The Worst Year In The History Of Gilgit-Baltistan

If we analyze our history, most would agree on which has been the worst year in our history, and what we can learn from it.

Still affecting our lives, more than 30 years later , the sad events which peaked in 1988 are a sore collective memory for the natives of Gilgit-Baltistan. I am sure every GBian has studied this tragic chapter of our history, so the motive here is not to reiterate the events, but to analyze as objectively as possible.

Our grandparents tell us of a Gilgit-Baltistan that seems to be completely and essentially different from the Gilgit-Baltistan in which we now live. They speak of a land where a person’s sectarian identity was something personal and confined to his own household. There were problems, but not of the extent which we now find. People from all sects married each other, had relatives, and were involved in each others’ lives in every way.

Then the tragedy of 1988 struck.

Outsiders who wanted to control and rule over this strategically important region cast an evil eye on this abode of peace. And history is a witness that whenever any invaders have eyed a land with lustful eyes, the first thing they do is to exploit the existing differences of the land and enlarge them to an extent where it is difficult to maintain the coherence and unity, and at that point, it becomes easier for the invaders to take over. Such has been the pattern throughout history and this pattern repeated in 1988. Only this time, the victim was our beloved land Gilgit-Baltistan and, unfortunately, it has more or less remained a victim ever since.

I am not going to discuss the specific events that led to disaster because in that case, it is hard to follow an objective approach as our religious sentiments are attached with every specific event that happened.

The effects that followed the incident are enormous. The first one is the most basic: the whole of our social fabric was altered by the incident. Before, people from different sects could easily get married , and a household could contain members form all the different sects, but now all these type of relationships are specified to within the sect. And the sad part is, the young generation believes that this has always been the case, albeit this is a very recent development in our social fabric.

Another effect is the growing mistrust among the different sects. This growing mistrust culminated in further tragedy and violence, and ever since 1988, the politics in our beloved native land has always been sectarian-oriented, and people even consider it as normal.

It is an important point to be noted that most people still consider the incident of 1988 as a conflict between sects, whereas this was a conflict between invaders and the natives in which the sectarian issue was exploited and enlarged by the invaders. The mere fact that most of us are still unable to understand this, is clear indication that the invader won and the native lost.

To conclude, I state the purpose of writing this article. The motive behind recalling these sore past memories is simple: to learn an important lesson for the future, especially at a time when this region has come into the light more than ever. The attention of all of the globe is on these rugged mountains, making us even more vulnerable to power games, or more precisely now, super-power games. We as a nation, are at a crossroads where we can make or break our future. Either we are in for glory, or we get wiped out altogether.