Criminal gangs dealing in drugs, guns, kidnapping and land scams with some of them even enjoying patronage from assorted political outfits and groups are a common sight in the narrow, crooked and overpopulated streets of Lyari.

But all this was not a sudden phenomenon emerging in the last decade or so. Nor is this all what Lyari is about.

Lyari also has a rich political and cultural history; a history that, rather ironically, has to be understood for anyone trying to make head or tails of the constant social and political turmoil and strife this large, awkward locality has been experiencing almost on a daily basis now.

First in line

Lyari is by far the oldest locality of Karachi having begun life centuries ago as a small fishing village.

The locality always had a large Afro-Indian/Pakistani population (Sheedis).

The Sheedis are believed to be the descendants of slaves, sailors, servants and merchants from East Africa who arrived between 1200 and 1900 AD.

In what is today Pakistan, these slaves largely settled along the Markran Coast in Balochistan (they are also called Makranis) and in lower Sindh.

Linguistically, they speak variations of Balochi and Sindhi and (in Karachi) they are also known to have created a distinct dialect of Urdu referred to as ‘Makrani’ in which Urdu words are mixed with Balochi and Sindhi expressions and even popular English terms, manly picked up from British and US films and TV series, are also regularly used, mostly in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Most Sheedis in Karachi were and still are associated with the fishing business (as fishermen, sailors and small boat operators). They also constitute the largest labour force employed at the Karachi port and harbour.

Over the years, especially after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Lyari also began to witness the influx of Pushtuns, Sindhis and Mohajirs (including Memons) and (in the last 30 years), many working-class Afghans, Bengalis and Burmese migrants have also settled here.

The area is a working-class reflection of the stunning ethnic, religious and sectarian diversity that is the hallmark of Karachi’s bulging cosmopolitanism and indigenous secularism.

But Lyari is also the area that hardly benefited from the industrial growth and economic progress that Karachi enjoyed between the 1950s and early 1980s.

In fact by the late 1960s Lyari was well on its way to becoming a modern, urban slum.

The right stuff

A young Lyari girl in a traditional ‘Makrani dress’ at a wedding. –Photo courtesy South Asia News.

But all this did not just produce a locality riddled with only crime, violence and economic desperation. The equation of poverty, overpopulation, diversity, crime, radical politics and the presence of a majority having a proud African lineage also gave birth to a working-class polity, spirituality and aesthetics that have generated a unique cultural scenario.

It is this mix that has correctly painted a perception of Makranis as being open-minded, large-hearted, hard-working people who speak a distinct slang-riddled version of street-Urdu and are passionate about football, boxing and the movies.

Some of the best international level boxers in Pakistan have almost all emerged from Lyari and same is the case with football. It is also perhaps the only area in Pakistan where these two sports actually overshadow cricket!

A majority of Makranis belong to the so-called Sunni ‘Barelvi’ school of faith – an indigenous sub-continental variation of ‘folk Islam’ that emerged in the 18th century as a reaction against the rise of puritanical Islamic movements.

Barelvi Islam is not a concrete doctrine. In essence it is highly decentralised and anti-dogma. It connotes the practice in which sub-continental folk mores are fused with the ritualism of Sufi Islam and the pluralistic and ‘poor-friendly’ culture of devotional music, charity and festivity found around shrines of Sufi saints across Pakistan and India.

Most Makranis of Lyari are the devotees of the legendary 12th century Sufi saint, Pir Mangho, whose shrine in the Mangopir area of Karachi is believed to be one of the oldest in the city.

The shrine also has hot sulphur springs and a large pond where the shrine’s keepers have harvested crocodiles for hundreds of years. Feeding these reptiles is considered to be a celestially ordained and beneficial ritual.

The Makranis come here in their hundreds, especially during the birth celebrations of the saint. Here they re-enact the dancing, musical and devotional rituals of their African ancestors.

Between the late 1970s and 1990s Lyari also produced its own music scene, popularly known as ‘Lyari disco’.

Music has always played a major role in the lives of the people of Lyari, both in the spheres of faith and entertainment – especially music driven by pounding and rhythmic drumbeats.

One of the first areas outside the privileged populace of Karachi to embrace the invasion of classical American and European disco music of the late 1970s was Lyari.

Two Lyari football fans in Brazilian soccer jerseys. -Photo courtesy Akhtar Soomro.

Throughout the 1980s dimly-lit small recording studios sprang up in Lyari where talented young Makrani men and women would record bouncy Balochi tunes that fused basic disco beats with traditional Balochi and African musical dynamics.

First the resultant albums were almost entirely bought and sold in Lyari but a massive ‘Lyari disco’ hit by one Shazia Khushk (a Sindhi) helped the genre to break out and turn Khushk into a national sensation.

The song was ‘Bija Teer Bija’ – recorded (at a Lyari studio) and released in 1988, it was a funky, driven tribute to the charismatic chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto.

The song was first used by the PPP during its electoral campaign for the November 1988 general election.

People’s power

Recently, Lyari has been treated by the media as an area whose politics is rather complex. This is mainly due to the growing influx of working-class people belonging to various ethnicities settling here. With them have arrived attempts by different political parties close to these ethnicities to carve out a vote bank for themselves in Lyari.

Also related to this is the way street crime, land scams and politics have mixed in Karachi in the last two decades in which street thugs and gangs have been used by political parties to generate funds and garner votes.

The complexities in this respect are further heightened when some gangs and criminals ‘become too big for their boots’ and become an embarrassment for the parties, especially when gang warfare conducted purely on criminal grounds become politicised due to the gangsters’ past or present association with political parties.

In the last few years, Lyari has become a hotbed of this particular phenomenon in Karachi. Otherwise, its politics has remained rather uncomplicated.

Ever since the 1970 general election, Lyari has been an unbending vote bank of the PPP. The party has won every national and provincial election that it has contested from Lyari from 1970 right up till the 2008 election.

The credit for this goes to PPP chairman, Z A. Bhutto and his party’s original socialist manifesto that resonated successfully with the people of Lyari.

The populism and socialist policies of the first PPP government (1972-77) were hugely popular with the voters of Lyari, but the PPP and the Bhuttos became enshrined as perpetual heroes here after Bhutto was toppled by a reactionary military coup orchestrated by General Ziaul Haq and then hanged to death through a sham trial in 1979.

Lyari witnessed a number of violent protests against the Zia regime throughout the 1980s, many of these turned into armed conflicts between the police and youth belonging to the PPP’s student and youth wings.

Shrine keepers feed one of the many crocodiles at the shrine of Pir Mangho. -Photo courtesy AP

Lyari also became the breeding ground of radical left-wing politics and activity during the dictatorship. A number of young residents of Lyari were jailed and some were even hanged for their supposed involvement with Murtaza Bhutto’s Al-Zulfikar Organisation (AZO) and other supposedly clandestine ‘communist outfits.’

On her return from exile in 1986, the first large rally that Benazir Bhutto held in Karachi was in Lyari. Her marriage to Asif Ali Zardari also took place in Lyari (1987).

To date, though parties like the MQM, ANP, Sunni Tehreek and some militant Baloch and Sindhi nationalist parties have opened offices here, the PPP support base and vote bank remains steadfast and secure in Lyari.

Attempts have also been made by puritanical Islamic evangelist groups like the Tableeghi Jamat to recruit young poverty-stricken Lyari residents, but the Jamat’s attempts have failed to bag much interest.

Gangland

Lyari is also known for gang-related violence. Though wild and often deadly, many Lyari gangsters have ultimately been portrayed by most Lyari residents as victims of their circumstances; some have even been casted as Robin Hood like characters in Lyari’s many urban folklores.

The first well known gangster here went by the name of Kala Naag (Black Serpent). He was active in Lyari in the 1960s, peddling hashish and running a network of pickpockets.

Kala Naag who emerged from poverty to become a toughie ‘trained’ two angry young men from the area, Sheru and Dadal. Both men were huge American movie fans, loved to drink whisky, smoked hashish and made a living by selling black tickets outside cinemas.

Donkey cart racing is a highly popular sport in Lyari. Bets are placed on races that begin in Lyari and end on the beaches of Karachi’s Clifton area. -Photo courtesy Akhtar Soomro.

They began to encroach upon Naag’s business and became rivals. Gang fights between their individual groups became common but in which only fists and knives were used. Then in 1967, Kala Nag was killed while fleeing the cops.

Sheru and Dadal battled it out between themselves until the arrival of Kala Nag’s son, Allah Baksh, also called ‘Kala Nag 2 (sic).’

Till the early 1980s, Lyari gangsters were largely involved in the trafficking of hashish, in bootlegging and street crimes. However, with the arrival of large quantities of sophisticated weapons and heroin, brought into the city by the large number of Afghan refugees pouring into Pakistan at the wake of the so-called anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, changed that.

Changing rules of the game and growing poverty and population in Lyari meant the emergence of deadlier criminals. Kala Nag 2 joined hands with one Iqbal Babu and brushed aside Sheru and Dadal.

Nag 2 and Babu’s new opponent was Haji Lalu. All of them were now arming their gangs with sophisticated weaponry and had begun to peddle heroin as well.

Lyari was distributed between Babu and Lalu, both of whose groups are also said to have had provided safety to anti-Zia radicals on the run from the police.

A video grab showing members of a radical Baloch outfit replacing the Pakistan flag with a Bloch nationalist flag at a college in Lyari.

Lalu’s gang and the gang operated by Babu and Kala Nag 2 were constantly battling in the streets of Lyari. Extortion had become big business. Babu hired Hanif Bajola, a contract killer to kill Lalu. Simultaneously, Lalu was training his friend Dadal’s orphan son to make a hit on Babu.

Meanwhile, Dadal’s teenaged son, Rehman (Rehman Dakait), entered the fry to take revenge for his father’s downfall engineered by Babu and Kala Nag 2.

Lalu’s son, Arshad Pappu also arrived on the scene. Yet another generation of Lyari gangsters was in the making.

Rehman’s anger was used by Lalu against Kala Nag 2 and Babu. Nag was arrested by police (in 1991), whereas Rehman and his men mowed down a large number of Babu’s thugs, including four of Babu’s sons.

In 1996 Babu was arrested and put behind bars. So was Rehman, but in 1997 he managed to break out and escape. He was now at loggerheads with his mentor Lalu who was put behind bars in the early 2000s, leaving his son Arshad Papu to run his gang.

Rehman Dakait now replaced with uzair Baloch

For almost a decade after this, Rehman and Papu’s gangs battled to enforce their authority over Lyari’s deteriorating crime scene. This was also the first time when Rehman and Papu were said to have developed links with the PPP and MQM men in the area.

Rehman engineered the formation of the Peoples Aman Committee, a charity organisation that distributed money and food to the people of Lyari and was also patronised by the PPP. But the committee was also manned by Rehman’s thugs in the extortion and kidnapping business.

In 2009, the PPP, now back in power, felt that Rehman was becoming too big for his boots. It looked the other way when Karachi police shot dead Rehman.

In 2011, when the Committee, now under Uzair Baloch, got embroiled in a deadly tussle with thugs patronised by the MQM, the PPP’s Sindh government banned the committee.

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com

History and origin

The Baloch claim a mixed ancestry, asserting that they are descended, on the one hand, from Amir Hamza an uncle of the Prophet Mohammed and from a fairy (Pari), and on the other, from the Kurds living in the area of Aleppo, Syria from which they were expelled in A. D. 580 by the Sasanian Persian King Chosroes I Anoshervan. Their migration took them first to the area of Alborz Mountains and Qazvin to Kerman, then Sistan, and finally into Makran. In time, most of the territory of Makran has come to be known as Balochistan (“Land of the Baloch” in the Persian language). In the 13th century, some of the Baloch moved into Sindh (where they are known as the Sindhi Baloch) and also into Punjab.^[1]

Mir Jalal Khan was one of the Baloch historical rulers, and from his four sons— Rind, Lashar, Hot and Korai spring the four main Baloch tribes. The Jatoi are the children of Jatoi, Jalal Khan’s daughter. These main sections are now divided into innumerable septs. Historically, in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, the term Baloch denoted any Muslim camel-man. The word has come to be associated with the care of camels, because the Baloch settlers of the Western plains have taken to the grazing and breeding of camels rather than to husbandry.

