The Author: Brigadier Sherullah Beg (Retd) was a ‘Hunzakutz’. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Punjab in 1939. Owing to outbreak of World War II, he could not join the Indian Civil Service, which he was aspiring to. He joined the British Indian Army as an Officer Cadet in 1942 through competitive selection and was granted a commission as a 2nd Lt in the Madras Infantry in May 1943. During much of his service, he served as an Instructor in five different training institutions for officers and on staff, including the Staff College, Quetta. He was one of the few Indian officers selected to teach British Officer Cadets at the Officer’s Training School, Bangalore. He held staff appointments at General Headquarters (GHQ) in Delhi, later Supreme HQ during partition and then GHQ Rawalpindi. He served in the Gilgit region as an Officer on Special Duty for some time. Apart from command of two infantry battalions of the Punjab Regiment, he served as Deputy Provost Marshal of Pakistan’s Army for nearly five years, followed by his appointment as Pakistan’s Armed Forces’ Military Attache in Cairo from 1964 to 1966, concurrently accredited to Sudan and Lebanon. In October 1966, promoted Brigadier and recalled to command an Infantry Brigade. In early 1968 selected to command Special Services Group, the elite force of Pakistan Army. Was retired on completing 28 years commissioned service in May 1971. Since then, he has settled on a 10 acre, rather stony and partially developed farm he inherited from his father in the village of Jutial at Gilgit. In addition to devoting his time on developing his farm, the retired Brigadier is intensely absorbed and interested in the development potential of the Northern Areas. He has a wide range of interests extending from poetry, history and literature to research work on the people and languages of the Northern Areas. Besides the subcontinent, has extensively travelled in the Arab and Middle Eastern countries, as well as Western European countries. Knows several languages, English, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Spanish, Russian and has a smattering of German. In addition to his mother language Brushaski, can also converse in Khowar (Chitrali) and Shina (Gilgit) dialects. Installed the first ever micro-electric generator in Gilgit as first pilot project to light up his unobtrusive cottage, which he designed himself and has given it the appropriate Burushaski name: ‘Amn-e-Yal’ (the shelter or shadow of peace) at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet overlooking the Gilgit valley.
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Sunday, June 19, 2022
Living in Harmony: By Salman Beg former CEO AKCSP
Harnessing Local Wisdom for Sustainable Development in Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) is known for its stunning natural beauty, and for its people. What is less known is the symbiotic relationship between the two. Spread over 72,496 km2 , it boasts five of the world’s fourteen 8,000 m peaks, including the world’s second highest mountain K2 which stands at 8611 m. The awe inspiring physical and natural attributes of the region exert an attraction that few other places in the world can aspire to. It is also known for its self-confident, industrious and welcoming people whose diverse ethnicities, languages and cultures, a result of being on a strand of the Silk Road of old, has retained its Central Asian characteristics in terms of living style. Progress over the years, prior to the opening of the Karakoram Highway (KKH), was grounded in sustainability, much before the word ‘sustainability’ became a commonly (mis)used term. The people of this region took the path of a unique sustainable lifestyle that allowed them to respect and live in harmony and balance with nature and their physical surroundings. This balance has been developed over centuries and I believe the two overarching and fully interconnected fundamentals are ‘land use’ and ‘water use’. While water resources are abundant, getting water to usable land has remained a major challenge. What is striking for a visitor is the barrenness of the mountains interrupted by greenery which cascades down hillsides resulting from irrigation channels meticulously engineered by human effort with the simplest of tools. It is quite true to say that almost all greenery is man-made. There is very little natural forestry in GB, because the area is above the Alpine tree line. The bulk of the approximately 2492 km2 of forests (3.6% of GB’s area) are in Diamer district, with the other regions having very little forest coverage. The shortage of usable land (for agriculture, agroforestry, orchards, habitation) and the difficulty in getting water to that land have imposed severe carrying capacity constraints on how much of a populace can be sustained. Historically, migration was the preferred means of reducing the burden of overpopulation. This meant tasking communities to build lengthy irrigation channels relying on gravity flow, in order to water sub-optimal and barren lands in other valleys and settling these lands with the overflow of population. It must also be said that these high mountain lands are high altitude deserts where water availability, apportionment and usage is critical. The lifestyles, governance mechanisms and most of all land use, is centred on water. The other point about water use is that there is a seasonal scarcity of water, generally from November to March, as the streams fed by glacial melt begin to run dry. This necessitated elaborate and meticulous water management systems, which in earlier days could lead to major punishment if someone took even