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Controversy over Shandur to affect tourism

By Israr Ahmed

Nature has gifted Pakistan gracefully with great and wonderful potential of tourism, which is based on its diverse cultures, peoples and landscapes.

The variety of tourist destinations, range from the ruins of ancient civilisations such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Taxila to the Himalayan and Karakurum hill stations. The country is also home to several mountain peaks over 7,000m in height, which attract adventurers and mountaineers from around the world, especially K2.

The northern parts of Pakistan have many old fortresses, towers and other architecture as well as scenic, beautiful and mountainous valleys such as Hunza and Chitral. The latter is home to the small pre-Islamic Animist Kalash community, who are believed to be descended from the army of Alexander the Great. Chitral also has the highest polo ground in the world, the Shandur Polo Ground, which is 12,500ft (4,000 metres) above sea level.

A three-day sporting and entertainment event takes place on the high altitude ground every year in July, and is called the Shandur Polo Festival, which features exquisite, thrilling and spectacular polo matches between teams of Chitral and Gilgit, besides many others sporting and entertainment events.

For the last couple of years the festival has gained international popularity and tourists from across the country as well as abroad thronged the highest polo ground of the world to enjoy the festivities of the event and beauty of the idyllic Shandur valley which is overlooked by snowy peaks besides a crystal clear lake.

Shandur has become a destination for tourists from across the globe. Although the tourism industry of the country has jeopardized due to the volatile law and order situation, despite all odds the Shandur festival attracts a large numbers of tourists from all over the world.
The beautiful and idyllic valley of Shandur and the festival, which is full of festivities and entertainment, also drew the attention of the locals besides the international media which folks the valley in the month of July when the festival is held.

However, for quite some time Shandur is in local media not for its high polo grounds or beauty but apparently for a wrong reason.
Shandur again is in the spotlight owing to a controversy over its meadows and pasture between the people of Laspur, a village of Chitral, and Ghizer, a district of Gilgit.

A former member of the Northern Areas Legislative Council, recently threatened to move the Supreme Court, if the ministry of states and frontier regions (Safron) and the ministry of interior further lingered on with the issue, which has been with them for arbitration sine 2001.

He claimed that the ‘documents’ of the British Raj were ample proof of the demarcation of Shandur area as a boundary between Ghizer and Chitral, wherein the watershed of Shandur Lake had been declared the line separating Chitral and Ghizer districts.
He said the Langar pastures were already 15kms inside the boundaries of his district.

Mr Sarfaraz, the former NALC member, alleged that over a passage of time the Chitral administration and some officials from the NWFP based in Gilgit attempted to tamper with the documents about the jurisdiction of Shandur but all ‘historical facts’ negate this contrived scheme of fudged demarcation.

He claimed that Ghizer was part of Gilgit Agency during the British Raj and in 1936 the then British political agent of Gilgit Agency Mr Cobb constructed the Shandur Polo Ground to play polo during moonlit nights because this land was part of the Gilgit Agency and Ghizer.
Despite the claims of Sarfaraz, it is a historical fact that there has been no controversy over Shandur polo ground, Shandur Lake and the summer pasture of the valley and the area has remained an integral part of Chitral district since long. Hundreds of summer huts of Laspur people located in the pasture of Shandur also negated the claim of the former member of the NALC. In 1959, the number of huts there was 344, however they rose to 479 in 2007.

The summer pasture of Shandur stretching over an area of 10km towards the west-east is property of the people of Laspur, while the pasture of Langar located north-west of Shandur has remained the joint pasture of the people of Laspur and Ghizer since long.

For the time being there had been some disputes and controversies emerged over the pasture of the Langer, which is according to Sarfazar located 15 kilometer inside Gilgit borders, between the people of Laspur and Ghizer and consequently joint Jirga of elders and officials of both sides held in 1914 and 1959 to sort out some way out of the dispute and work out modalities for grazing cattle in the pasture and for using fire and timber wood of the forest of Langer.
The 1959’s Jirga allowed both the people of Laspur and Ghizer to graze their cattle in the pasture. The Jirga also allowed people of Laspur to use fire wood, besides recognizing their right on timber wood of the forest.

However to contain the growing pace of deforestation of Langar jungle, the Jirga set some conditions for using timber wood. It was decided that the timber wood be used for the repair or construction of the summer huts located in the area only. As far as the use of wood to repair the existing huts is concerned, the Jirga allowed the people of Laspur to take woods from the forest without anyone’s permission or approval, however, in case of construction of new huts they were bound to obtain permission to cut down wood from the governors Ghizer and Mestuj of Chitral.

It amply negated the claim that Langar pasture was located some 15km inside the boundaries of Gilgit.

The second proof that Shandur meadows, lake and the areas were integral part of Chitral and have never been disputed is that in 1914 the ruler of Chitral, Mehtar Shujaul Mulk got constructed a summer palace on a mound at the bank of Shandur Lake near Mas Junali (Moony Polo Ground) and a boat was also placed there.
The summer palace, which was called Bungalow, was there till 1959, when it collapsed owing to poor maintenance. The ruins and rubbles can still be seen on the mound of mud.

When columnist and researcher Prof. Dr Inyatullah Faizi, who has a deep insight on the subject, was contacted regarding the claim that Maj Cobb constructed Shandur Polo Ground, he out rightly rejected it.
He said Maj Cobb did not construct the polo ground, adding that the era of Cobb was between 1920 to 1937 while the polo ground was present in Shandur even before 1440.

“Col. Lockhart visited Shandur in 1876 and in his report he also mentioned the presence of polo ground in Shandur,” he added.
“Cobb was a polo fan and he used to come to Shandur for playing polo on the invitation of Mehtar Chitral in moon light and he had nothing to do with the construction of polo ground in Shandur,” he argued.
In July 2003, a Jirga was held in Safron, wherein the NWFP government persuaded the ministry that Shandur was the integral part of Chitral. The NWFP government gave three arguments to substantiate its point.
(1) In Land Commission’s report of 1975 regarding the state-owned property in the NWFP, the two polo grounds of Shandur had been mentioned as property of the NWFP government.

(2) The summer huts of the people of Laspur and Chitral located in the meadows of Shandur.

(3) A Chowki of Frontier Corps located at Shandur.
Indian lobby is said to be behind the controversy. Sources said through a well-planned conspiracy the lobby was attempting to expand the Gilgit border westward.

However, whatever the causes of the controversy are and whoever is behind the move, the dispute has been engineered unnecessarily and it would cost heavily on the growing tourism industry in northern Pakistan.

People affiliated with the industry feared that it would badly affect the Shandur Polo Festival, which had become an international event and attracted a large number of tourists from across the globe.