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NALA's move on renaming N. Areas
By Dj mathal
After a wait of two years, a committee headed by Fida Muhammad Nashad finally submitted its report to the Northern Areas Legislative Assembly regarding change in the name of the region. The assembly had formed the committee two years back which published aids in papers to suggest a name for the region and thousands of names were received which included names on historical basis along with some new ones.
The common names based on history of the region were Baloristan, Balawaristan, Karakurum, Dardistan, Brushal etc and some new names came to the limelight such as Gulistan, Paristan, Shangrilla Sona Desh etc. If the pages of history are turned for a historical name it will lead to a never ending debate.This step of the assembly is viewed positively by the masses but they have reservations regarding implementation of the resolution and their reservations are genuine as the assembly has passed a number of resolutions in the past but none was implemented except the resolution of increase in salaries of the elected representatives. The reason behind non-implementation of these resolutions is that the legislative assembly has no powers and it wholly depends on the Kana division as said by the economic adviser.
Whatever it is but it should be looked at as a good step and it should be accepted that the assembly has embarked on a pragmatic issue of immediate concern in its last year of the office because the name northern areas has been our economic killer and made thousands of our transporters, business community, hotel owners, tour operators bankrupt. The nationalist fraternity had always held reservations on the issue of the name but this baseless and un-natural name had no effect on the pro-federal leaders.
The incident of 9/ 11 on the one hand changed the map of the world in the name of war on terror and on the other snatched the life of thousands of innocent people living in the tribal areas; as a result nature lovers from all over the world felt insecure to travel to the region. Foreign embassies advised there tourists to avoid going to the war torn northern areas. This war-torn northern areas was referred to the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) but unfortunately many mingled it with Gilgit Baltistan known officially as northern areas resulting in the collapse of tourism industry and huge loss to the stake holders associated with it besides gaining internationally a bad name. After 9/11 when Jalal Abad, Kabul Waziristan, and Swat became centre of attention for White House and Pentagon on the other hand the Gilgit Baltistan officially named Northern Areas became center of attention for international broadcasting corporations as BBC, CNN and Fox.
These news organizations had a severe misconception that they termed Gilgit Baltistan as the war torn northern areas and some even broadcasted the news of Osama and Al Qaieda's top brass in the mountains of K2. Due to such news the western tourists were directed not to travel in these areas. This along with the governments disinterest in tourism industry added squarely to the poverty of the already deprived nation. The people who had made hotels, motels and other tour operating companies with aid of loan from various banks were the worst sufferers and they lost whatever they had earned. In these circumstances the change of name of the region by the assembly is a bold step and appreciate able. In the lights of national question and identity if the name is even changed to masaelistan (land of problems) it would be agreeable but we still are not satisfied regarding the authority and legislative powers of the assembly and may not implementation of this resolution remain in papers like the resolutions of the past.
The members of assembly once had passed a resolution to change the then Chief Executive Tahir Iqbal but the government in Islamabad turned a deaf ear to that resolution and the members were seen running for there seats. If this resolution is not accepted by those in the capital, the members should devise an alternate way from now. If this resolution is not implemented the status of assembly will badly be dismantled and it members will have to face loss in the coming elections.
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