a small additional amount of water. Understanding and implementing mechanisms to ensure sustainable liveability is thus central and ingrained in traditional wisdom. With a population in 2021 approaching 1.7 million (based on the 2017 census of 1.5 m and annual population change of 2.87%), the density rate is 23/km2 which is relatively low. However, when one takes into consideration that only 2% of the area is usable, the density climbs sharply to over Page 2 of 4 1150/km2 . Estimates suggest that around 9.6% of land is labelled as barren and could be brought into productive use by lifting water from rivers. Lands that could be irrigated, using nullahs and streams, has more or less been done. The expanses of Bunji, Chilas, Skardu and other such areas could thus be irrigated and help spread out populations and, furthermore, would also increase land area that could be covered by greenery. If all this land is brought into use, the density would drop to 211 per km2 . Traditionally, the human footprint was minimal and scaled down. The vast bulk of the population lived in the valleys near water sources, in villages and settlements in organised communities that put a premium on sustainable land and water use. We could and should learn from the sustainable practices these communities have successfully followed and which exist in their accumulated wisdom. ‘Dead land’ which could not be used for any other purpose, such as growing crops, was where clustered settlements grew and were made up of small units with communal spaces such as gathering places, water reservoirs and religious buildings. The bulk of the usable land was given over to agriculture. Fields, which were invariably small, followed natural contours. Specific areas of land were set aside for orchards. Pastures higher up the mountain slopes were dedicated for animal’s grazing. Utility and frugality underpinned life as it was very clear that the resources at hand needed to be managed responsibly. Only those trees were grown which were fruit bearing, or fast growing ones extensively for use in construction. As an example, when a male child was born, the family would plant a dozen or more Poplars, and by the time the son was of marriable age these trees would be cut down and a simple dwelling built. These were invariably small in size – one main room with a number of spaces to cater for all the functions of a house – without any openings other than a small door which opened into an entry space rather than directly opening into the main room, to help retain warmth during the cold winter season. Warmth was provided by having a central hearth with the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. This hole also provided light. Walls were built of single rubble stone with Poplar timber bracing. Where wood was more readily available, timber framed walls with adobe bricks were constructed and double stories built if needed. In some parts of the region susceptible to earthquakes the roof comprised a rotated square supported by beams to mitigate impact of seismic activity. The flat roofs provided additional space, primarily for drying apricots, or for use in the summers for sleeping. Invariably, these clustered villages shared lots of common walls. Ecological practises allowed for sustainable development, which fits exceedingly well with the world of today with its increasing emphasis on climate change, global warming and reduction in the carbon footprint. Traditional wisdom was rooted in functionality, frugality, utilitarianism, and optimal use of local resources. These were the pillars that guided a remarkably green, responsible and sustainable approach for GB. This approach, which centres on water and land use, is increasingly relevant today. Physical isolation ended with the opening of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in the early 1980s. This was followed by development activities where ‘modernity’ was introduced and foisted on to local sensibilities in the form of out of place concrete buildings unsuited to the region and, more Page 3 of 4 recently, the opening up of the region to unsustainable levels of unregulated tourism. The unregulated rise in tourism has put a lot of pressure on the fragile natural resources of the entire region. Annual domestic tourist inflow increased from 50,000 per annum (on average), before 2014, to 600,000 per annum in 2015. According to statistics released by the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC), 1.72 million tourists visited the region in 2019, which was more than triple the number of tourists to visit it in the previous year. While 2020 witnessed the negative impact of Covid, 2021 has seen a further increase in domestic tourist visitation to GB as a result of improved access including the opening of flights from Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Multan, to Skardu. This has led to seasonal overcrowding in areas where destination facilities are inadequate to meet the growing demand. On the one hand socio-economic transformation has resulted in increased household incomes, but on the other the pressure on the fragile landscape is immense in terms of land and water use. Land use issues are compounded by unmanageable levels of tourism and need a serious rethink of other infrastructure such as sewerage, waste disposal and roads. Sewerage systems that add to and promote not only a cleaner life but also improve crop returns should be actively addressed. Where once there was no waste or garbage, as everything was ‘recycled’, now the problem of waste management and disposal and pollution, especially plastic pollution, is threatening the ecosystem. Provision of road