Gilgit has been inhabited for thousands of years. The various waves of invaders that passed through lower Pakistan also reached Gilgit, bringing their customs and religions with them. The animism of the early inhabitants gave way to fire and worship brought in from Iran, which was replaced in turn by Hinduism following the Aryan invasion. From the first century Bc, Gilgit, like kashgar, was an important staging post on the silk route from china, and the Chinese wielded considerable in the area.

                   From 4t h to 11th century AD, Gilgit was mostly Buddhist. Early in the eighth century , three great Powers-China, Arabia and Tibet- jostled for control.

                    Less than a hundred years after the prophet Muhammad (s.a) death in 632, Arab Muslim forces invaded Pakistan from the south by sea, simultaneously reaching Xiang jiang in the north by land. Muhammad Bin Qasim was successful in the south, but the Northern invasion was repulsed. Kashmir was an up-and -coming power about this time, and the Tibetan enlisted the kashmiris in an alliance strong enough to keep the Muslim Arabs out of Northern Pakistan.

                   The tenth century brought the invasions of shins, a Europoid people who spoke shina, still the main language of main Gilgit valley, and drove the native broshaski speakers up to Hunza, Nagar and Yasin.The shins may have been Hindu, as were the shahi kings, who then ruled upper Pakistan from their capital at hund on the Indus, just below the modern Terbela Dam.

                   It was not until early in 11th century that mahmud of Ghaznavi invaded from Afghanistan, over threw the Hindus at Hund and finally won the plains of Pakistan for Islam.

                   Some time after the 15th century, the whole area converted to Islam. In 1846, the British sold kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit to the raja of Jammu,Gulab singh, and appointed him first Raja of kashmir. But the maharaja soldiers could do little to subdue the Muslims tribesman, despite repeated campaigns in the 1850s and 60s.

                   The British became interested in the region because of its strategic importance on the borders of Russia and China and, in 1, setup the Gilgit agency, the most isolated outpost of British Empire, to guard against the possible Russian thrust through the mountains to the vale of kashmir. This was the world of kipling's kim and the 'great game', aptly described by John Keay in his excellent book The gilgit game(1979) as 'a shadowy see-and-run contest between Britain and Russia in the highest mountains'.( for another riveting chronicle of this history and read peter Hopkirk's The Great Game -- On secret service in High Asia(1990). Ultimately the contest went for nothing; by 1931 the area had been surveyed and it became clear that there was no pass in the region over which the russians could bring a detachment ( let alone an army) to invade India.

Totally cut off by snow for eight months of the Year, The first British agency was not a success: it was too small and too remote to make its presence felt, and it ended abruptly in 1881 when it was nearly overrun by kohistanis.

The second agency, established in 1889, fared better. By then the route from Srinagar via Astor had been improved, there was a telegraph link, and the agency included a full complement of British soldiers. There followed a series of campaigns to subdue the surrounding kingdoms: in 1891, led by Algernon Durand, they overran Hunza; in 1893, they strengthened the fort at Chilas to defend the new road over the Babusar Pass against the Kohistani tribes. 1895 saw the dramatic rescue of the garrison at Chitral Fort by 500 troops from Gilgit who marched across the Shandur Pass through the April snows.

In 1913 the British formed the Gilgit Scouts, a force of 600 men, to guard against invasion and maintain peace. The Scouts were mostly the sons of royalty from the seven kingdoms, commanded by a Subedar Major, usually a brother of one of the kings, under the direction of the Political Agent. They had a bagpipe band that wore the Black Watch tartan and still practises today in the Chinar Bagh near the river. In 1935 the airfield was built.

At Independence in 1947, British India was divided into Hindu-ma|ority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. One of the many vexing problems brought about by the split was what to do with the hundreds of princely states, which theoretically had the right to remain independent. The vast majority were Hindu and were easily persuaded to join India, and the Muslim states in Pakistan were absorbed by Pakistan. The rub was Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state ruled by a Hindu maharaja.

Maharaja Hari Singh let the Independence Day accession deadline pass without joining either Pakistan or India - an apparent bid for independence or at least a favourable autonomy arrangement. Two weeks before the August 14 Independence Day, the Political Agent of Gilgil handed over power to a new Kashmiri Hindu governor, Ghansara Singh. The Gilgit Scouts were left in the charge of Major William Brown, a British officer who had volunteered to see them through Independence.

In Punjab grisly bloodshed marked Partition, as ten million Hindu, Sikh and Muslim refugees fled in opposite directions across the new border. Gilgit waited in suspense while the maharaja dithered.

On 26 October, Pathan tribesmen from the North-West Frontier Province invaded Kashmir, declaring a jihad (holy war), Hari Singh fled to Delhi and begged for help, agreeing to accede to India, subject to a general referendum. In Gilgit, Major Brown sent Subedar Major Babar Khan, brother of the mir of Nagar and commander of the Scouts, and Mirzada Shah Khan, brother of the mir of Hunza, to arrest Governor Ghansara Singh on 31 October. The following day Giligit was declared 'the independent Republic of'Gilgit', which later acceded to Pakistan. The Giligit Scouts and Muslim soldiers of the Kashmiri army then joined the war against India, winning Baitistan for Pakistan. There is a memorial to Babar Khan in the Chinar Bagh.

The first war for Kashmir ended in January 1949, with a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire. Pakistan retained the Nonhern Areas (Giigit, Hunza, Diamer and Baitistan) and Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir, while India held the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh. The Kashmir question remains the core issue behind most of the disputes between Lndia and Pakistan since Independence. The two countries declared war in 1965 and 1971, and in 1985, fighting flared again on the Siachen Glacier.

