The Baloch National Question in
Pakistan
By Dr. Naseer Dashti
In the
contemporary Asia and Africa where the boundaries of many states
were drawn by former colonial powers incorporating many
nationalities into one state disregarding cultural, linguistic
and historical contexts, national minorities are often excluded
from state power structures. In majority of these states the
dominant nationality attempts to impose a
monological definition of national identity and links
this with coercive control structures of national security. This
is done in the name of the sovereign authority of the state,
this authority often being implemented in practice by the
majority ethnic group dominating the decision making
institutions of the state. To cope with the problem of ethnic
diversity and conflicts, historically, the newly independent
countries of Asia and Africa adopted the policy of Assimilation
and Elimination. Pursued with variable intensity and diverse
outcomes, the objective of these States has been to deactivate
ethnicity and forge ‘nationalizing’ States that could serve one
dominant ethnic group and its interests. Strategies of
assimilation policies include attempt to impose one official
language in public administration, education and the media. In
political arena, states encourage over-representation of the
dominant nationality in public positions. In the legal arena,
they empower the dominant nation’s institutions and conventions
of private law. In the economic realm, they extend preferential
treatment to regions representing the interests of the hegemonic
nation’s elites. In many of these post colonial countries, the
State attempts vigorously to strengthen its institution of state
identity on the one hand and national minority mobilizes for the
safeguarding of its national collective identity on the other
hand. In this situation the absence of a viable dialogue of
mutual recognition results in violent confrontations and in the
subsequent structural paralysis of the State. The history of
Pakistan was characterized by the domination of Punjabi
nationality and its ally Indian immigrants over the remaining
minority nationalities resulting in constant tensions between
the state centre and federating units. The Baloch National
Question in Pakistan can be explained in this perspective.
The Baloch
Pakistan relation has a peculiar historical context which
differentiates the political mobilization of Baloch people
against the Pakistani States with the political resistance of
other minority nationalities in Pakistan. At the time of British
withdrawal from India, the Baloch land consisted of British
Balochistan and State of Kalat. British Balochistan was part of
British India which was created by joining the Afghan
territories acquired from Afghanistan after the Anglo-Afghan
wars and some of the Baloch areas which were taken on lease from
Kalat State by Indian Government in order to develop
communication links with southern Afghanistan. State of Kalat
had the same status as Nepal and Bhutan dealing directly with
British Crown. State of Kalat declared independence on 12th
August 1947, two days before the formal partition of India into
Pakistan and Bharat. Soon after
declaring independence general elections were held in
Balochistan and a two house parliament was established. In the
complex and conspiratorial milieu of Indian partition the
British Balochistan was incorporated in to Pakistan under the
pretext of a controversial referendum in June 1947. This act was
strongly contested by Kalat State. After the establishment of
Pakistan, Kalat Sate was pressurized with the threat of armed
action to join the newly founded religious state. Both houses of
Kalat parliament unanimously rejected the idea of joining
Pakistan. During the last week of April, 1948 Pakistani forces
moved in to Baloch territory from north and south. The ruler,
Khan of Kalat capitulated and signed an illegal treaty of
accession with Pakistani authorities on 27th of
April, 1948. The newly independent Baloch State survived only
nine months ending with its annexation in to Pakistan.
Faced with the
problem of a genuine and authentic national identity and raisons
d’etre, Pakistani State opted for
transforming national cultures of different nationalities in to
a so-called Pakistani Islamic culture by adjusting it to the
requirements of dominant nationality. Conceived and created on
the theory that religion alone can be a binding force between
diverse ethnic and national entities of North West and Southeast
of Indian subcontinent, Pakistan came as a unique phenomenon in
modern political history. Its top leadership and bureaucracy
came from northern India, having no cultural and social roots in
the country. It was also unique that the language of a few
hundred thousands emigrants was declared as the national and
official language of a sovereign state. It was not only the
ruling elite but the very ‘ideology of Pakistan’ that was alien
to the present nationalities comprising Pakistan. Proponent of
Pakistan ideology, the Muslim league, a political party that was
formed and groomed by British colonial rulers in early twentieth
century, had no popular support within the present geographical
boundaries of the country, a fact fully reflected in the
pre-partition general elections. It was only a section among
Muslim minority in northern India that was in the forefront of
Pakistan movement, motivated in the hope that their future
economic prosperity might be materialized in a separate state.
Founded upon
un-natural and superfluous principles, the Pakistani State
fostered irrational mentality. This led to the creation of an
official, monolithic, absolute Islamic Pakistani identity by
ignoring the multiple identities that comprised the federation
of Pakistan. The emphasis on Islamic brotherhood along with the
‘strong center doctrine’ was institutionalized by the rulers,
which excluded minority nationalities from power structures and
contributed to widening of rift between the center and periphery.
In the process of creating this artificial Islamic identity, the
thousands years old cultures and languages of the minority
nationalities were traded off with the language and cultural
traditions of immigrants from north India. Soon it became clear
that this “god given” country is more or less an extension of
Punjabi-immigrant domination over other nationalities in all
spheres of life. The paradox of Pakistani Islamic nationalism
resulted in hostility towards national aspirations of minority
nationalities.
