New Delhi has finally chosen to prick the rather thin bubble of justification that Pakistan has constructed for itself in the parts of Jammu and Kashmir that it controls. It was about time. In a carefully considered move that was first unveiled last November, the government criticised Pakistan’s unwillingness to ever hold elections in Gilgit and Baltistan, that are often referred to as the Northern Areas. Last week the government criticised Pakistan’s harassment of leaders from Gilgit and Baltistan who had recently visited India. This week, the government has slammed Islamabad’s disqualification of candidates, who refused to take an oath of support to Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, in the elections to the PoK assembly next month.

Ironically, the new Indian assertiveness on Gilgit and Baltistan and PoK flows from the current positive approach in New Delhi to discuss a permanent settlement to the dispute with Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir. Having decided to engage Pakistan in a substantive dialogue on Kashmir, India can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the developments in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Since the Shimla Agreement of 1972, India had gone by the assumption that the Kashmir dispute was by and large settled. As a consequence it had ignored the decision in Islamabad to separate Gilgit and Baltistan from the PoK and keep it in a constitutional limbo. It also refused to react to the developments within PoK and expected Pakistan to do the same on J&K. While New Delhi resented Pakistan’s intervention in J&K, it dithered about paying back in the same coin.

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