Back to Shandur

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan governments managed to resolve a dispute that had threatened the future of the popular Shandur Polo Festival played annually at the highest polo ground in the world.
The eagerly awaited festival would now be held on August 7-9 at Shandur, situated at 12,500 feet above sea level, in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with full participation of Gilgit-Baltistan after a break of three years.
There was no mediation by anyone, not even by the federal government, even though GB is a federally administered area. A delegation of six ministers from GB visited Peshawar, received a warm welcome and held talks with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government officials to find a solution of their dispute. On April 20, the two sides announced at a press conference that GB’s reservations had been addressed by the KP government and the Shandur Polo Festival would now be jointly organised by the two governments.
The festival had started losing its charm and importance due to the absence of the GB polo team, officials and spectators. The polo tournament played during the festival traditionally pitted the GB and Chitral teams. The people of GB and Chitral used to emotionally become involved in the tournament by backing their respective team. The fierce rivalry was renewed year after year. In the words of Amjad Afridi, advisor to KP chief minister on sports, tourism and youth, the GB versus Chitral polo matches are no less in intensity and emotion than the India-Pakistan encounters in cricket, hockey and other sports.
Now that GB’s sturdy polo players will be back in action and cheered on by spectators coming from Ghizar, Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar and even from far-off Skardu-Baltistan, the vast polo ground at Shandur is certain to come back to life in August. The attendance at the festival in the absence of the GB team during the last three years had shrunk to less than 3,000 from the high of 10,000-plus. Only a few foreigners made it to the festival in 2014 compared to the sizeable number that turned up in previous years. The dignitaries too were coming in fewer numbers to the event and the economic activity generated by the festival had slowed down. The festival continued but it increasingly became a local affair. The GB polo team and crowd were sorely missed.
The complaints that kept GB away from the festival weren’t many or of a serious nature. GB had reservations about the seating arrangements at the polo ground as it was given fewer seats. Its supporters coming from different parts of GB also found it difficult to enter KP to reach the venue in Shandur. Security issues were cited as hindering the entry of GB supporters into KP. Also, GB wanted to jointly organise the festival and present the welcome address to the chief guest, whoever that happens to be. This meant GB wanted the donation that may be announced by the chief guest to be shared by GB and KP governments.
The KP government readily agreed to address GB’s reservations. Saving the Shandur Polo Festival, which has become a popular annual event and sort of a brand, was more important than anything else. As GB’s sports and tourism minister Inayatullah Shumali noted, the participation of the GB polo team in the festival would help end the disappointment that polo enthusiasts felt in recent years and revive Shandur’s potential to attract local and foreign tourists.
By resolving their dispute through friendly negotiations, KP and GB have showed the way to other federating units to tackle territorial, water and other disputes. In fact, KP and GB should now try and resolve their more contentious dispute concerning their joint boundary at three points – Kohistan-Diamer, Babusar Pass and Shandur. Though the GB government’s concerns regarding the Shandur Polo Festival have been addressed, it hasn’t given up its claim to Shandur, which is also claimed by Chitral and is in its possession since long.
This dispute too ought to be resolved in the same spirit of good-neighbourliness that helped solve the tussle over the Shandur Polo Festival. By the same yardstick, one feels the boundary dispute between KP and GB at Babusar Pass, which was the old route between Hazara and GB before the path-breaking and wondrous Karakoram Highway was built in 1976, could also be resolved.
However, the boundary dispute at KP’s Kohistan district and the adjoining GB’s Diamer district is the most serious as it involves ownership of land at a place where the much-delayed Diamer-Bhasha Dam on is being built on River Indus. KP has in its possession evidence from the past to claim ownership of the land surrounding Bhasha, but GB too is convinced that it owns some of the territory selected for the dam and the reservoir.
Territory and money are involved as the landowners are being properly compensated and location of the dam’s power house would entail payment of huge amount of money from hydel-generation profits. The issue of the power house was resolved by deciding to build it in a way to benefit both KP and GB. Also, the dam that was originally known as the Bhasha Dam was renamed as the Diamer-Bhasha Dam to give a sense of involvement to the people of both KP and GB. After a firing incident involving residents of Upper Kohistan and Diamer in which some people were wounded, the disputed area was handed over to a federal force, Punjab Rangers, and a commission comprising retired Supreme Court judge Tanvir Ahmad Khan was constituted to decide the territorial dispute.
One can only hope that a sound solution of the dispute would be found and implemented to the satisfaction of the stakeholders. The disputed area was thinly populated and had little value until it became the site of the giant Diamer-Bhasha Dam, which is to have storage capacity of 8.1 million acre feet and produce 4,500MW of inexpensive electricity. Besides generating hydel-power and providing regulated irrigation water, the multi-purpose dam costing $14 billion would be useful in flood mitigation and de-siltation to help prolong the life-span of the downstream Tarbela dam.
The land at the site of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam and its surroundings became precious and its value would become even costlier as the construction activity accelerates and plenty of jobs and business opportunities become available now that the government after much delay has approved Rs101 billion for land requisition and rehabilitation of the 25,000 people to be displaced from 32 villages. The resolution of the KP-GB dispute over the holding of the Shandur Polo Festival, though far less serious than boundary disputes, should raise hopes that our federating units are willing to solve matters that keep their people from achieving progress and prosperity through joint exploitation of natural resources,
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar.
Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com