Hasan H. Karrar (Lahore University of Management Sciences)

Located at the crossroads of Central, East, and South Asia, the watershed that divides the Karakoram and Pamir mountains today also serves a geopolitical function in marking the territorial boundary between China and Pakistan. Situating myself on the ‘Karakoram side’, in this talk, I describe how, beginning in the twentieth century, this region was transformed into a frontier by distant political centers projecting sovereignty which would continue to iterate for the next century. Pivoting from the origins of postal service across the Karakoram-Pamir—which arrived in Misgar, the northernmost settlement in British India, in 1918—to mid-century aviation, road construction, and finally economic corridor development under the Belt and Road Initiative, I illustrate how these particular infrastructural forms, which on the one hand enhanced connectivity, have also kept the region subservient to national and transnational interests, from the early twentieth century to the present.