As I flew over Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, on the right of the plane was Baltistan and on the left, Gilgit. The diversity that existed across these remote high altitude territories before the partition of India, is reflected in the book entitled, “Gilgit Rebellion – The major who mutinied over Partition of India”. William Brown, the Indian Army Officer to the Gilgit Agency in 1942, writes in his diary about Gilgit, “The mingling crowd is cosmopolitan; locals, Hindus, Sikhs, Kashmiri Pundits, Turkis from Turkestan, Chinese and Tajik horse dealers from the Pamirs.”
Events of 1947 partition, vaporized the diversity in a jiffy!