About the beginning of the 16th century the Balochis were driven out of the Kalat valley by the Brahuis and Turks. Yielding to pressure they moved eastward into the Sulaiman Mountains, drove out the Pashtuns, and settled along the banks of the Indus. Three Baloch adventurers Ismail Khan, Fatteh Khan, and Ghazi Khan, founded the three Dehras (encampments) that bear their names, and established themselves as independent rulers of the Lower Derajat and Muzaffargarh, which they and their descendants held for nearly 300 years. The three brothers founded the settlements of Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan and Darya Khan. Thence the southern Balochis gradually spread into the valleys of the Indus, Chenab, and Sutlej, and in 1555 a large body of Balochis, under their great leader Mir Chakar, accompanied the Emperor Humayun into India. It is probable that many of the Baloch settlements, in North India (Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh), were founded by Humayun’s soldiers. Mir Chakar settled in Sahiwal and his tomb still exists at Satgarha, where he founded a military colony of Rinds.

Baloch of the Doab

Now the most important Baloch colonies in Uttar Pradesh are those of Amirnagar, Garhi Abdullah Khan, Garhi Pukhta, Jasoi and Baghra in Muzaffarnagar District. They settled in the district during the rule of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and rose to prominence as the Mughal Empire disintegrated. Another two prominent Baloch families were those of Chanderu and Jhajhar, in Bulandshahr District. The Chanderu Baloch are descended from Nahar Khan, who is said to have from Seistan during the rule of Alauddin Khilji. Nahar Khan was latter appointed governor of Deccan, and his son Sardar Khan founded a settlement in Ganaura Shaikh, and the family rose to some prominence during the rule of the Aurangzeb. While the Jhajhar family claim descent from Syed Mohammad Khan, a Leghari Baluch, who was granted a jagir by the Mughal Emperor Humayun. They played a key role in the post-Mughal history of the Doab region, but began to decline with the rise of British power in the 19th century.^[2]

The Baloch of Haryana all emigrated to Pakistan at the time of partition. The Baloch now speak Urdu and the Khari Boli dialect, and are found in the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh.^[1]

Baloch of Rohilkhand

The Baluch of Rohilkhand accompanied Hafiz Rahmat Khan, Rohilla conqueror. They have now been assimilated into the Rohilla community, and lost their distinct Baloch identity. The Rohilkhand Baloch belong mainly to the Magsi, Leghari and Mazari tribes. These Baloch are found mainly in the districts of Badaun, Bijnor, Shahjahanpur and Moradabad.^[1]
There is also a single settlement of Baloch in Lucknow District, at Baluchgarhi. These Baloch are descendants of mercenaries brought by the Nawabs of Awadh.^[3]

Present circumstances

The Baloch of North India are now altogether separated from the Baloch tribes of Balochistan and tribal divisions are no longer important. They are found in the districts of Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshar and Aligarh. Their customs are similar to those of the neighbouring Muslim communities such as the Jhojha and Ranghar. The Baluch reside in mixed caste villages, occupying their own quarters, and are largely small and medium sized farmers, with a small number being landless agricultural labourers. Their most important settlements are in several villages in and around the town of Baghra in Muzaffarnagar District. A second cluster of Baloch villages exist in Bulandshahr District, where there are several villages near the towns of Jhajhar and Chanderu. In addition, the town of Faridnagar in Ghaziabad District is home to an important colony of Baloch. They are strictly endogamous, marrying within close kin, and like other North Indian Muslim communities. The Baluch practice both cross cousin and parallel cousin marriages. They speak both Urdu and Khari Boli, the local dialect in the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh.^[4]

The Baluch are almost entirely Sunni Muslims, and like other Doab Muslim communities have been influenced by the Deobandi reformist movement. They have no formal caste association, although most villages with Baloch do have traditional caste associations, known as panchayats. These panchayats exercise social control, and are deal with intra community disputes.^{[citation needed]}

The Baloch of Balochgarhi in Lucknow District considers themselves simply as a sub-group of the Pathan, with whom they intermarry. They speak the Awadhi dialect, as well as standard Urdu. The community are mainly small and medium sized farmers, although historically many were employed by the state police. They have no connection with the Baloch of the Doab. There are also small number of Baloch colonies in Sitapur, Kheri and Hardoi. Many of the Awadh Baloch are Shia.^[3]

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baluch_%28Uttar_Pradesh%29

KARACHI: Walking into a session on Balochistan, one would expect a discussion and questions on human rights violations, separatist talk and where the government is going wrong. But the session titled ‘Songs of the Falcon: Balochistan’ at the second day of the Karachi Literature Festival on Sunday was anything but that. In fact, it was a talk on the cultural diversity and brief history of the province, and quite dull if summarised into one word.Named after a short story by Russian author Maxim Gorky, the session was moderated by author and political commentator Dr Rasul Baksh Rais, who spent more than 15 minutes with the introduction and presenting the first question to the panel of Naheed Azfar, Zobaida Jalal and Yaqoob Bangash.

Jalal, who was the education minister during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, focused more on personal accounts for her answers. Her answers therefore drew on the Makran region, where she comes from, and even when it came to discussing civil society, she chose to mention the construction of a school by her family and how Balochistan focused more on community-based organisation.

Naheed Azfar’s talk on the other hand was more focused on the cultural side of the province, differences in dress, jewellry and a personal account of Baloch hospitality, which left a section of the audience clapping and cheering. This obviously wasn’t very interesting for Bangash, who was seen yawning on stage during one of her answers.

As it turned out, Yaqoob Bangash was a lot more engaging and interesting than the other two panellists – he did exactly what he was good at: give a history lesson to the audience.  Perhaps if the organisers had chosen Bangash to moderate the session, it would have gone differently.

His ‘lesson’ focused more on the history of British Balochistan, the state of Kalat and Baloch tribes existing in both Balochistan and Sindh (mention of the Zardari tribe also being Baloch had Jalal smirking on stage).

Bangash said that it was important to understand the diversity of the province and engage with it, a creation of a state that can hold together. “The reason we don’t understand Balochistan is because we don’t understand what is going on there.”

He was quick to point out that the problem lay with not honouring the Baloch. “You have to engage and honour them, admit past mistakes and tell them that we want you to remain with Pakistan… they will get on board.” Thus, the Baloch will become a part of a national discourse if they are given the opportunity. Probably the most interesting part of the session was not Bangash’s history lesson, but an angry gentleman from the audience who pointed out that the historian was wrong in presenting the geographical history of the province and that the people who knew Balochistan were not being given their rights. The gentleman also directed his ‘mild rage’ towards Jalal, stating that language was a cultural expression of the province and she had not even given its people the right to learn in their mother tongue during her tenure.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2012.

Chabahar: A Sunni cleric was assassinated in Iran’s south eastern province of Balochistan, the state-run Press TV reported, without citing anyone.

Molavi Mostafa Jangizahi, who was the Friday prayers leader of the southeastern town of Rask, was killed by 2 unknown motor rider while on the road traveling to Haji Abad, the news channel said in a report published on its website yesterday. The report er from Press TV said no group has claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Jangi Zehi advocated unity between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Press TV said. The Sistan-Baluchistan province borders Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east and is one of the country’s poorest. The Sunni-dominated province in the mostly Shiite Muslim nation has experienced political unrest and several attacks on military officials in recent years.

The historic speech made by late Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo as leader of the house in the Darul Awam on 30th December 1948 formed the quintessence of that Baloch national consensus. However, within a year, the government of Pakistan engineered the accession of Kalat and its subsidiaries — Kharan, Mekran and Lasbela — to Pakistan by means of series of coercive actions, the historical fallout of which survives till today in the shape of popular resentment against the real and perceived sense of injustices meted out to the people of Balochistan by successive federal governments in Pakistan.”

MAKRAN – A SUBSIDIARY OF KALAT

“About the middle of the last century the whole of Makran, as well as Kharan and Mashkhei, was conquered by Nasir Khan, the Khan of Kalat, and annexed to his dominions. He instituted a liberal system of government by which the administration was carried on jointly by a Naib, representing the Khan, and the local Gichki Sardar, between whom the revenues were divided in certain fixed shares.

“This arrangement seems to have worked satisfactorily until the Gichkis began to degenerate and the Naoshirwanis began to oust them by intrigues of every description. The Noashirwanis who occupy Kharan are of pure Persian stock. Kharan stretches from the Jhalawan hills to the Persian border, a country of long sandy valleys with but little cultivation; its inhabitants a righting, raiding, restless clan whose life was dependent on successful forays against the more settled countries of their neighbours.

“Sprung from a bold and determined race, filled with the sense of their own importance, and possessed of a much higher order of intelligence than the other ruling races in Makran, the younger members of the Naoshirwanis, as they found their shares in the ancestral property insufficient for their wants, have endeavoured to carve out for themselves fortunes from the property of their less energetic neighbours. But they differ from the Arab conquerors of the country in that whereas the Arab converted the land from desert to oasis, the Naoshirwani reduces oases to deserts.

“In 1888, led by Naoroz Khan, the Naoshirwanis raided Panjgur, and slew Mir Gajian, the Gichki Sardar, who was also the Khan’s naib. At this time Azad Khan was still head of the Kaoshirwanis. Sandeman thus describes him:

“‘In spite of his great age Azad Khan retains his mental faculties unimpaired. Bowed by age, he is unable to mount a horse without assistance, but, once in the saddle, his endurance is greater than that of many a younger man. Possessed of unflinching resolution, impatient of wrong, generous to reward, stern and relentless in punishment, Sardar Azad Khan has above all things enjoyed a reputation for unswerving honesty. He is never known to depart from his word once given, and has a sincere contempt for chicanery or falsehood.’

“Sandeman visited the country in 1884. Disputes between the Naoshirwanis and the Khan of Kej were adjusted, and before his death three years later, at the age of 101, the veteran chief had shown his friendship for the British Government by rendering valuable assistance in the matter of transport to the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission. He had also arranged, in cooperation with our officers, for the protection of trade routes.

“The Khan of Kalat, owing to his dislike of the Naoshirwanis was displeased with the settlement; he wished rather to establish his own power in an absolute form in Panjgur; therefore in order to get the Naoshirwanis into trouble he countenanced disturbances.

“Muhammad Hasan, Gichki, of Sami claimed the sardarship of Panjgur. He was aided by the Noshirwanis under Baluch Khan, and was enabled to keep the whole countryside in a distracted condition, causing damage to the resources of Panjgur, estimated at several lakhs, and reducing the unfortunate people to the extremity of wretchedness.

“In 1890-91 Sir Robert Sandeman again visited Panjgur, which was in a state of almost complete anarchy. Peace was introduced by the occupation of Panjgur by British Indian troops, but after their withdrawal in 1893, complaints were received of the misbehaviour of Muhammad Ali, the Khan’s naib, and in 1896 he was replaced by Kaoda Muhammad Khan, an influential and capable Baluch headman. The state of Kej was somewhat less disturbed, owing chiefly to the high character of the Gichki Sardar, Bhai Khan, and his influence with the tribes. But as the Sardar grew feeble with age the Khan’s Naoshirwani, Mir Shahdad, raised feuds in order to increase his power and lessen that of the Gichkis, great destruction of property and loss of life ensued, and the ruling power was brought into contempt. The attempt to manage the Rinds of Mand through the Naib and Sardar of Kej was also far from successful. They looted the caravans carrying the Persian trade, and it was impossible to exact from them any reparation for the damage caused by their raids. Mir Shahdad was replaced shortly afterwards by Abdul Karim, Gichki. In revenge for his supersession in the naibship, Mir Shahdad attacked and severely wounded a British officer, and then fled the country.