Until 1974, the seven feudal kingdoms along the Gilgit and Hunza rivers remained more or less autonomous, with the mirs or rajas in control of the administration, police and justice. Between 1972 and .1974, the Pakistani government relieved the kings of most of their powers, and the kingdoms became incorporated into Pakistan. The Northern Areas are now divided into five administrative districts: Diamer (administered from Chilas), Baitistan (Skardu), Ghanche (Khaplu), Ghizar (Gakuch), and Giigit (Giigit town, which is also the headquarters of the chief administrator of the Northern Areas). Hunza is part of Giigit District, which has a population of nearly 300,000-a threefold increase since Independence.

The referendum promised in 1947 was never held. Pakistan is loath to make the Northern Areas a province of Pakistan, as this would be construed as permanent acceptance of the ceasefire line. Officially, the region is called the federally administered area' and is looked after by a special ministry in Islamabad. Because of its sensitive position bordering China and Afghanistan. - and a stone's throw across the Wakhan Corridor from the former Soviet Union - Pakistan has made a concerted effort to develop the area, improving the irrigation and road networks, building schools, hospital and medical centres, and developing training and marketing programmes. The KKH has made an enormous difference to the standard of living here; the inhabitants can now import goods from, and take their produce to, the rest of Pakistan and to China. But signs painted on walls and rocks saying 'We want the vote' illustrate the underlying frustration of people barred, not only from voting, but also from appealing to the Pakistan Supreme Court. The people of the Northern Areas fought to join Pakistan, and now they feel excluded and exploited.

HISTORY OF BALTISTAN

The balti people are a mixture of tibetan and caucasian stock and speak Balti, and ancient form of tibetan. originally they probably practised animism  ( worship of inanimate objects and natural phenomena ) and shamanism ( the use of shamans or priests to influence these gods of nature )
As in so many of Pakistan's northern valleys, there is a vague tradition here that the town of Skardu was founded by Alexander. Although the fort at Skardu. is sometimes called Askandria (not unlike Iskander, Alexander's Indian name), neither Alexander nor his followers travelled this far east when they came through what is now Pakistan in 325 BC.

Sometime around the third or fourth century AD, Buddhism spread from its centre in Swat to Baltistan and Ladakh, and from there on to Tibet. By the eighth century, Baltistan was ruled by Tibet and was known as Great Bolor. By the llth century, the region of modern Pakistan known as the Northern Areas, was a powerful independent kingdom, equal in strength to Kashmir. Sometime thereafter, but before the 17th century, the area was convened to Shia Islam by infiltration from Kashmir. Almost all Baltis are still Shia.

Baltistan was divided into four kingdoms: Skardu, the richest and most important, in the centre, dominating the others; Khaplu which controlled the trade route east along the Shyok River to Ladakh; Shigar which held the difficult route to the north across the Karakoram to what is now Xinjiang; and Rondu guarding the Indus Gorge to the west. There were also four lesser principalities:Kiris on the Shyok, and Parkutta (now called Mediabad), Tolti and Kharmang, which were on the Indus, and controlled the path to Leh.
From the 16th century, the various kingdoms of Baltisian were consolidated under the Maqpon rajas of Skardu. the best known of which was the powerful Ali Sher Khan Anchan (anchan is Baiti for 'the great'), who ruled from about 1590 to 1630 and conquered parts of Ladakh and Gilgit. He succeeded in keeping the Mughal emperors at bay by marrying a Mughal wife. His grandson, Shah Murad, who ruled from 1650 to 1690, extended Baiti rule as far as Chitral.

In 1840, the raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, overran Baltistan, laid siege to Skardu Fort and imprisoned the reigning raja, Ahmed Shah. Gulab Singh (later to buy Kashmir from the British and become the maharaja of Kashmir), was a Rajput Hindu and a member of the Dogra tribe. The maharajas of Kashmir ruled Baltistan with a cruel hand Tor the next 107 years, taxing the people heavily and reducing them to virtual slavery.
The British had only a minimal interest in the area, considering it of little strategic value. At Independence in 1947, Baltistan was assigned to India, but the Baiti people, aided by a small number of freedom fighters, including the Gilgit Scouts, rebelled against Maharaja Hari Singh, the Hindu Kashmir ruler, and became part of Pakistan (see Gilgit History)

There are 230 villages in Baltistan with a population of 272,000, averaging eight people per household. The average farm size is half a hectare (about an acre), on which they grow wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat and maize. Vegetables were introduced about 50 years ago: peas, tomato, onion, potato, turnip, cabbage,spinach, lettuce, beans, cucumber, radish, chilli and carrot. Fruit is an important crop, each family owning 20 to 30 apricot trees, plus some mulberry, apple, pear, peach, plum, walnut and almond trees, and a few grapevines. Dried fruit and nuts are a vital part of the winter diet.
Each household owns an average of ten goats and sheep, and two or three head of cattle, either yaks, cows or dozs (a yak/cow cross). The animals spend the summer in the high pastures and the winter in stalls in the ground floor of the houses. Butter was once used as a currency; it was 'banked' underground for up to 50 years and withdrawn to buy goods and make loans. Some households own a few chickens, and in some villages you find donkeys.

About ten percent of households send a man up to the summer pastures v/ith the animals. Some 20 percent of Baiti households have a member earning a regular income either outside Baltistan, or as shopkeepers, village craftsmen or drivers, and about 30 percent of households have a man working as a temporary day labourer, such as portering for expeditions.

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