Final Year Project

Project Title

Sarzamin-e-Bayai'n: Love Struggle, Sectarianism and the Poetic Resistance

Description

The aim of this paper is to explore the problems of constitutional rights and sectarian issues in Gilgit Baltistan (GB). The paper uses the theories of state-making and micro-politics to show how the state has legitimized its rule in the region though homogenization of state ideology, militarization, and surveillance. Moreover, I explore how even 70 years after "voluntarily" joining Pakistan in 1947, the people of the region still do not enjoy proper constitutional and political rights, unlike the other four provinces of Pakistan. Moreover, reviewing the existing literature, the paper also explores that the sectarianism in the region was a part of "state-making" processes - representational illegibility, production of homogenous nation, militarization, and the process of conservation by romanticizing the region. Lastly, I argue that the poetry has become a tool to fight against constitutional, political, and sectarian issues, and to create harmony and peace in the region.