“So low had our influence in those parts sunk that, in 1890, Sher Muhammad, a nephew of Sardar Bhai Khan, openly defied the British Agent, and fired upon his camp from the stronghold of Nasirabad in Kej. Nasirabad had been held by one Mehrab Khan, who was expelled by Sher Muhammad. The two men were relations and disputed the right of ownership. In 1891, Sir Robert Sandeman decided in favour of Mehrab Khan, but required him to pay Sher Muhammad Rs.100 per annum compensation. In 1893 the latter forced Mehrab Khan to sell the fort to him for Rs.1,300 or about a quarter of its value.

“In 1896 the Khan of Kalat made a tour in the Makran country, accompanied by Lieutenant E. LeMesurier, Officiating Political Agent in Kalat, and by Mir Yakub Khan, eldest son of Sardar Sir Nauru Khan and by several leading men of the Sarawan and Jalawan tribes.

“The principal incidents of the tour were:

“(a) The surrender of the Nag fort in Kolwa by the sons of Baluch Khan, Naoshirwani.

(b) The surrender of the Nasirabad fort near Kej by Sher Muhammad Gichki.

(c) The arrangements initiated for the future administration, under the Khan’s orders of the districts of Kej (including Bolida, Kolwa, and Panjgur).

“At Nasirabad a jirga was assembled and, on their finding, Sher Muhammad was confirmed in possession of the fort on a payment of Rs.100 per annum to Mir Mehrab Khan.

“Having regard to Sher Muhammad’s turbulence in the past the Nasirabad fort was garrisoned by seventy-five Kalat sepoys, Panjgur also was garrisoned by twenty-five of the Khan’s troops, and the Nag fort was held by twenty levies. The Nazim was provided with an escort of twenty levy camel sowars.

“Afterwards Baluch Khan’s grandson, Muhammad Umar Khan, was made Naib of Kolwa, and was living with Baluch Khan at Hor Kalat, in 1898.

“Thus tranquillity was introduced into this wretched country. Yet in Panjgur, Kej and Kolwa the elements of disturbance still remained. In Panjgur the fear of Naoshirwani aggression, in Kej also Naoshirwani intrigue and smouldering feuds and animosities amongst the Gichkis and in Kolwa the notorious freebooter Baluch Khan left in power to oppress and to rebel; and moreover the universal dislike of a Muhammadan people to a Hindu Nazim, were sparks to be fanned by the first breath of opportunity into a conflagration.

“It would indeed appear, from a study of after events, that this pacification of the country resulted in gradually combining all the ruling Sardars in common cause against the paramount power, thus putting a temporary end to internal feuds. The troubles in northern Baluchistan and the outbreak in Persian Makran, where Mr. Graves of the Telegraph Department was murdered, caused a certain amount of unrest throughout the country.

“Baluch Khan, Mehrab Khan Gichki, and a large number of other Sardars of Kej all attributed their own discontent and rebellion to the appointment of alleged oppression and tyranny of Diwan Udho Das. It may be here stated that in the final settlement an enquiry was held into these allegations and the Kej motibars signed a paper saying they had no cause for complaint against Udho Das and no complaints against him were substantiated. Nevertheless, this probably was the cause of the outbreak.

“On the 6th January 1898, Mehrab Khan Gichki, attacked the Nazim Diwan Udho Das, looted his treasury and took him prisoner but on the representation of his elder brother he was set at liberty and shut up in Kalatuk, in Kej, under protection of Abdul Karim, Naib of Kej. Mehrab Khan then sent a messenger to Baluch Khan, telling him what he had done. It appears probable that the country at this time was in a state of unusual internal quiescence and that no outbreak was suspected, because four officers of the Survey Department, with a large unarmed following of lascars, etc., and a very small escort of local levies, were sent to undertake survey operations in the Kolwa and Kej valleys.

salimansar52@gmail.com

A banker by profession, Salim Ansar has a passion for history and historic books. His personal library already boasts a treasure trove of over 7,000 rare and unique books.

Every week, we shall take a leaf from one such book and treat you to a little taste of history.

BOOK NAME: Frontier & Overseas Expeditions From India

AUTHOR: Intelligence Branch Division of the Chief of Staff

PUBLISHER: Army Head Quarter India

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1910

The above excerpt has been taken from Pages: 241 — 245

Welcomme contacted Nawab Akber Khan Bugti and told him the story of that spectacular discovery. Bugti not only gave him the permission for further excavations but helped him with every day needs and workers. In 1997, Welcomme discovered the first finger of the Baluchitherium in a stony valley near Dera Bugti.

The giant of the hidden valley

After the first clue, Welcomme and other mammalian experts unearthed an array of amazing fossils. The team discovered uncountable fossils in a mere 200 square meter area, which could be considered the best exposed bone-beds on Earth. They found many remains of male and female Baluchitherium simply lying on the ground, which was a quite rare event in paleontological findings. Perhaps the massive creatures were swept away by a river and had accumulated on the banks. Scientists also found traces of crocodile’s teeth on bones which suggested that the Baluchitherium was also a common prey of crocodiles.

In 2003, the French team carefully examined every major and minor bone and finally put them in proper place, building a composite skeleton of the Baluchitherium. The skeleton suggested that the giant creature was five-meters tall and weighed 20 tonnes, almost as massive as the size of three large elephants!

Scientists got the rough idea of the Baluchitherium’s height by examining its bones. But defining the mass of any extinct mammal is a tricky job. Teeth and especially bones are very helpful to identify the mass of any mammal. Over decades of investigations, scientists have devised many techniques to find the mass of a mammal by looking at the length and diameter of its bones. These methods can be successfully applied to assess the bone-mass relation of the mammals.

In the geological time scale, Baluchitherium roamed Asia in Oligocene epoch or 30 millions years ago. According to plate tectonics, some 200 million years ago, the sub-continent was locked – it was a part of the great Gondwanaland which comprised South-America, Africa, Sub-Continent and Australia.

This block had been dismantled into parts and slowly moved towards Asia. 55 million years ago, one part of the Indian plate hit the Asian plate and 43 million years ago the contact between the two was complete. This collision brought about the Great Himalayan Mountains. The Indian-Asian plate collision changed the whole climate of the region.

Heavy rains and erosion turned Balochistan into a lush green rainforest like today’s Amazon. The conditions were suitable for a hornless rhinoceros or Baluchitherium to flourish. The lush forest provided enough vegetation for the bulk-eater mammal to survive. Baluchitherium lived for 11 million years, nearly 35 to 24 million years ago.

After working on the Baluchitherium, Welcomme tried to uncover the entire environment it shared. The team discovered the diversified fossils of fish, turtles, crocodiles, rodents and other small mammals. He studied 40 sites that described 12 distinct levels of different geological ages. He also discovered prehistoric trees, flowers and leaves.

Amazingly, the team found shark teeth, fish and shells which suggested that around 32 million years ago an epicontinental sea had appeared in the heart of Balochistan, which was a rare phenomenon.

Is Balochistan a cradle for humanity?

Prehistoric Balochistan can also be considered an exact place of migration of mammals coming from South East Asia on the road to Africa or Europe. Simply put, it could be called a cross road for African mammals. Amazing fossils of ancestors of elephants and lemurs also discovered in Balochistan, strengthened the hypothesis that many animal groups have Asian origins. We can assume that this place was an evolutionary highway for the kin of today’s many advanced animals. Surprisingly the French team discovered some 20,000 fossils of mammals only from and around the areas of Dera Bugti.

Two important discoveries are worth mention here, one is the mystery of lemur. Bug-eyed and slow moving lemurs now only live on the island of Madagascar. Before 2001, scientists had believed that only Africa was the birthplace of lemurs. But a lemur fossil discovered in Pakistan changed the paleontology text books.

Laurent Marivaux, another French expert discovered a 30 million-year-old fossil of a lemur from Balochistan. Dubbed as Bugtilemur Mathesoni, it is now the oldest fossil of lemur found anywhere on the planet. Bugtilemur triggered a new debate among scientists that lemurs may have Asian rather than African roots.

The details of that discovery were published in the prestigious research journal, “Science”, in which Marivaux said, “The discovery was totally unexpected and the time has come for the Asian scenario to receive more serious attention.”

The evidence of the above statement came from other finding of Jean Loup Welcomme. He discovered another fossil valley called “Paali” in Balochistan. On a very hot day in Paali, he filled his clear plastic bags with sand. Back to the small lab in a Dera Bugti guest house, he washed and screened the sand and was surprised that the grains were so little that the screen was empty except for some dark grains. But, later, under the microscope, he realised that those grains were in fact the teeth of small-sized mammals which had remained well preserved. Among them was a tooth of a primate!Thus Paali became a window to our own group – Anthropoid Primates. Afterward, more teeth of primates discovered from the same site suggested that Balochistan could be the motherland of all animal groups including humans. But further excavation is needed to find more astonishing results because scientists have been screening other areas for decades but only five per cent of Dera Bugti  searched so far. It is important to unearth Balochistan’s paleontology scenario, because its open fossil beds are ready to reveal the treasure to the whole world. For instance, only Paali area holds the secret of more than 10 million years of ancient life on the planet.

Why did the Baluchitherium become extinct?

The answer lies in the same conditions which developed a stage for Baluchitherium to flourish. Some 22 million years ago, the movements of Asia and Africa destroyed the most important prehistoric sea, the “Tethys”. The disappearance of the sea gradually changed the climate of Asia. Balochistan turned into stony desert from a green valley. The vegetation disappeared and Baluchitherium became extinct in the battle of survival.

Fortunately, Nawab Akber Khan Bugti kept the Baluchitherium bones in 10 metallic containers. After he was killed, the fossils were recovered and sent to the museum of the Geological Survey of Pakistan and still remain there.

Pakistan is an ‘El Dorado’ for fossil hunters. However, serious attention is also required to highlight the discoveries from Pakistan. It has been a decade since the complete skeleton of the largest land mammal was discovered from Pakistan. Beautiful series of postal tickets could be issued or the Baluchitherium could be declared the symbol of Balochistan.

A veteran artist, Asim Mirza, beautifully carved a one-tenth scale model of the Baluchitherium. He also invited Jean Loup Welcomme to see how it looked.

When Welcomme first saw the fiber glass model, he was amazed to see the authenticity of the prehistoric giant. By his own resources, Mirza has also been working on a life model of Baluchitherium for the past five years and is now on the verge of completing it.

Fortunately, Jean Loup Welcomme will again visit Pakistan in Spring 2011, to work on a joint project with the Sindh University.

Pakistan, smarting under the shock of vivisection in 1971, certainly over-reacted to the Balochi nationalist assertion. The immediate provocation for the Baloch resistance was Bhuttos dismissal of the Baloch provincial government in February 1973 in which Ghaus Bux Bizenjo was Governor and Attaullah Mengal Chief Minister.

Bhutto alleged that the government had repeatedly exceeded its constitutional authority and alleged that this had been done in collusion with Iraq and the Soviet Union as part of a plot to dismember both Pakistan and Iran.

The dismissal was timed with the disclosure of a cache of 300 Soviet sub-machine guns and 48,000 rounds of ammunition allegedly consigned to Baloch leaders that were found in the house of the Iraqi Defence Attaché in Islamabad. It was, however, subsequently revealed that the arms had actually been found in Karachi and were meant for Iranian Baloch in retaliation against Irans support to Iraqi Kurds and that the Iraqi Defence Attaché had collaborated with Iranian and Pakistani intelligence agents in staging the arms exposure to put pressure on the Iranians.

Following the dismissal of their government, Baloch guerrillas began to ambush army convoys from April 1973. Bhutto retaliated by sending in the army to Balochistan and by putting three veteran nationalist leaders of Balochistan Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Ataullah Khan Mengal and Khair Bux Marri, behind the bars. The armed struggle continued over the next four years with varying degrees of severity.

