Window to Gilgit-Baltistan

✏  Syed Jamiluddin Originally published on  Pamir Times IT CAN NOT be gainsaid that climate change is bringing in incremental transformations in the living standards of humankind today but, nonetheless, there are certain pernicious elements which become ascribable to and are directly the product of human activity – felling of trees or deforestation being the first and foremost of them. Denudation of trees or deforestation not simply affects the particular place but it does harm to the entire ecosystem. The situation in Pakistan is said to be exacerbating day by day while little attention is paid to it vis-a-vis the gravity and enormity of the problem. There is convergence of opinion among experts that the ultimate solution lies in provision of alternate mean of livelihood to the dwellers of the mountainous areas to dissuade them from felling trees. This mechanism is called ‘Red-plus Formula’. The federal cabinet is said to have announced the forest policy the central ...

By  Syed Jamiluddin Originally published on Pamir Times A GEOLOGICAL wonderland it is, Gilgit-Baltistan is home to innumerable glacial deposits and amazing snowfields of varying magnitudes including the Siachin – the longest glacier outside the Poles which, together, redouble and underpin the region’s grandeur and strategic significance whilst these amazing water towers constitute the lifeline of the country as the principal contributors to River Indus, to put it quite unexaggeratedly. Synoptically referring to the process of glaciations, Sherbaz Ali Khan Barcha sums up in his “Aks-e-Gilgit-Baltistan” that the slow-moving ice-deposits are called glaciers which come into existence in the lofty mountainous areas where temperature may perennially remain below the freezing point, and where there is ceaseless snowfall every year. In short, the glacial accumulation – layers by layers results into eventual hardening of the soil below while the upper icy layers keep moving slowly or...

By  Syed Jamiluddin Originally published on Pamir Times THE UNPREDICTABLY mercurial climate change phenomena being witnessed all across Gilgit-Baltistan today as elsewhere, indeed points to grim prospects. At the same time, it leads one to musings on environment and the fragile mountain ecosystem here in juxtaposition to the human activity to take stock of what remains on the anvil to steer clear of the final irony and awful future possibility. A study of environmental or to put it, the climate change phenomena brings it to the fore that vegetation plays a very much significant role in the health of ecosystem. Thus, reducing deforestation and giving a boost to afforestation and reforestation is said to be instrumental in about 30 percent of cost-effective global mitigation potential. Given this, forests and concomitant vegetation make a very vital treasure in economic aspect of any region on which the respective populace largely depends in meeting its needs of fuelwood as wel...

By  Syed Jamiluddin   REGARDLESS of pertinence or relevance to the subject matter, the great inspiration drawn from Abdul Khaliq Taj’s sterling composition with the haunting refrain ‘kachak bosomet’ – an impassioned utterances ejaculating from his seething heart – as true and faithful indices of his furtive and feeling heart – makes something one cannot help referring to. The poem literally enthrals all lovers of peace and those staunchly believing in pluralism, prompts its particular mention. In this composition, he poured out his aching heart on feeling jolted, tossed and unnerved to the very fiber, by the unsavory happenings, cried out thus, a couple of years back. Remarkably marvelous and marvelously vivid, the poem vibrates with the feeling of longing. The poet was seen reciting this at the residence of Ghulam Abbas poetically surnamed Nasim, at Danyore couple of years ago which was instantly aired by local cablenetwork. As abhorrent all poets are of the disruptive an...

By  Syed Jamiluddin   CULTURALLY SPEAKING, Chitral and Kohistan form parts of Gilgit-Baltistan whilst intra-regionally, the people living here in G-B, despite ostensible dialectic difference, are of the same origin in strict ethnological context. As becoming very well discernible from a piece containing research of Abdul Khaliq Taj, famous poet of Gilgit adept in both Shina and Urdu poetry, some people from Kohistan, Chilas and Gilgit migrated to Chitral from their permanent abodes for one reason or the other and eventually got settled there. Likewise, a few from the latter emigrated to Chilas, Ghizar and Gilgit taking their abode in these parts. Thus this diasporas in Chitral came to speak Gilgiti-Khowar while the migrant Chitralis of Gilgit, Chilas and Ghizar speak what is called Chitrali-Shina or both. Significantly, there is commonality or to put it, identity among all of them in terms of poetry, music, dance and other allied customs and conventions as the enlightening ...

By  Syed J amiluddin   UNLIKE all other contemporary researches assiduously undertaking to unearth origin of Shina language, Mazhar Ali – a Gilgit-based intellectual of great acumen, poet and lexicographer – has embarked on a stupendous work that justifiably brings him to the limelight virtually singling him out for the sublimity of thought and uniqueness of style in an attempt to traces the origin of this language to the very fiber dating as far back as times immemorial – something heretofore remained adumbrated. As also portrayed continually through the brain-storming sessions being held, he aptly thrashes out and extrapolates in a very much convincing credible manner that Shina is not at all a language drawing on or borrowing from others and instead, it has the attributes if having a firm base of its own from an ancient era on which all other linguistic groups have all along been squarely dependent. Thus he is truly boastful of Shina as mother-language in terms of its ...

Gilgit-Baltistan is bounded in the north by the Wakhan corridor (Afghanistan) and the Xinjiang region of China, on the south and south-east by Indian-Occupied Kashmir and on the west by Chitral. The Mintaka Pass is the point where the borders of Pakistan, China, Russia and Afghanistan are linked. The strategic rivalry between the British and the Soviet empires for supremacy in Central Asia was known as ‘the Great Game’. The British wanted to protect their interests in the Subcontinent and in Asia against a possible Russian advance. A Russian officer visited Hunza and signed a treaty. His presence in Hunza was taken as the start of the Great Game. Because of this treaty, Col Algernon Durand was sent to Gilgit to analyse the situation. The British at the time were afraid of Russia crossing Pamir and attacking British India through the passes of Chitral and Hunza. This forced the British to develop as the ‘forward policy’. Lord Curzon visited Gilgit even before becoming viceroy of In...