gilgit Agency on a lease of 60 years from the Jammu and Kashmir maharaja. They already had a political agent in Gilgit Wazarat to keep an eye on communist USSR. A British military officer was the administrator of Gilgit Agency, and combined region was under the control of Gilgit Scouts.

Before exiting India, the British cancelled the lease and handed back the region to the maharaja. The security arrangement was to remain in place till an alternative was found.

When Pakistan invaded Kashmir Valley in October 1947, the British administrator Major William Brown revolted with the help of one influential Subedar Major Babar Khan. Major Brown was said to be close to his English boss stationed in Karachi and preferred reporting to him than the maharaja, who had become his master after the most famous Brexit till the other day.

The rebels killed the maharaja's governor and a small group of Sikh and Gurkha soldiers in Gilgit. They sent a message to Karachi to occupy Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency proclaiming on their own accession to Pakistan for which no document was signed. They were, anyway, not in any legal position to declare accession to whichever side.

By this time, the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession with India, which sent its soldiers to push back invading Pakistan army and tribal militia.

Pakistan, thus, occupied Gilgit Wazarat and Gilgit Agency - the region is more famously known as Gilgit-Baltistan -- by the treachery of British officers of the Gilgit Scouts. Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) - a portion of the Kashmir Valley that Pakistan captured in 1947 and has held since 1949 ceasefire - remained a single unit till 1970.

Pakistan had been facing difficulties in governing Gilgit-Baltistan, which was a multi-lingual Shia-dominated region unlike Sunni and Punjabi-dominated Pakistan. Following the humiliation in the 1971 war, Pakistan carved out a separate region of Gilgit-Baltistan, renamed it as Northern Territory and placed it under direct rule of the federal government.

The region of Kashmir Valley remained as Azad Kashmir in Pakistani political lexicon. In 1974, Pakistan notified a rule overriding the 1927 law promulgated by the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir that denied property ownership to outsiders. It was the same right that was ensured through Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and was in force until revoked on August 5 this year.

Having done away with the legal barrier, Pakistan pushed settlement of Sunni Muslims from neighbouring North West Frontier Province (renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010). This led to a series of sectarian clashes in Gilgit-Baltistan, which got its name back in 2009.

Today, Gilgit-Baltistan has a legislative assembly with limited powers. It is governed by the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan in the government of Pakistan. The real power resides in a council headed by the prime minister of Pakistan.

Interestingly, while Pakistan lays claim to the territories of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, legally, its constitution does not recognise them as parts of the country. Its constitution talks about a future date when the people of Jammu and Kashmir may decide to accede to it but there is no recognition to Gilgit-Baltistan and PoK, which are legally parts of India, according to the Instrument of Accession, which in turn finds its legal validity in the India Independence Act that paved way for partition of India, creation of Pakistan and Independence to both countries.

In 1994, Indian Parliament adopted a resolution reiterating that Gilgit-Baltistan and PoK are Indian territories occupied illegally by Pakistan. In 2017, the British Parliament, too, adopted a resolution stating that Gilgit-Baltistan legally belongs to India by virtue of accession of princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to India.