At the height of the war there were over 80,000 Pakistani troops in the province. The fighting was more wide-spread than it had been in 1950s and 1960s. The guerrillas succeeded by July 1974 to cut off most of the main roads linking Balochistan with surrounding provinces and to periodically disrupt the Sibi-Harnai rail link thereby blocking coal shipments from the Baloch areas to the Punjab. Additionally, attacks on drilling and survey operations stymied oil exploration activities.

The then Shah of Iran, apprehending trouble in Iranian Balochistan, supported the Pakistan forces in decimating the Baloch resistance. The Shah sent in 30 US Cobra Helicopters manned by Iranian pilots who pounded the Baloch pockets of resistance. The turning point came during the 6-day battle at Chamalang in the Marri area in September 1974.

In line with the Pakistan armys scorched earth policy, an army ground and air offensive in the winter of 1974 on the Baloch tribes, largely Marris, along with their families, who had gathered in an annual pilgrimage to the Chamalang plains to graze their flocks, inflicted heavy human and livestock casualties. While casualties on both sides were heavy, the Baloch were unable to regain the military initiative in the ensuing years.

Most of the Balochi leaders left Pakistan and went into exile in Afghanistan, the UK and other places outside Pakistan. Several Baloch groups migrated to Afghanistan where they were permitted to set up camps by Mohd Daud. Even if Bhutto claimed to have wiped out Baloch resistance, he played a big role in the transformation of dispersed Pararis into the Balochistan Peoples Liberation Front (BPLF) in 1976, led by Mir Hazar Khan Marri, who broke away from Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) led by Sher Muhammad Marri.

The anti-Bhutto sentiments of the Baloch nationalists were well manipulated by Zia ul Haq after he seized power in 1977 and his show of clemency was received well by many Baloch leaders including the Baloch triumvirate: Ghaus Bux Bizenzo, Ataullah Mengal and Akbar Khan Bugti. However, a rebel faction of the Marris continued defying the Pakistani administration. And, as a proof of the irreconcilability of Balochi nationalism with the Pakistani state-nationalism, the most aggressive and fiercely independent of all Baloch factions, the Baloch Students Union (BSO), reorganised and reasserted itself in the early 1990s.

On August 15, 1947, a day after Pakistan came into existence, the Khan of Kalat had declared independence. Kalats independent status had been affirmed several times by the Muslim League and by the Kalat National Assembly. Despite this, on 1 April 1948, the Pakistan Army marched into Kalat and arrested the Khan who capitulated. His brother, Prince Abdul Karim (with the Khans tacit approval) however, declared a revolt proclaiming the independence of Kalat and issued a manifesto in the name of the Baloch National Liberation Committee rejecting the accession agreement signed by the Khan. Karim hoped to obtain Afghan support since Afghanistan had objected to the inclusion of the Baloch and Pashtun areas in Pakistan and had even opposed the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations. While the Pakistani version is that Karim received substantial Afghan support, the Baloch nationalist version is that Afghanistan denied support since it favoured the inclusion of Balochistan in Afghanistan rather than an independent Balochistan.

First Guerrilla Revolt

Prince Abdul Karim launched guerrilla operations against the Pakistan Army in Jhalawan district in late May, 1950, but the Khan, threatened with reprisals by Pakistani Army authorities, persuaded his brother to surrender with assurances of safe conduct and amnesty from the Pakistan Army. Pakistani officers reportedly signed a safe conduct agreement with Abdul Karims representatives and swore an oath on the Koran to uphold it. However, Pakistani forces dishonoured the agreements by ambushing and arresting the Prince and 102 of his accomplices on their way to Kalat in 1950. Karims revolt is important in Baloch history for two reasons. First, it established that the Baloch did not accept the accession of Kalat with Pakistan. Second, it led to the wide-spread Baloch belief that Pakistan had betrayed the safe conduct agreement. The Baloch regard this as a first series of broken treaties that have created distrust between them and Islamabad. Karim and his followers were all sentenced to long prison terms and became rallying symbols for the Baloch liberation movement.

The Second Revolt

The next violent outbreak of Baloch sentiments came in 1958. This was the direct result of the centralising policies pursued by the Pakistani leaders. Fears of Bengali domination in the 1950s had propelled the Punjabi leaders, who controlled the levers of power, to consolidate the Western Wing of Pakistan into a unified province to counter Bengali numerical strength.

This One Unit plan was resisted by the Baloch, both by Abdul Karim who had completed his prison term in 1955 and the Khan who mobilised wide spread demonstrations through tribal chieftains. Balochi nationalists within the Khanate took serious exception to the One Unit scheme and in a meeting with Pakistani president Iskander Mirza in October 1957 they urged Iskander Mirza to exempt Kalat from the One Unit scheme, and to allot more government spending on developmental activities in Kalat.

But Ayub Khans ambitions changed the political matrix in Pakistan and when some Baloch sardars started non-cooperating with the Pakistani commissioner, under a flimsy pretext that the Khan had raised a parallel army to attack Pakistani military, Ayub ordered Pakistani army to march into Kalat on 6 October 1958, a day before he imposed martial rule in Pakistan. The army arrested the Khan and his followers and accused them of secretly negotiating with Afghanistan for a full-scale Baloch rebellion.

The arrest touched off a chain reaction of violence and counter-violence with the government bombing villages suspected of harbouring guerrillas. Pakistan military’s campaigns in Danshera and Wad were resisted by the Jhalawan Sardars loyal to the Khan. The octogenarian Chief of the Zehri tribe in Jhalawan, Nauroz Khan put up a stiff resistance in the Mir Ghat mountains, but the Pakistani military swore an oath by the Quran and urged Nauroz to give up arms and prepare for negotiations.

Nauroz surrendered in anticipation of safe conduct and amnesty but the army put Nauroz and his sons behind the bars as soon as they laid down their arms. Naurozs sons were hanged soon afterwards, in Hyderabad and Sukur, in July 1960. A shocked and surprised Nauroz died soon afterwards in Kohlu prison in 1962. Ayubs message to the Balochis of Kalat who were the first to challenge the might of the Pakistani state, was clear. He reportedly threatened the total extinction of Balochis if they did not mend their ways.

The 1958 revolt was followed by the Pakistan Army setting up new garrisons at key points in the interior of Balochistan. This in turn provoked the Baloch to plan for more armed guerrilla movements capable of defending Balochi interests. The movement was led by Sher Mohammed Marri who was far-sighted enough to realise that the disorganised random struggle adopted so far would have to be transformed into a classic guerrilla warfare.

For this purpose, he set up a network of base camps spread from the Mengal tribal areas of Jhalawan in the South to the Marri and Bugti areas in the North. The Pararis, as the guerrillas were called, ambushed convoys, bombed trains and so on. In retaliation, the army staged savage reprisals. For example, the Army bulldozed 13,000 acres of almond tress owned by Sher Mohammed and his relatives in the Marri area. The fighting continued sporadically until 1969 when the Yahya Khan withdrew the One Unit plan and got the Baloch to agree to a ceasefire. Despite the ceasefire, the Pararis assumed that the renewal of the hostilities with Islamabad would be unavoidable sooner or later. As such, the organisational infrastructure was kept intact and cadres continued to be trained.

“I believe there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those doing the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the colour of the skin. You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” — Malcolm X

I’ve traveled across Pakistan several times. I’ve been to the plains of Punjab, the Indus valley, the foothills of Karakorum, the delta of Indus river and the coastal region of Makran. Every region has its attraction and charm but if one asks me honestly, Balochistan is by far the most interesting and fascinating region of Pakistan. Why? It is because the land of Balochistan is blessed with a spectacular terrain that includes mountains, deserts, plateau, sea, valleys, oases, and so much more.

It was my first trip to the region and I was traveling to Quetta to watch a highly charged football match between India and Pakistan. Like cricket, both arch rivals promise to deliver some thrilling sporting moments in football competitions as well. Anyway, I boarded the bus and headed to the provincial capital Quetta from Pakistan’s largest city Karachi.

Map of Balochistan where Baloch population is in the majority.

It is very hard for me to hide my excitement and suppress my feelings. Sat in the bus I couldn’t help but smile and peek out from the window. Soon I noticed that a young guy came to my seat and asked to sit next to me which I did not mind. After formal introduction he asked if I was a foreigner traveling to Balochistan for the first time. “I hope you don’t have preconceived ideas about our nation Mr. Khawaja,” he said in a sarcastic tone. “I believe in my own observations and forming my own opinion based on them,” came my reply with a smile to which he seemed much relieved.

Azizullah was a 23 year old student who was studying medicine at a university in Karachi. Appearing to be a very quiet and reserved young man, he later became more friendly and chatty. He came from a middle class Baloch family from Khuzdar area in central Balochistan. “My father and uncles are doctors as well but I wanted to break the tradition of our family and become a diplomat,” he lamented as we started the conversation. The driver set off to Quetta at the same time.

CONUNDRUM

As our chat progressed he went on to tell me how hard it is to become a diplomat due to his ethnic background. Soon my Baloch friend lobbed this conundrum at me: “Guess a land that is blessed with natural wealth yet suffers from chronic poverty. A civilization that is rich of culture and traditions yet suffers from degradation. A nation that takes pride in its values and traditions yet suffers from suppression of identity. A laborer that works hard with patience and diligence yet gets exploitation and oppression as wages. And ironically, a cow that is forced to give milk yet starves for fodder to survive.” I resorted to scratching my head and wondered what I’m about to learn from him…

Balochistan has been in the news over the past few years due to the low level insurgency going on in the region. Thousands of activists are actively fighting the authorities in the volatile provinces of Balochistan in Pakistan and in Sistaan va Balochistan province in neighboring Iran. Many people in both Pakistan and Iran insist that foreign powers are actively meddling in the state of affairs of these provinces and are bent upon breaking them away from the nation. One can find both Iranian and Pakistani analysts filling hundreds of pages of newsprint with information on how the Baloch fighters are getting weapons from U.S.A. and other regional powers. However, one thing you’ll seldom find them telling is the reason why some Baloch ‘miscreants’ have taken weapons in their hands and are waging a war for autonomy or independence.

I wasted no time and asked Azizullah the same question. “It is convenient to label someone a criminal or terrorist. A person commits a crime and he becomes a criminal. A kidnapping, shooting, killing, assassination or bombing and a terrorist is born,” the medical student expressed philosophically. After a brief pause while reading my facial expressions, he continued: “However, seldom we come to know what the motives were behind every criminal or terrorists’ action. It is not possible to believe that all these people are born evil and their only purpose of life is to bring destruction and harm to the society. So what is the rationale?” Azizullah’s questions started to become intense and critical.

LAND, PEOPLE AND PRIDE

Balochistan is a region that is spread across Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The combined area of this region is around 600,000 square kilometers, which is about the size of Ukraine; 347,000 km² is part of Pakistan, 181,785 km² in Iran and around 70,000 km² in Afghanistan. Despite having large areas in Pakistan and Iran, the Baloch population is around 5 million and 2 million respectively in both the countries. It is estimated that more than 200,000 Baloch people live in southern Afghanistan.

A view of spectacular terrain of Balochistan from the newly constructed Coastal Highway. (Photo: Bilal MiRza بلال ميرزا)

According to contemporary Baloch scholar Dr. Naseer Dashti, Baloch people trace their history to the ancient Parthian family of Aryan tribes living in the Caspian Sea region. The Baloch tribes began to settle in to present day Balochistan as early as 1200 AD. The migration of Baloch population from Caspian Sea region to the present semi-desert land of Balochistan took place in three different times and places.