Having shaky
and unsure ideological and conceptual foundations, the Pakistan
State resorted to strong-arm tactics in dealing with the demands
of different national identities. In a Baloch context, whether
in reserve or in actual employment, brutal force has ever been
present and this has been so since the incorporation of
Balochistan in to Pakistan in 1948.
a)
Massive military crack downs of atrocious
proportion were waged against Baloch people in 1948, 1958, 1973
and the present military operation in Marri, Bugti, Jhalawan and
Southern Balochistan is the latest in this series.
b)
Kidnapping, torture, and selective
killings of Baloch political figures by state security agencies
and fomenting intertribal and intra-tribal conflicts have been
the norms in Balochistan since long.
c)
A ‘state of siege’ has been imposed on
Balochistan through police, paramilitary and armed forces
repression. In all practical terms Balochistan had been ruled as
a conquered territory and present day Balochistan looks like a
war zone. In the absence of any meaningful international
pressure, Pakistani forces are perpetrating all kinds of
brutality and human rights violations with impunity.
Besides
ruthless army actions the State Establishment had been adopting
a variety of policies to confront Baloch demand of cultural,
political and economic emancipation. These can be summarized as
follows:
·
Balochistan has been ruled in a
manner of indirect colonial rule. In the disguise of state
engineered elections, agents of state security agencies were
“elected or projected” as the representatives of Baloch masses.
This is a thorough corruption of colonial traditions and merely
an extension of majority domination by proxy.
·
The State has also been fostering
intertribal and intra-tribal rivalries among those Baloch tribes
whose chiefs are leading the Baloch National Struggle.
·
Fundamentalist religious elements
allied with state establishment have been actively encouraged,
funded and patronized by State to take over, in the long run,
the very fabric of a secular Baloch society.
·
By a process of induced
assimilation education in Balochi is prohibited and a north
Indian language and culture has been superimposed on Baloch
people.
·
Demographic changes have been
actively planned and being executed by the State to reduce the
Baloch into a minority in their own land. Settlers from majority
nationality have been given incentives to move to northern
Balochistan in the past. The recent allotment and occupation of
the thousands of acres of lands in southern Balochistan for the
planned settlement of 2.5 million people from Punjab will bring
about a demographic shift in favor of majority nationality.
The National
Question of Baloch is an old and historically constituted
reality. Founded in 1666 AD, the Khanate of Kalat was the symbol
of Baloch sovereignty, independence or semi-independence status
till 1948. The independent status of Baloch Khanate began to
change from mid 19th century. After the Baloch State
declined to be involved in foreign aggression against
Afghanistan, an English detachment attacked capital Kalat on 13
November 1839. The ruler, Khan Mehrab
Khan, was killed in the battle and a new Khan was appointed as
nominal ruler of Baloch State with a British representative as
the supreme authority. During 1873 and 1893 Britain granted
nearly half of Baloch land to Persia and a small northern
portion to Afghanistan by drawing two lines on the map of the
region namely the Goldsmid and
Durand lines by forcing unjust agreements upon Baloch State. As
a result of these dividing lines Balochistan has been minced by
the powerful grinding jaws of Indian originated two nation
theory of Pakistani State in the east and the brutal, tyrannical
and religious fundamentalism from the reminiscent of Persian
Empire in the west.
Baloch have
never reconciled with the idea of their country being
incorporated in the religious fundamentalist state of Pakistan
nor have accepted the partition of their land into Iranian or
Pakistani or Afghani Balochistan. Baloch had never agreed to
compromise their thousands year old language, traditions and
values in order to adopt state sponsored and the artificial
culture of a fundamentalist Islamic State. The desire among
Baloch to protect their identity, culture, language, territory
and traditional life style contributed to the political
movements which on many occasions led to outcomes such as armed
resistance. In-spite of the diversity of struggle the Baloch
resistance movements in Iran and Pakistan had all the same
background - the will of national liberation.
The National
Question concerns the oppression of one or a number of other
people by a dominant nationality. This fact can not be denied
that Balochistan was conquered by force and is being ruled by
brutal force. In all the institutions
of Pakistan, the Baloch are practically and statutorily been
excluded from the political, economical and cultural processes
of the state. Political power is explicitly the monopoly of the
central government dominated by Punjabis and immigrants. All of
this is being rationalized on the basis of ideology of Pakistan;
the core of this fundamentalist ideology is the conquest and
domination of the minority nationalities of Pakistan in the name
of religion. The features of Baloch National Question in
Pakistan have been determined by a number of factors including
the loss of Baloch homeland, loss of their independent/semi-independent
state and subsequent economic, social and cultural exploitation
and the brutal state reprisal against the demand of collective
Baloch rights. The Baloch as a nation resent the repression and
marginalization by a particular nationality in the name of
Islamic brotherhood. The Baloch people are discontented because
they feel that their cultural and traditional values are
endangered by the attempts of the dominant nationality to impose
imported and alien cultural values. They believe that their land
has been arbitrarily partitioned by imperialistic powers. They
believe that the occupying countries, ruling over the divided
parts of Balochistan, have excluded Baloch people from state
structures of economic and political power. They resent the
educational system of the host countries based on irrational
sectarian and religious parameters. They recognize that the
secular and liberal mindset of Baloch people is incompatible
with the religious and fundamentalist ideologies of the host
countries. They are discontented because they feel that they do
not enjoy the liberty of conscience in the host countries. They
are discontented because they believe that despite immense
natural resources of their land Baloch people are living below
poverty line. Baloch masses firmly believe that Baloch identity
is more at peril than ever before. The Baloch demand for
self-rule constitutes a democratic pursuit that is incompatible
with the despotism and religious-based nationalism of Pakistan,
Iran and Afghanistan. The Baloch believe that the path to their
national salvation and emancipation lies in the achievement of
the universal right of self-determination that is the only
peaceful mean and is an essential element in the solution of
National Questions.
Source:http://www.zrombesh.org/
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Related links:
Baloch Options in Pakistan
