Basharat Wakhani

Meherban Shah: The Unsung Hero During my teenage years I very well remember the time when I first visited Shimshal village in Hunza. It was a rainy afternoon when we left for the dangerous Shimshal road in an orange jeep. We had to get off at the infamous Purkjherekh, so that our jeep could easily cross the glacial stream. Before Shimshal became completely accessible by road, the local population used to cross the Shimshal river twenty-one times, to reach the nearest village of Pasu. The people of Shimshal are tough people…

Book Review: And Death Walks with Them: Above Eight Thousand Metres with Pakistani Porters from Shimshal by Christiane Fladt Christiane Fladlt who first came to Pakistan in 2002 writes exclusively about High Altitude Porters (HAPs) of village Shimshal (originally called Shingshal) in Hunza district. The book is divided into two sections. The first section sheds light on the people of Shimshal, their way of living, mountain climbing and their means of livelihoods. Information about all the eight thousand-meter peaks in…

Ali Gohar: A Veteran of Gilgit-Baltistan Liberation War   Every year, on the first of November people throughout Gilgit-Baltistan celebrate the day to mark independence from Dogra rule. 1947 was the fateful year when independence from Dogras was achieved. Nowadays people from Gilgit-Baltistan who use social media platforms, engage in sharing posts which include pictures of those who fought the war of liberation. Very rarely do these posts include information regarding experiences of the war veterans. After passing of this…

The Influential Clan of Ghulkin, upper Hunza Today if one visits different historical areas and sites in Hunza district, one would surely find it surprising to discover Ghulkin’s historic importance. Ghulkin is a village situated between Gulmit and Sisuni, with probably less than two hundred households. Ancient structures, graves and important events reflect the history of this village. Moreover, during the nineteenth and twentieth century it has not only produced notables who have managed the affairs of the village, but…

Water is a valuable resource which is unfortunately finite. In Gilgit-Baltistan this resource is mainly present in the form of large glaciers, with some of them placed in the list of largest glaciers of the world outside polar regions. Melting glaciers and natural springs provide for different needs of the local population. The rivers of Gilgit and Baltistan converge and flow downstream into lower parts of Pakistan where it is used by millions of other people, before it ends up in the Arabian Sea. In this article I wish to…

On Memorable Polo Match—Shahgul Aziz of Gulmit recalls his best match Polo, a game of Central Asian origin was played throughout the Gilgit-Baltistan region. Each locality and village had its own polo team. Hunza was one of such areas where wild polo was played along with other physically challenging sports i.e. swimming, hunting, tug of war and lifting heavy stones. In the mid-nineteenth century the British cavalry units of the East India Company started playing polo. The British certainly played a role in the modernization…

Hunza’s importance as a strategic area ascended during the Great Game, when rivalry between the British Lion and Russian bear was on the rise.

The book ‘Etherton at Kashgar: Rhetoric or Reality in the History of the “Great Game”’ is written by Daniel C. Waugh. Washington: Bactrian Press, 2007. 72 pp. Many of the prominent writers have made an attempt in bringing out the complexities of politics in East Asia during the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Various approaches have been postulated to thoroughly examine the intricacies of manifold themes and events.  Most of them have used travelogues, intelligence reports and official correspondences. But, very few…