Baloch tribes first migrated to present day Balochistan from the northern areas of Mesopotamia, what is now called Kurdistan. These Baloch are known as Narui (Nara denoting north in archaic Balochi language). They settled in the area of Sistan in present-day Iran, Helmand valley in southern Afghanistan and Chagai plains in present Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Balochistan – The other side of the story

The second migration followed the first after a few hundred years. The incoming Baloch tribes moved from Mount Elburz in the south of Caspian Sea and settled in central Balochistan areas of Khuzdar and Kalat in Pakistan.

The Baloch intellectual adds that the third and most important of all is the migration of the remaining Baloch tribes said to be living in Syrian city of Aleppo who first settled in Kerman (present day Iran), then Makran and finally in the plains of Sibi and Kachchi in eastern Balochistan. This migration took place during 12th century AD.

Historic map of the region.

While I read the above mentioned information in notes given by Azizullah, he answered a call on his mobile phone. Hearing Balochi language for the first time I tried to understand a few words that are used in both Urdu and Arabic.

“Balochi is the language spoken by the Baloch people. It is a member of the Indo-Aryan languages,” he explained after sensing my curiosity about his language. “Balochi is closely related to Kurdish, Persian and Sanskrit languages but it is believed to be more ancient than these languages. We also carry a heavy influence of Arabic due to the Islamic conquests in the region during the middle age.” I was left pleasantly surprised that our languages had so many things in common including the use of same Arabic script.

The second migration followed the first after a few hundred years. The incoming Baloch tribes moved from Mount Elburz in the south of Caspian Sea and settled in central Balochistan areas of Khuzdar and Kalat in Pakistan.

The Baloch intellectual adds that the third and most important of all is the migration of the remaining Baloch tribes said to be living in Syrian city of Aleppo who first settled in Kerman (present day Iran), then Makran and finally in the plains of Sibi and Kachchi in eastern Balochistan. This migration took place during 12th century AD.

While I read the above mentioned information in notes given by Azizullah, he answered a call on his mobile phone. Hearing Balochi language for the first time I tried to understand a few words that are used in both Urdu and Arabic.

An impression of Baloch warriors. (Photo: Sabee Kazmi)

“Balochi is the language spoken by the Baloch people. It is a member of the Indo-Aryan languages,” he explained after sensing my curiosity about his language. “Balochi is closely related to Kurdish, Persian and Sanskrit languages but it is believed to be more ancient than these languages. We also carry a heavy influence of Arabic due to the Islamic conquests in the region during the middle age.” I was left pleasantly surprised that our languages had so many things in common including the use of same Arabic script.

While the bus moved at a high speed thanks to the recent improvements on the RCD Highway, I began grilling my friend about Baloch history and the immense pride attached to it. His answers were immediate.

“Baloch people have historically defended themselves from foreign invaders by forming loose tribal unions. The unions are linked through trade, agriculture and livestock. This cooperation helped them interact socially, politically and militarily, in case of invasions,” the young medical student explained succinctly. It was obvious that he was enjoying this conversation and knew about the history of his nation very well.

“Balochistan’s geo-political location meant it was never safe from external threats or interventions, however, the combined threat of tribal unions enabled them to ward off Persian, Afghan and other influences,” he added with a hint of bitterness in his tone.

POLITICS OF PROMISES

We travelled around 200 kms during the last two and a half hours and stopped for refueling and refreshments. My travel mate bought me a delicious fruit cake and tea as we sat on charpoy – a traditional bed consisting of wooden frame and woven ropes.

“If you count the promises made to us, we must be the richest people in the world,” Azizullah’s rant continued. “Take this highway for example. Back in 1980s, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan decided to link their countries through a highway which they named RCD. Starting from Istanbul, it crisscrossed Turkey, Iran and was supposed to end in Karachi. While Turkey and Iran completed their part of the highway, Pakistani project languished for years. Only Gen. Musharraf took interest in the project and got it completed finally.”

Most of Balochistan’s landscape is dominated by mountains with villages dotted across the region. (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)

I was surprised to hear Azizullah, an ethnic Baloch, praising for Gen. Musharraf, the former military dictator of Pakistan who ruled the country from 1999 to 2008. However, his praise soon turned into criticism when I asked about his role in Balochistan’s society.

He dragged me to a nearby petrol station. “This is part of Pakistan, right?” He poked a question to which I nodded in affirmation. “Well, the only thing we use here is the Pakistani currency. Apart from that everything else is smuggled from Iran. Fuel, food, cosmetics, chemicals, crops, stationary, and even cars come from there,” Azizullah revealed while adding, “Fuel is dirt cheap. The Iranian fuel costs pennies if compared to the price we pay for branded Pakistani one. Not even fools will buy for that price.”

Azizullah blamed heavy duties that made Pakistani goods expensive and scarce. The Iranian goods, on the other hand, were cheap and easily available. Many people would argue that transporting goods to Balochistan is an expensive operation in terms of logistics and supply, however, the Baloch student argued that many industries can be opened in the province to give a boost to local industries, hence ending shortages and smuggling.

DEEP MISTRUST

It is hard to take people’s accounts by face value in a country where every person has different views from the others based on their perception of history, current affairs and politics. Aware of what Azizullah views can be conceived as grievances, they can also be seen as lame excuses and propaganda by people elsewhere.

“Azizullah, tell me honestly if you’re not against the tribal chiefs of Balochistan who don’t want to see their subjects getting literate and breaking the shackles of economic deprivation and political isolation,” I came forward with a question to clear the mist. He looked deep into my eyes before giving an answer.

“Moign, you asked me a typical question that is dipped into what I call ‘establishment’s propaganda’. Not a single Baloch on our land is against literacy and development. We know for a fact that the only way forward is to embrace science and technology,” the 23 year old said in an assuring tone.”We want to become part of the modern world. We have to exploit our natural resources for common good. However, all these plans made by our masters are deceptive as we are not part of them and they are not bound to benefit us.” Cynicism was back on his face.

Read any newspaper or watch any mainstream Pakistani news channel and you’ll find out that Balochistan is languishing due to its tribal structure and archaic sense of nationalism. “The people cry the old tale of exploitation yet never take the socio-economic opportunities given to them by governments,” is what you’ll hear retired army servicemen, economists, bureaucrats, politicians and religious leaders claiming in TV talk shows; loathing the Sardars (Baloch tribal leaders) and asking the Balochs to help the Pakistani army clean up their mess once and for all.

“They talk about highways, ports, cities, industries whereas we talk about education, health, jobs, opportunities for indigenous people. Our demands are down-to-earth whereas their promises are tall. We don’t see a match in their words and actions. We sense injustice, exploitation and colonization in the statements made by these pseudo-intellectuals,” Azizullah said referring to the analysts in Pakistani media.

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Baloch Liberation Army fighters posing with their weapons. [photo: balochmedia.org

ACCESSION OR OCCUPATION?

Facts clearly fuel Azizullah’s argument. They also provide ammo to the people who talk about separation of Balochistan from the federation of Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran and forming a new republic. After all, what have the Baloch achieved after they joined Pakistan in 1948? My young friend seized the opportunity to answer this question.

“My brother, please do not buy this notion that we joined Pakistan in 1948. Historically we never were part of British India. Our ruler, the Khan of Kalat, signed several treaties with the British that recognized his sovereignty in exchange of British protection. However, we stayed as a sovereign state outside India,” the medical student touched history once again and the conversation started to flow in that direction.

Dr. Naseer Dashti is a respected Baloch scholar and activist who holds a PhD. on Baloch health-seeking behavior from the University of Greenwich. His two recently published books, ‘The Voice of Reason’ and ‘In a Baloch Perspective’ have been banned by Pakistani authorities. According to the Baloch nationalist, both British and Pakistanis accepted the sovereignty of Kalat state in a June 1947 partition plan. However, the British did not consult the Khan of Kalat over the transfer of leased Balochistan lands under British control. Consequently, British and Pakistani authorities held a controversial referendum in which their favored members took part and declared Balochistan as part of Pakistan.

Just before the creation of Pakistan, State of Kalat declared its independence on 12 August, 1947. However, this announcement was not welcomed by the new rulers of Pakistan and they started to force the Khan of Kalat to join the newly born Islamic republic. After their political advances were refused, Pakistani army marched into the Kalat territory on 26 March 1948 and forced the Khan to surrender his territory. The Khan of Kalat, though having no constitutional powers, agreed to sign the instrument of accession with Pakistan.

“History is not what you read in textbooks Mr. Khawaja,” Azizullah bounced back while I was reading his notes about Baloch history. “The accounts in Pakistani textbooks are all a peaceful and rosy affair when it comes to Balochistan,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “Reality is completely different.”

FRUSTRATION FUELS INSURGENCY

Spectacular night time view of Quetta from surrounding mountain top. (Photo: Panoramio.com)

The journey was about to end as I was 5,500 feet above the sea level and entering Quetta valley. The views of the capital from surrounding mountains are just spectacular. It seems like you’re about to enter some saucer that is illuminated by glitter. I bid farewell to my friend and thanked him for such a productive discussion at the bus station. Finding out that I’m a football fan and came here just to watch the clash between Pakistan and India, he promised to join me in the stadium next day.

That evening I ventured into town and got a glimpse of the metropolis. I was struck by the level of cleanliness in the city. Unlike other Pakistani cities, I found Quetta remarkably clean and tidy. I returned to my hotel and turned on the TV. While flicking through the channels, I found a lively debate going on the TV. The participants were discussing the military operation waged by Pakistani army in Balochistan and some hot words were exchanged in due course.

“The Sardars don’t like Gen. Musharraf’s pro-development policies and have taken up arms to destroy the project. They can’t see the profound impact of these development projects on Balochistan’s economy and fear losing their influence,” shouted one ex-military analyst. The nationalists opposing military presence in Balochistan and so-called ‘mega development projects‘ see it as part of colonizing their land.

“Who are you to give us anything? You give power to these sardars, you give them the government and when these very people don’t play according to your game plan you try to get rid of them,” yelled one Baloch activist in the discussion panel. “We don’t want you, your puppet Sardars (tribal leaders), your mega projects. Nothing. Leave our land and go back to the plains of Punjab,” the diatribe continued. The moderator, sensing the boiling tempers, called for a quick break. The program did not start again for a good 20 minutes. And when it did start, the compere apologized for lack of time and thanked his participants and called it a day.

Next day I was in the football stadium packed with spectators. I met Azizullah at the fixed place. The match eventually kicked off after formal pre-match ceremonies. While thousands of people were carrying green and white Pakistani flags, I saw some Indian supporters carrying the tri-color. Surprised, I quipped they must be Baloch separatists. My Baloch friend heard that with a broad smile on his face that I never saw before.

“Yes. They’re Baloch. They’re paid by the Indians to hoist their flag and cheer up the visitors. Something wrong with this? At least they’re not carrying guns and fighting the Pakistani army,” the Baloch student said with a thunderous laughter. I laughed too but took the joke with a pinch of salt.

“People love to gossip that Baloch rights movement is controlled by India. You’ll see Pakistani politicians and military generals making statements about New Delhi’s interference in Balochistan. They’ll claim India has hundreds of training camps here in our province. My simple questions: Where is the proof? Show me at least one camp where Indians are training the Baloch separatists. And even if there are camps, what the hell is the Pakistani establishment doing? How did they let the Indians infiltrate and establish their bases thousands of kilometers deep into Pakistani territory?”

Potent questions raised by Azizullah I thought. While I was thinking about the possible explanations, the restless soul continued his tirade. “They say India doesn’t like the Gwadar port as it will give Islamabad a new naval base. They also insist that this port will make us independent which the Indians won’t like at all. The Chinese have helped construct this port which displeases our ‘arch rival’.

“Typical establishment rhetoric. I can understand that. But what I don’t understand is, how will this port make us prosperous while hardly 10% of the locals are employed by the port authorities?” the 23 year old medical student posed questions in an activist style. “Gwadar is a historic fishing port and Baloch people have been making a livelihood for centuries. This government seizes the town and declares it ‘federal territory’. They establish a cantonment, coast guard outposts and expel the poor fishermen from their waters and impose a 15 nautical mile curfew.

