HUNZA DEVELOPMENT FORUM: GB Indepedance Day Keynote Speech

Thursday, March 21, 2013

GB Indepedance Day Keynote Speech - 01 November 2012 Chinar Bagh Gilgit

GB HISTORY, GILGIT SCOUTS, GILGIT REBELLION

Monument erected in Chinar Bagh through a grant from H.H Aga Khan - October 1960 premier visit.

For a historical analysis of the question at the end of this speech, I request the readers to go through page-19 to 29 of " Musalmanun ki Siasi Tarikh Hisa awal" by Zahid Chaudhry, published by "Idara-e-Mutalia-e-Tarikh" Lahore -in 2003.
Please go through the accession document and try to find facts: In July Kashmir ruler invites the delegations, in Gilgit first meeting of the VCOS TAKES PLACE (find where) A document is signed under oath (find out who wrote that document) , then see the information addressees on the accession letter written to Quaid, try to reason in the light of background (1946 Golden Jubilee visit to Bombay- interview on return to Gilgit by the Political Agent - Col Bacon) you will know how it happened. You may read three of my blogposts viz WHO IS WHO IN GILGIT, and STATUS OF GB Part-I and PART-2

page-44 of post on: saga of development of ismaili

Copy of 1947 secret MEESAQ between five VCOs of Gilgit Scouts

The official history of liberation: Ian Stephens - who was assigned by President Ayub Khan to compile the official history of Pakistan - describes the relevant history as follows:

“This was not locally liked, but it was tolerated in the belief that, as Kashmir was a Muslim majority state, the Maharajah, despite his personal will, would soon act along the lines of Lord Mountbatton’s advice to the Princes generally in July, and accede to Pakistan. When the startling news came on 26 October of the Maharajah’s accession of Kashmir to India, the locals of Gilgit were outraged and so were the Muslim officers posted to Gilgit scouts and a few to the Maharajah’s army located at Bunji. Mullahs in the villages started preaching ‘JEHAD’ against the Dogra regime. Reports came that the neighboring Princely states of Swat and Chitral, which had joined Pakistan, were about to invade; Muslim soldier in the predominantly Sikh garrison at Bunji, on the far side of Indus, caused a disturbance; on the other hand, local Sikh and Hindu traders in Gilgit Bazaar were known to have arms. By the evening of 31 October, tension locally became such that, in the scout commandant’s view mutiny and slaughter, resulting in general chaos, could only be forestalled by prompt acceptance of what unquestionably was the prevailing popular will. He therefore sent a platoon to request the Hindu Governor to come to the Scout’s lines for protection and simultaneously ordered his colleague (Captain Matheson) detachments from Chilas (headed by Subedar Sher Ali of Yasin), as well as those from Gilgit (headed by Subedar Safiullah Beg) to hold the Indus River Crossings and prevent 6th Kashmir Infantry troops from Bunji getting over to Gilgit and undo the coup.

Some casualties ensued at the crossings and indeed on the Gilgit Residency’s moonlit lawns too, because the governor resisted custody and fired on the scouts and their sympathizers from his windows, killing one soldier from Hunza. But within a few hours, the affair was effectively over; and on 2nd November the Pakistan Flag was run up amidst public acclaims”.

Thus Major Alexander Brown ‑ British commandant of Gilgit Scouts ‑ in the light of popular will of the people in general (and with the help of the dissatisfied group of five junior commissioned officers from Hunza and Nager in particular), compensated for the machinations perpetrated by his fellow British in the past. The officer, for these services, has belatedly been honored by the government of Pakistan after his death, by awarding Sitara‑e‑Pakistan in 1993. Consequently Gilgit acceded to Pakistan and Sardar Alam Khan arrived as the first Political Agent from Pakistan.