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Power, Parties and Politics in the Liminal Space of Gilgit-Baltistan

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Abstract

This chapter explores how power, parties and politics take place in the region liminal region of Gilgit-Baltistan. It is treated as a liminal space in Pakistan because it is a constitutional part of Pakistan. Employing Victor Turner’s notion of liminality, the essay takes stock of the processes and political dispensations in the region that squeeze space for local political movements and parties to perpetuate the monolithic narrative of the state. That is why analyses of liminality entail factors and actors that contribute to the emergence of different political movements in the region. This chapter brings the disparate local political developments within the theoretical framework to show the process of gradual weakening of the local political actors. The existing state of constitutional limbo and presence of weak local political base in Gilgit-Baltistan clearly shows that the passage from colonial to postcolonial period is marked by gradual disappearance of power in the region. This chapter encapsulates the processes that contributed to the creation of liminal state of Gilgit-Baltistan by weakening internalities and strengthening the externalities.

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Correspondence to Aziz Ali Dad .

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Dad, A.A. (2023). Power, Parties and Politics in the Liminal Space of Gilgit-Baltistan. In: Duschinski, H., Bhan, M., Robinson, C.d. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28520-2_6

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