“And this is not the end. They give licenses to fishing trawlers from China and Far East to fish in our seas yet 80% of local population have no right to make a livelihood. Is this justice? You call this development or imperialism Mr. Journalist?”

It was hard for me to validate the figures provided by the young Baloch student. However, I got the gist of his arguments. History is rife with examples when indigenous people found themselves strangers in their own lands and were overran by invading settlers. The Native Americans vs European settlers; Incas vs Spanish; Aborigines vs White settlers; Uighurs/Tibetans vs Han Chinese; and Palestinians vs Israelis are just a few examples of colonialism and subsequent conflicts.

Balochs have long complained of being marginalized in their own lands. They blame Punjabis, the dominant ethnic group in Pakistan for their socio-economic exploitation that is going on for the last 60 years, whereas the Shia Iranians for their politico-religious suppression since the 1979 Khomeini revolution. Despite blessed with huge deposits of uranium, copper, gold, coal, natural gas, oil, sulfur and many other minerals, my three day stay in the province reminded me of some backward place of the world where clocks have lost their pace and time has become irrelevant.

Aerial view of Hanna Lake in Quetta. (Photo: webshots.com)

Political propaganda aside, I saw no connections between Azizullah’s family with the feudal leaders. He was equally bitter about them as well. He blamed the government in Islamabad and its machinery for empowering the tribal chiefs instead of the people’s democracy. He vocally blasted the military operations and blamed them for disillusionment of the Baloch masses.

“They have cluster bombs, long range and anti-cave missiles to drop on our land yet they can’t build roads and reservoirs,” Azizullah continued to vent out his frustration. “Dams will enable our farmers to cultivate lands and increase agricultural output of the country.

“Fishing vessels and improved storage godowns will improve the livelihood of our fishermen and boost our exports. I’m not a separatist as I know battles come with a heavy cost but please tell me what choice is my nation left with? We’re forced to pay a heavy price for mega projects yet they’re not ready to provide us the very basic necessities like water, sanitation, education, gas and electricity, transport, jobs etc. I refuse to stay silent,” my young friend cried but didn’t speak any further.

The match ended in a 1-1 draw. Soon we headed to Quetta’s famous attraction, Lake Hannah, where we went for a boat ride. The mid-summer views were spectacular amidst the clear blue skies. My host’s mood was refreshed by the natural beauty around him and his temper seemed to ease a bit. I was ecstatic when he took me to a mountain top restaurant that is famous for its local dish called ‘Sajji’ – whole lamb stuffed with rice, roasted over burning coal.

While I was about to thank him for his hospitality and good company and say good bye, he asked me a quick question. “Agha (sir in Balochi language) Moign, I’ll ask one last question if you don’t mind,” to which I nodded with smile. “We had a boat trip at the lake, didn’t we. Say if I make you row the boat till the point of exhaustion, how will you react?”

The question puzzled me immediately. “Well,” I paused for a while. “I’ll resist and try to get rid of the captain who turned out to be my captor. If I can’t resist I’ll bore a hole in the ship so that he doesn’t get away with his crime and sink with me. You might think it is revenge but it will come out naturally,” I replied while trying to defend my actions.

“We, the Baloch people are doing the same my kind friend. We want to sail in the boat as equals but if we’re enslaved by the colonialists, we will not let this boat stay afloat.” he said in a firm tone.  “We may be less in numbers but we live with our traditions and pride intact. For us, our homeland is more precious than our lives.” young Azizullah asserted.

Five years have passed since I first visited Balochistan. Things have not changed at all since then. The military operation continues and so does the insurgency mounted by Balochistan Liberation Army, a rag-tag militia of several Baloch tribes. Apart from the inauguration of a few mega projects and their topsy-turvy functioning, Balochistan stays more or less the most backward area of Pakistan.

During my visit, certain things dawned upon me. I was no more under the illusion that separatist movement is fueled by Washington, Tel Aviv or New Delhi and not the socio-economic grievances of the Baloch people. The uprising in western Pakistan and south-eastern Iran is a result of decades long systematic discrimination and exploitation by the governments in Tehran and Islamabad.

Yes the tribal chiefs are to blame for the underdevelopment of Balochs. Yes they’re selfish and power hungry beasts but what about the excesses committed by security apparatus in Pakistan and Iran that is alienating the masses? Why do the Balochs remain the poorest in both the countries while living on one of the most richest lands in the world? Establishments in the Islamic Republics of Pakistan and Iran better answer these questions soon otherwise their boats stay at peril of getting sunk by the burden of greed, exploitation and expansion.

I believe there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those doing the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the colour of the skin. You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” — Malcolm X

I’ve traveled across Pakistan several times. I’ve been to the plains of Punjab, the Indus valley, the foothills of Karakorum, the delta of Indus river and the coastal region of Makran. Every region has its attraction and charm but if one asks me honestly, Balochistan is by far the most interesting and fascinating region of Pakistan. Why? It is because the land of Balochistan is blessed with a spectacular terrain that includes mountains, deserts, plateau, sea, valleys, oases, and so much more.

It was my first trip to the region and I was traveling to Quetta to watch a highly charged football match between India and Pakistan. Like cricket, both arch rivals promise to deliver some thrilling sporting moments in football competitions as well. Anyway, I boarded the bus and headed to the provincial capital Quetta from Pakistan’s largest city Karachi.

Karachi was founded as “Kolachi” by Sindhi and Baloch tribes from Balochistan and Makran, who established a small fishing community in the area.^[11] Descendants of the original community still live in the area on the small island of Abdullah Goth, which is located near the Karachi Port. The original name “Kolachi” survives in the name of a well-known Karachi locality named “Mai Kolachi” in Sindhi. Mirza Ghazi Beg, the Mughal administrator of Sindh, is among the first historical figures credited for the development of Coastal Sindh (consisting of regions such as the Makran Coast and the Mehran Delta), including the cities of Thatta, Bhambore and Karachi.

During the rule of the Mughal administrator of Sindh, Mirza Ghazi Beg the city was well fortified against Portuguese colonial incursions in Sindh. During the reign of the Kalhora Dynasty the present city started life as a fishing settlement when a Sindhi Balochi fisher-woman called Mai Kolachi took up residence and started a family. The city was an integral part of the Talpur dynasty in 1720.

The village that later grew out of this settlement was known as Kolachi-jo-Goth (Village of Kolachi in Sindhi). By the late 1720s, the village was trading across the Arabian Sea with Muscat and the Persian Gulf region. The local Sindhi populace built a small fort was constructed for the protection of the city, armed with cannons imported by Sindhi sailors from Muscat, Oman. The fort had two main gateways: one facing the sea, known as Kharra Darwaaza (Brackish Gate) (Kharadar) and the other facing the Lyari River known as the Meet’ha Darwaaza (Sweet Gate) (Mithadar). The location of these gates correspond to the modern areas of Kharadar (Khārā Dar) and Mithadar (Mīṭhā Dar).

British rule

After sending a couple of exploratory missions to the area, the British East India Company conquered the town when HMS Wellesley anchored off Manora island on 1 February 1839. Two days later, the little fort surrendered.^[12] The town was later annexed to the British Indian Empire when Sindh was conquered by Major-General Charles James Napier in Battle of Miani on 17 February 1843. On his departure in 1847, he is said to have remarked, “Would that I could come again to see you in your grandeur!” Karachi was made the capital of Sindh in the 1840s. On Napier’s departure, it was added along with the rest of Sindh to the Bombay Presidency, a move that caused considerable resentment among the native Sindhis. The British realised the importance of the city as a military cantonment and as a port for exporting the produce of the Indus River basin, and rapidly developed its harbour for shipping. The foundations of a city municipal government were laid down and infrastructure development was undertaken. New businesses started opening up and the population of the town began rising rapidly. The arrival of the troops of the Kumpany Bahadur in 1839 spawned the foundation of the new section, the military cantonment. The cantonment formed the basis of the ‘white’ city, where the Indians were not allowed free access. The ‘white’ town was modeled after English industrial parent-cities, where work and residential spaces were separated, as were residential from recreational places. Karachi was divided into two major poles. The ‘black’ town in the northwest, now enlarged to accommodate the burgeoning Indian mercantile population. When the Indian Rebellion of 1857 broke out in South Asia, the 21st Native Infantry, then stationed in Karachi, declared allegiance to rebels and joining their numbers on 10 September 1857. Nevertheless, the British were able to quickly reassert control over Karachi and defeat the uprising.

In 1864, the first telegraphic message was sent from India to England, when a direct telegraph connection was laid between Karachi and London.^[13] In 1878, the city was connected to the rest of British India by rail. Public building projects, such as Frere Hall (1865) and the Empress Market (1890), were undertaken. In 1876, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was born in the city, which by now had become a bustling city with mosques, churches, courthouses, brothels, paved streets and a magnificent harbour. By 1899, Karachi had become the largest wheat exporting port in the East.^[14] Before the year 1880 the majority of the population in Karachi consisted of the indigenous Sindhis and Balochis (who spoke Sindhi as their mother tongue). Karachi was a small port town and part of Talpur dynasty in Sindh. The British East India Company conquered Karachi on February 3, 1839 and started developing it as a major port. As a result of British rule^{[citation needed]} the local Hindu population established a massive presence in the city.

These developments in Karachi resulted in large influx of economic migrants: Parsis, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Marathis, Goans, Armenians, Chinese, British, Lebanese and Gujaratis. The population of the city was about 105,000 inhabitants by the end of the 19th century, with a cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities. British colonialists embarked on a number of public works of sanitation and transportation — such as gravel paved streets, proper drains, street sweepers, and a network of trams and horse-drawn trolleys

Independent Pakistan

By the time of independence of Pakistan in 1947, Karachi had become a bustling metropolis with beautiful classical and colonial European styled buildings, lining the city’s thoroughfares. Karachi was chosen as the capital of Pakistan, which at the time included modern day Bangladesh, a region located more than 1,000 km (620 mi) away, and not physically connected to Pakistan. In 1947, Karachi was the focus for settlement by Muslim migrants from India, who drastically expanded the city’s population and transformed its demographics and economy. In 1958, the capital of Pakistan was moved from Karachi to Rawalpindi and then in 1960, to the newly built Islamabad. This marked the start of a long period of decline in the city, marked by a lack of development.^[15] Karachi had both a municipal corporation and a Karachi Divisional Council in the 1960s, which developed plans for schools, colleges, roads, municipal gardens, and parks. The Karachi Divisional Council had separate working committees for education, roads, and residential societies development and planning.^[16] During the 1960s, Karachi was seen as an economic role model around the world. Many countries sought to emulate Pakistan’s economic planning strategy and one of them, South Korea, copied the city’s second “Five-Year Plan” and World Financial Centre in Seoul is designed and modeled after Karachi.^[17][18]

The 1970s saw major labour struggles in Karachi’s industrial estates (see Karachi labour unrest of 1972). The 1980s and 1990s saw an influx of refugees from the Soviet war in Afghanistan into Karachi; they were followed in smaller numbers by refugees escaping from Iran.^[19] Severe ethnic tensions between the Muhajir and other native groups (e.g. Sindhis, Punjabis, Pashtuns and others) erupted and the city was wracked with political and ethnic violence.

Today, Karachi continues to be an important financial and industrial centre and handles most of the overseas trade of Pakistan and the world, mainly the Asian countries. It accounts for a lion’s share of the GDP of Pakistan,^[20] and a large proportion of the country’s white collar workers.^[21]

Geography

Karachi is located in the south of Pakistan, on the coast of the Arabian Sea. Its geographic coordinates are 24°51′ N 67°02′ E. Most of the land consisted largely of flat or rolling plains, with hills on the western and Manora Island and the Oyster Rocks. The Arabian Sea beach lines the southern coastline of Karachi. Mangroves and creeks of the Indus delta can be found toward the southeast side of the city. Toward the west and the north is Cape Monze, locally known as Raas Muari, an area marked by projecting sea cliffs and rocky sandstone promontories. Some excellent beaches can be found in this area. Khasa Hills lie in the northwest and form the border between North Nazimabad Town and Orangi Town. The Manghopir mountain range lies northwest of Karachi, between Hub River and Manghopir.