infrastructure does not mean only constructing roads but also having adequate parking areas constructed close to, but well outside built up areas alongside the main Highway arteries, thereby restricting all tourist and trade oriented transport to main highways. The idea being that all transport that is not local should be made to terminate in properly managed parking sites adjacent to the Highway, whereafterlocal transport services such as Taxis and goods transport vehicles should be employed to ferry visitors and goods to and from the towns and villages. The greatest natural resource of this region is the abundance of its water available from its rivers and glaciers. How we manage water is of importance not only for GB but for the very survival of Pakistan. GB is central to the Indus River System as a water reservoir and provider. The Indus River, in its 550 km journey through GB, receives inflow from major tributaries namely the rivers Shingus, Shyok, Shigar, Hunza, Gilgit, Astore, Darel and Tangir which are in turn fed by numerous rivers, rivulets and streams originating from the 2200 km2 permanently glaciated regions and snowfields (above 2500 m), the largest outside the polar regions. Estimates suggest that 65-80 % of the total annual flow to the Indus River, the lifeblood of Pakistan, is due to the snow and glacial melt waters of GB originating mainly from the Karakoram mountain range. Protecting these water resources should therefore be a top priority for Pakistan. That means starting with what can and should be done in GB. By harnessing waterpower the quality of life and natural balance will improve. All fuels (kerosene, diesel, petrol, gas, coal) are transported into the region, from outside, but often do not meet the area’s needs, thus during winter even fruit trees are cut for fuel. Hydropower can and should replace the growing need for lighting, cooking, heating, transportation (electric cars), industrial Page 4 of 4
Friday, June 10, 2022
Robert Wright
Robert Wright
Colonial history writer, with particular interests in the Indian sub-continent including Pakistan. Lives in Tiverton, Devon, United Kingdom.
Rebellion in Gilgit: The Man for the Hour (Hunza Histories Book 2)
Hunza and the Raj: British Involvement in the Karakoram Mountains 1876 – 1946. (Hunza Histories Book 1) 16-May-2020
Hunza and the Raj: British Involvement in the Karakoram Mountains 1876 – 1946. (Hunza Histories Book 1)
by Robert Wright
In the latter half of the 19th century Britain’s defence policies in regard to India’s north-west frontier were increasingly dictated by Russia’s swift expansion of empire eastwards across Central Asia, in which they annexed a chain of decaying Moslem Khanates to the north of Afghanistan. By 1876 they had captured Tashkent, Samarkand, Bokhara, Khiva, and Khokand, and had crossed the Alai mountains until they were drawn up along the western border of Chinese Turkestan; from where they were surveying the Wakhan Pamir, directly to the north of Hunza and Gilgit, as their next acquisition.
It was known that the Cossack army, spread wide across the barren Steppe, dreamed of nothing finer than swelling their ranks with cutthroat tribes enlisted along the way in a charge towards lush and exotic South, with Kashmir as their first prize. It was also known that successive Tsars had coveted a warm-water port on the shores of the Arabian Sea, by way of Persia, in order to increase their military capabilities and trade, and thereby further threaten Britain’s possession of India.
The petty chiefs along this frontier were seen either as ‘puppets of the British’, or as ‘creatures of the Tsar’, and so Russia’s evident interest across the Pamir mountains led to a race to map the dwindling unexplored areas of wilderness remaining between the two empires so that first influence could be claimed over them.
Other than selected gifted officers there were no lower ranking white British troops ever posted to the sensitive Gilgit frontier. Where the history was of tyrants, royal patricides, and few heroes; of the cruelties of slavery and the drudgery of serfdom; alleviated by the tribal pastime of looting the silk route caravans, nomads with herds of yaks for transport. In 1862 it was reported to the British Agent in Leh that ten richly laden caravans had been robbed – meanwhile the Abolitionists in Parliament saw the Chinese slave markets of Kashgar and Yarkhand as the blackest blots left on earth.
A state of affairs that was to be overturned by stories of the young subalterns’ gung-ho battles and camaraderie framed in isolation amidst a sublime mountain chain. With only 16 officers theirs was an astonishing campaign to train and lead a rag-bag army of Gurkhas, Afghan rogues, and Kashmir Dogra troops, all of them speaking several languages, and then show them the way to force open a bandits’ stronghold.
Those mostly young officers had to think for themselves, behave confidently, be devoted and robust in spirit, and ever determined to do what they saw as right. ‘Forward policy’ on the border demanded such qualities. Their initial campaigns hardly needed their provoking, and although small were as thrilling as they could hope for in which to win their medals and promotions.
For its physical and political geography, and for the unique scientific discoveries abounding in the area, Hunza is simply the most extraordinary valley I know of in the greater Himalayan chain. The only things they ever had an abundance of were rocks and ice; and their greatest achievement is that from such unfavourable beginnings they have created the most peaceful, least fanatical, best educated and well organised gardened valley in Pakistan today.
