ABSTRACT
While the movement launched by the Baloch nationalists in Balochistan has received the attention of the international community, similar attention has not been paid to the growing unrest in the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been under Pakistani occupation since 1948. While the Pakistani authorities refer to this area as the Northern Areas of Pakistan, the local nationalists, who have launched a separatist struggle, call it by its historical name of Balawaristan. Before 1948, this area, which the then maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir had given on lease to the British since 1935 in order to enable the British to keep a watch on the developments in Xinjiang and Afghanistan, used to be known as the Northern Areas of Jammu and Kashmir. General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military dictator between 1977 and 1988, had it renamed as the Northern Areas of Pakistan, at the culmination of a process of integration of the territory into Pakistan.