Located on the coast, Karachi has an arid climate with low average precipitation levels (approx. 250 mm (9.8 in) per annum), the bulk of which occurs during the July–August monsoon season. Winters are warm and dry, while the summers are hot and humid; the proximity to the sea maintains humidity levels at a near-constant high and cool sea breezes relieve the heat of the summer months. Because of high temperatures during the summer (ranging from 30–44 °C (86–111 °F) from April to August), the winter months (November to February) are generally considered the best times to visit Karachi. December and January are dry and pleasant as compared to the hot and steamy summers that dominate through the late spring (March) to the pre-monsoon season (June). The city’s highest monthly rainfall, 429.3 mm (16.90 in), occurred in July 1967.^[22] The city’s highest rainfall in 24 hours occurred on 7 August 1953, when about 278.1 millimetres (10.95 in) of rain lashed the city, resulting in major flooding.^[23] Karachi’s highest recorded temperature is 47 °C (117 °F), which was recorded on June 18, 1979,^[22] and the lowest is 0.0 °C (32.0 °F), recorded on 21 January 1934.^[22]

Civic administration

The city-district of Karachi is structured as a three-tier federation, with the two lower tiers composed of 18 towns and 178 union councils,^[48] with each tier focussed on elected councils with some common members to provide “vertical linkage” within the federation.^[49] Each union council comprises thirteen members elected from specified electorates: four men and two women elected directly by the general population; two men and two women elected by peasants and workers; one member for minority communities; two members are elected jointly as the union mayor (nazim) and deputy union mayor (naib nazim).^[50] Each town council comprises all of the deputy union mayors in the town as well as elected representatives for women, peasants and workers, and minorities.^[51] The district council comprises all of the union mayors in the district as well as elected representatives for women, peasants and workers, and minorities.^[52] Each council also includes up to three council secretaries and a number of other civil servants. The main purpose of all of the councils is to provide municipal services, with specific responsibilities allocated to the district council,^[53] the town councils,^[54] and the union councils.^[55] There are also six military cantonments which are administered by the Pakistan Army and do not form part of the City District Government.

The current system of government was brought into existence by the Local Government Ordinance of 14 August 2001, the latest in a series of administrative setups for Karachi. The first form of government was a conservancy board established in 1846 to control the spread of cholera in the city.^[56] The board became a municipal commission in 1852, and a municipal committee the following year.^[56] The City of Karachi Municipal Act of 1933 transformed the city administration into a municipal corporation with a mayor, a deputy mayor and 57 councillors.^[56] In 1948, the Federal Capital Territory of Pakistan was created, comprising approximately 2,103 km² (812 sq mi) of Karachi and surrounding areas, but this was merged into the province of West Pakistan in 1961.^[57] However, the municipal corporation remained in existence and in 1976 became a metropolitan corporation, followed by the creation of zonal municipal committees, which lasted until 1994.^[56] Two years later the metropolitan area was divided into five districts, each with a municipal corporation.^[56]

Naimatullah Khan was the first Nazim of Karachi and Shafiq-Ur-Rehman Paracha was the first district coordination officer (DCO) of Karachi, Paracha even served as the last Commissioner of Karachi. Naimatullah Khan focused on building new parks, providing entertainment outlets to the youth (to celebrate events like Valentine’s Day) and families (to celebrate events like Eid). In the elections of 2005, Syed Mustafa Kamal was elected City Nazim of Karachi to succeed Naimatullah Khan, and Nasreen Jalil was elected as the City Naib Nazim. Mustafa Kamal was previously the provincial minister for information technology in Sindh. In 2010, Fazlur Rahman became caretaker administrator of the CDGK, replacing the Mustafa Kamal.^[58]

Demographics

Karachi’s inhabitants, locally known as Karachiites, are a cosmopolitan population composed of many ethno-linguistic groups from other parts of Pakistan and migrants from several countries.^[61] The population and demographic distribution of the city has undergone considerable changes over the past 150 years. At the end of the 19th century, the population of the city was about 105,000, with a gradual increase over the next few decades, reaching more than 400,000 on the eve of independence. Current estimates of the population range from 12 to 18 million,^[60][62] of which an estimated 90% are migrants from different backgrounds. The city’s population is estimated to be growing at about 5% per year (mainly as a result of internal rural-urban migration), including an estimated 45,000 migrant workers coming to the city every month from different parts of Pakistan.^[63]

The earlist inhabitants of the area that became Karachi included Baloch in the west, and Sindhi tribes such as the Jokhio, Mallaah and Jath in the east. Before the partition of India, the population of the city included large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs, and although communal riots in 1947 caused many of them to leave for India, there is still a significant Hindu community in Karachi that numbers around 250,000 residents.^[64] The city was, and still is home to a large community of Gujarati Muslims, who were one of the earliest settlers in the city, and still form the majority in Saddar Town. Important Gujarati Muslim communities in the city include the Memon, Chhipa, Ghanchi, Khoja, Bohra and Tai. Other early settlers included the Parsis, also originally from Gujarat, Konkani Muslims from Mumbai (settled in Kokan Town), Goan Catholics and Anglo-Indians. The city was also home to small communities of Armenians and Bene Israel Jews. Most Jews and Armenians left the city in the 1950s, after independence, but there are still small communities of Parsis, Goan Catholics and Anglo-Indians in the city.

The partition of India saw the settlement of the what is now the largest ethnic community in the city, the Muhajirs.^[65] Most properties vacated by fleeing Hindus were granted to Urdu-speaking Muslim migrants who had fled India. Known as Muhajirs, their descendants now form the majority of Karachi’s residents. Partition also saw the settlement of a large number of Punjabi Muslims from East Punjab, Kashmiri Muslims from the Kashmir Valley, and further immigration of Gujarati Muslims and Konkani Muslims from India. There are some Hindkowans and Seraikis who migrated much later. Within the Muhajirs, there is also a sizeable community of Malayali Muslims in Karachi (the Mappila), originally from Kerala in South India.^[66]

The Pashtuns, originally from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and northern Baluchistan, are now the city’s second-largest ethnic group.^[61][67] With an estimated 7 million Pashtuns, including approximately 50,000 registered Afghan refugees,^[68] Karachi hosts the largest Pashtun population in the world, far outnumbering the cities in the Pashtun heartlands like Kandahar, Peshawar and Quetta. Many of these Pashtuns have been resident in Karachi for decades, and as a result, some no longer speak Pashto fluently, and instead primarily speak Urdu or English — especially those from wealthier communities. In addition, a small number of the Muhajir community (such as the Rohilla community) in Karachi claim to be by origin ethnic Pashtuns.

After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, thousands of Biharis and Bengalis from Bangladesh arrived in the city, and today Karachi is home to 1 to 2 million ethnic Bengalis from Bangladesh,^[69][70] many of whom migrated in the 1980s and 1990s and now work as fishermen. They were followed by Rohingya refugees from Burma,^[71] other Burmese Muslims and Asian refugees from Uganda. One under-privileged ethnic group are the Siddis (Negro – Sheedi) who trace their roots to African slaves from earlier centuries.^[72] Many other refugees from Iran and the Central Asian countries constituting the former Soviet Union have also settled in the city as economic migrants. There also exists a small Nepali population, some Arabs, Filipinos and an economic elite of Sinhalese from Sri Lanka.^[73] Expatriates from China have a history going back to the 1940s; today, many of the Chinese are second-generation children of immigrants who came to the city and worked as dentists, chefs and shoemakers.^[74][73]

Karachi is furthermore host to a large number of western expatriates in Pakistan. During World War II, about 30,000 Polish refugees migrated to Karachi, at that time a part of British India. Many of these Polish families settled permanently in the city.^[75] There are also well-established communities of American^[76] and British expatriates.

According to the census of 1998, the religious breakdown of the city is as follows: Muslim (96.45%); Christian (2.42%); Hindu (0.86%); Ahmadi (0.17%) and others (Parsis, Sikhs, Bahá’ís, Jews and Buddhists) (0.10%).^[77]

According to the census of 1998, the linguistic distribution of the city was : Urdu: 48.52%; Punjabi: 13.94%; Pashto: 11.42%; Sindhi: 7.22%; Balochi: 4.34%; Saraiki: 2.11%; others: 12.4%. The others include Dari, Gujarati, Dawoodi Bohra, Memon, Marwari, Brahui, Makrani, Khowar, Burushaski.^[78] Non-Pakistani languages, such as Bengali, Farsi, and Arabic, are not included in the Pakistani census.

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi

Geography

Afghan Baluchistan is Nimroz, south of Helmand, Kandahar and south-west of Farah province of Afghanistan. Afghan Baluchistan has an area of approximately (70,000 km²). It became part of Afghanistan after the Perso-Baluch Boundary was drawn.

History

The Baluch are an Iranian ethnic group that numbers around 200,000 in Afghanistan. The main Baloch areas located in Balochistan province in Pakistan and Sistan and Baluchistan province of Iran. Many also live in southern Afghanistan. They are most likely an offshoot of the Kurds and reached Afghanistan sometime between 1000 and 1300 BCE. Mainly pastoral and desert dwellers, the Baluch are Sunni Muslim.^[1] The Baluch population in Afghanistan number approximately 200,000 and Brahui also approximately 200,000.^{[citation needed]} The majority of the Baluch and Brahui people live in southern Afghanistan.^{[citation needed]} The Baluch are mostly settled in Nimruz and Farah provinces. The Brahui mainly inhabit Kandahar province. In Helmand, the Baluch and Brahui intermingle. Baluchs in other parts of Afghanistan speak Pashto.^{[citation needed]} During the Soviet war in Afghanistan and Afghan Civil War (1989-1992) many Pashtuns settled in northern parts of Afghan Baluchistan

References

Unit history

In August 1914 (at the start of World War I) a small force, under the orders of the 2nd Quetta Brigade, was maintained in Western Balochistan to suppress arms traffic. In July 1915 this force was expanded and became the East Persia Cordon to prevent enemy infiltration from Persia into Afghanistan. A similar Russian Cordon was established to prevent infiltration into north-west Afghanistan. From March 1916 the force became the Seistan Force under the commander-in-chief in India. Following the Revolution in Russia, the Malleson Mission was sent to Trans-Caspia and the Seistan Force became the Lines of Communication for the Mission from September 1918 under the orders of the 4th (Quetta) Division. With the withdrawal of the force from Trans-Caspia, the troops in Persia were withdrawn and the last elements left in November 1920.

Despatches

The following is part of the text of a despatch by General Sir Charles Monro, Commander-in-Chief, India, on military operations in the Indian Empire from March 1916 to March 1917, published in the London Gazette on 31 October 1917:^[3]

Geography

The State of Kalat was located between 25°1′ and 30°8′N. And 61°37′ and 69°22′E., with a total area of 11,593 square miles (30,030 km²). It occupied the whole of the centre and south-west of the Province of Balochistan, with the exception of the indentation caused by the little State of Las Bela. It was bounded on the west by Iran; on the east by the Bolan Pass, the Maxi and Bugti hills, and Sindh; on the north by the Chagai and Quetta-Pishin Districts; and on the south by Las Bela and the Arabian Sea. With the exception of the plains of Kharan, Kachhi, and Dasht in Makran, the country is wholly mountainous, the ranges being intersected here and there by long narrow valleys.