A secondary intention has been to represent some more friendly experiences of Pakistan, rather than the dire ‘bad press’ the country receives in the West, as in four visits between 1970 and 1988, totalling a year in the country, I never had any trouble with anyone whatsoever. To archaeologists, anthropologists, mountaineers, and elitist back-packers Pakistan is well known as one of the most exciting and hospitable countries in the world.
The book is lavishly illustrated both with old photos of the historic characters within, as well my own Kodchrome slide photos of this vast mountain environment.
Rebellion in Gilgit: The Man for the Hour (Hunza Histories Book 2)
It is not an historian’s job to offer his opinions, nor is it duty to take sides in bygone disputes – and when his balanced work is finished his conscience should be clear that he wronged none of the statesmen or soldiers who played their part in great events.
There is a second popular school of British history writers who see it as their duty to eat shame for our erstwhile Empire and look for every chance to sharpen their pen accusingly at their countrymen’s misdeeds. This is a fashionable policy, accepted in British literary circles as politically correct – and one which rewards their authors with sales figures and acclaim.
Alas, in the foreign field, there is a third rustic school of local history writing in which heart-felt beliefs have become indisputable facts. Your Facebook know-it-all will adamantly stand by the prejudices of his grandfathers’ and will hear of no other version of events. They are easily found online, where they vent their anger at the present political situation in Gilgit, and turn past heroes into cowards to blame for it.
One such maligned hero is Major William Brown MBE, for whom the compelling reason to write this book is that I felt that such an extraordinary commander has been greatly wronged in print. In later years, on a Calcutta pavement at night, he was very nearly beaten to death as he was seen only as an enemy of the Sikhs; whereas in fact he had saved hundreds more civilian Sikh lives, than the few score of soldiers killed in fair battle on his orders.
Undoubtedly it was Major Brown, along with his second-in-command Captain Jock Matheison, who secretly and intelligently master-minded and led the Liberation of Gilgit from Kashmiri occupation in 1947 – yet there are many liberated Gilgitis today who believe him to have been a coward and a traitor.
This unique and extraordinary story is written in defence of a 25 year old Scottish officer who seized a huge tract of land from India, including most of the vast Karakoram mountain range with K2, Nanga Parbat, and then handed the area over to Pakistan. He achieved this feat with a minimal death toll too. This was exactly what the vast majority of people in Gilgit and Baltistan were clamouring for at the time. He had served them faithfully and with great success and so the people gave him a hero’s ceremonial departure, with many dashing forward to touch his stirrup, just to tell their grandchildren.
Today the younger Gilgitis have turned against Brown, cursing him as the one who gave away their Independence – whereas in fact it was their grandfathers who saw greatest faith and hope in joining Pakistan, which seemed to be a pure and shining new Islamic country to them. Yet still with no vote, and therefore with no elected Member in their erstwhile ‘National parliament’, the Gilgitis find themselves overrun by down-country immigrants – who look down on them just as the Kashmiri Dogras had done before them.
Yet what Major Brown knew to be a solid certainty was that with the internal division of three religions among them, with potential enemies in valleys all around, and with the aggressive USSR hovering just fifty miles away, Independence was by far the most dangerous and unworkable solution. So as the only option he promoted Pakistan as the safest country to harbour them – and all the hill chiefs agreed with him.
When one looks at the comparative heartbreaking history of Indian occupied Kashmir, then one has to say he has been perfectly vindicated.
Letters From Hunza: Adventures in the Karakoram Foothills (Hunza Histories Book 3) 05-May-2020
These present stories and essays are taken from notes written during two visits to Hunza totalling nine months in 1987 and 1988. Some were originally intended to be included in my British colonial history titled "Hunza and the Raj", which, after several years of wide ranging research, had simply become too long. So this potentially useful trekking journal mostly deals with my personal experiences of the Hunza, as well as giving plenty of local informative. I have published these notes separately here as a complimentary supplement for those who have read the full work – and also as a taster for those who have not.
A secondary intention has been to represent some more friendly experiences of Pakistan, rather than the dire ‘bad press’ the country receives in the West, as in four visits between 1970 and 1988, totalling a year in the country, I never had any trouble whatsoever. To archaeologists, anthropologists, mountaineers, and elitist back-packers Pakistan is well known as one of the most exciting and hospitable countries in the world.
The 24 photos included were taken on Kodachrome slide film during my second visit.