The principal mountains are the Central Brahui, Kirthar, Pab, Siahan, Central Makran and Makran Coast Ranges, which descend in elevation from about 10,000 to 1,200 feet (370 m). The drainage of the country is almost all carried off to the southward by the Nari, Mula, Hab, Porali, Hingol and Dasht rivers. The only large river draining northwards is the Rakhshan. The coast-line stretches for about 160 miles (260 km), from near Kalmat to Gwadar Bay, and the chief port is Pasni. Round Gwadar the country was in the possession of the Sultan of Muscat.^[1]

History

The state of Kalat was founded in 1638. The territories controlled by the state fluctuated over the centuries but eventually were established by treaties with the British Agent Robert Sandeman in the late 19th century. Parts of the state to the north and northeast were leased or ceded to form the province of British Baluchistan which later gained the status of a Chief Commissioners province.

In 1947, the Khan of Kalat reportedly acceded to the dominion of India. But his accession papers were returned by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India.^[2][3][4]

On 28 March 1948, the Khan of Kalat acceded to Pakistan. The Baluchistan States Union was formed on 3 October 1952 with three neighbouring states. The state of Kalat ceased to exist on 14 October 1955 when the province of West Pakistan was formed.

Rulers of Kalat

The rulers of Kalat held the title of Wali originally but in 1739 also took the title (Begler Begi) Khan usually shortened to Khan. The last Khan of Kalat (Urdu: خان قلات) had the privilege of being the President of the Council of Rulers for the Baluchistan States Union.

References

1900s typical balochi dress

Note: This article will supersede all of my previous articles which are related to Lyari. This would be an update for Baloch readers living abroad or for those folks, interested in drastically unique Balochi culture, or simply interested in Lyari the mini Balochistan or a land of magic! Please note that the Lyari is a huge area, a slum with over one million inhabitants,stretching at one side from Lea market to Shershah, from Maripur Road to Garden on the other side, from Bihar Colony towards Kharadar. In each & every part of Lyari, people exhibits slightly varied Balochi dialect & culture.
The other purpose of this article is to make realized new Baloch generation & other non Balochs that Lyari is not simply a place of gangs, drugs & thieves but we had a glorious history, various famous figures were ordinary Balochs from Lyari. At the time when peace is prevailing in the quarter, we must portray the right picture of Lyari, i.e. the picture of its beautiful & bright people.

Lyari is changing, Balochs are learning, the course of geo political, socio economic events which were taking or still taking place are directly or indirectly influencing Baloch nation. New Baloch generation are no more interested running donkey courts or entangling with tiring football business but are more concerned in improving their academic, business & technical talents.

kharadar 1900s

The Origin of Lyari…Glimpses from the past…

Before we dive into the present & future Lyari, about its Baloch majority inhabitants, let us turn the page of history. We start with the origin of name of ‘Lyari’ here we find several definitions like a Baloch historian Late Waja Yousuf Naskanti once said: ‘The word Lyari is derived from the word Lyar, i.e. the name of a tree that blooms in graveyards, or it means the deadly silence of the graveyard’, This phenomena sounds more logical in an essence that Mewa Shah is the oldest & earliest graveyards of Lyari, Karachi. Even the word Karachi is a twisted form of original ‘Kolachi’, presumed to be an early Baloch lady dweller of this fishermen’s village. A road from PNSC towards Boating Basin, Clifton has also named after ‘Mai Kolachi’. It is an adventurous root for most of Lyarites who thrill with their Vespa scooters on weekends or annual donkey court races are also conducted in this road.

Since the pre-partition time, Lyari & adjoining areas like Kharadar, Khadda Market remained the major business centres, owing to their location near the Karachi port. Early Hindu groceries Merchants (often known as Banyaas) were pioneer in the business. In those days sheedis & African slaves were working as a labor in such markets. In this article, including a rare picture of Lyari, pertaining to early 1900s, you’ll see African slaves with their donkeys at Lyari river.

There is also the a painting image by Henry Francis Ainsile (dated back as 1850s), depicting Karachi as a small village made up of a cluster of fishermen’s huts on the three island of Manora, Bhit and Baba. Sheedis or Makranis of Baghdadi are the descendents from African slaves, mostly brought from Zanzibar during the arrival of British in the region. Later on with the passage of time, they got amalgamated with the native Baloch settlers.

These cross marriages have brought a totally drastic pro African /Balochi culture in this town. Including this, many Balochs had also migrated to other Arabian & African countries, including Australia (my historic article titled: ‘from Lyari to Australia’ speaks the same story. Another rare photograph of a Baloch Police officer from Zanzibar:

Gajyan Baloch (which can also be seen in this article) is worthwhile. In Arabian countries Balochs are called Al-Balushi, due to limitation in Arabic language. In the same manner, Hollywood actor James Belushi (whose descendents are from Albania, a country in Southern Europe) is also assumed to be a Baloch and interestingly origin of Baloch, Belushi, or Balucci sounds alike. However more research is required.

Kurds are also believed to be the close cousins of Balochs, as their various customs, facial features, traits looks identical. For example, Leva is a kind of pro African trance dance, which is still practiced in some parts of African tribe. Once West Indies cricket team were also visited in this little African village (Baghdadi, Lyari) and they were amazed to see their own kind of people in this region.

It is not simply a place of gangs, drugs…. Our previous brilliant statures

Within Lyari, Balochs are divided into strong caste and clan system. Those of African descendents (Makranis/Shedees and some Laasis with black complexions) are assumed to be inferior, than those Iranian origin Balochs, with fair complexions even blond, as their ancestors had also left their native regions to settle in Lyari. Marriages are also done within this clan system. Still now, these dark skinned Balochs are working as servants in superior Baloch families in Pakistani side of Balochistan, however, all inhabitants share common Balochi culture.

In Baghdadi, Lyari (also known as little Africa), majority of dark skinned Balochs (although with a deprived background) are far more educated than compared to white race Balochs of Kalakot which are from inherited rich families. But in Lyari, during Gulf & Japan boom, various Dubai & Japan returned Balochs, irrespective of their races has now improved their living status and drastically two classes can be seen living together in a same Mohalla. For example, you can see a house with a tin roof sheet alongwith a multi story ‘glass tower’ which would be seen installed with split air conditioners.

Still now, various Baloch families have multi nationality of different countries like Europeans, Canada & America. In Norway, Sweden and England after the fall of Reza Shah & Iranian / Khomeini Revolution & at the time of Z.A. Bhutto when Balochs were being persecuted in Karachi & Balochistan, various Balochs had already migrated abroad.

During 1960 or 63, during the reign of Ayub Khan, there was a wicked plan to forcefully relocate Baloch population to the northern side of Karachi, it created hate & resistance, several protests were recorded in the area, including a mass protest under the umbrella of National Awami Party (NAP) at Kakari ground, Kharadar, where various Baloch leaders like Ataullah Mengal, Waja Akbar Barakzai, Waja Yousuf Naskanti, Lal Bux Rind, Master Yar Mohammad Baloch, including various non Balochs like Abdul Rashid Bangali were the pioneer protest leaders.

According to eyewitnesses, the Kakari ground was occupied with hundreds of thousands of people, who were agitating against Ayub’s government, in the same time in Balochistan an army operation was also being carried out against Baloch masses & Baloch leaders like Mr. Akbar Bughti was in jail.

thanks to the record protests & people agitation that the enforced relocation of Baloch Lyarites was withdrawn by Ayub’s government.

Famed Baloch figures of Lyari, reformists, politicians, social workers, educationists…

Many famous Baloch figures were from Lyari, like Waja Ghulam Muhammad Nooruddin, (the former Chairman Karachi Fishermen’s Co-operative Society, and Councilor of the area).

He was a reformist, dedicated social worker, he also among the enthusiasts from Lyari, who had welcomed Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) on his arrival in Karachi.

Waja Ghulam Muhammad Nooruddin, was an intelligent & educated Baloch, he remained active during his tenure, he did some remarkable work like establishment of Lyari Community Development Project, where male & female Baloch students were given free education & technical training in different fields, like typing, electric wiring, tailoring centre, besides there was a full-fledged Library in the centre, sport area, boxing club etc.

The community centre remained active until 1990s. Various NGOs had also established their camps in the vicinity. Under the guidance of Waja G.M. Nooruddin, a splendid exhibition, based on the works of Balochi handicraft, embroidery had also been demonstrated in this place, where Mir Rasool Buksh Talpur (Ex-Governor of Sindh 1972-73) was invited as a Chief Guest.

Presently the centre, because of government’s negligence is in poor condition, after Waja G.M. Nooruddin, there is no one able in the area to look after.

During recent gang war, the branch of First Women Bank (which was established in LCDP vicinity) was also looted & burned down by the gangsters.

Adjacent there, is a famous Bhayyai Bagh (Moulvi Usman Park), which was once a park, where television sets were also fixed for the local dwellers for watching television program, but now this area is barren & being used as a simple football play ground besides Nimaz- Jinaza are also offered in this ground.

Some uplifts were carried out during Benazir’s tenure, but this couldn’t be maintained longer.

This is the famous ground where renowned political leaders like Z.A. Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Shaheed Murtaza Bhutto and Imran Khan conducted their assembly & Jalsaa. Other famous figures of the locality were Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi (He was among the pioneers and pillars of Balochi language & its jurisprudence), he had also compiled a Balochi dictionary, titled:

Syed Ganj, based on his work, a library (Syed Hashmi Reference Library) in Malir by Professor Sabad Dashtiari has also been established, which have a large no. of registered members.

The library not only occupied with rare Balochi books but also covers non Balochi titles too. Professor Sabad Dashtiari is currently engaged at Quetta University, as a faculty of philosophy & Islamic studies. He is a famous Baloch thinker, linguistic and poet.

He also participated in several Balochi cultural related symposiums in Sweden & Norway. Prof. N.M. Danish is another name, he is also famous Balochi poet & thinker, presently he is settled in America, interestingly, these two guys are from black race.

Waja Khair Muhammad Nadvi (late) (picture included) is also a famous figure among religious circle, as he had translated entire Holy Quran in Balochi language.

Waja Haji Wali Muhammad, was also a notables of Gul Muhammad Lane.

Another name was (Late) Professor Khuda Bux Baloch, he was a famous educationist, reformist, former Professor of Pakistan Studies at S.M. Science College, Karachi, Master Yar Muhammad Baloch (a zealous educationist of Lasbela, Balochistan) also belongs from Lyari, he was among the active young leaders when Lyari was being relocated during Ayub’s government, Waja Lal Bux Rind, M. Yousuf Baloch, Faquir Muhammad Baloch were also known figures and social workers. Anjuman-e-Bedaria Balochan in Lyari, had earned a great fame, which was jointly established by these educated Balochs.

Waja Sattar Gabole (a famous Barrister & politician of his time, also remained as Minister for Labor and manpower during Z.A. Bhutto’s time) was also from Lyari.

Another name is Dr. Taj Muhammad Baloch; perhaps he is the only PhD Baloch in Lyari, except other Baloch PhDs which are within country or abroad like Dr. Inayatullah Baloch, Dr. Malik Toughi, Dr. Sabir Badal Khan, etc.

At this moment, it will be unkind for not mentioning the story & feats of young Muhammad Arif Barakzai (Late), he belonged to a very poor family in Chakiwara, Lyari, however, he was a brilliant & genius kid.

He did his Matriculation with A-One grade from a local peela school in Lyari.

Later he completed his B.Sc honors from Karachi University & succeeded to get a scholarship for higher education in Sweden. He also presented his thesis on South Asian Region Politics at Uppsala University, Sweden.

His family was so proud of him, and was hoping for a better future…BUT an un-usual event has taken away everything from their lives… Arif was killed in an accident. May Allah bless his soul with eternal peace.

Non Baloch European scholars..

Mrs. Karina Jihani, senior professor & research scholar from Uppsala University, Sweden also researched & mastered in Balochi language, perhaps she is the only recognized non Balochi figure in Europe. Recently she is working on her new book about Balochi language & culture, based on her tremendous work on Balochi Culture & language she also once appeared at the title of Balochi Labzank magazine.

Mr. Tim Farrell, another research scholar from England also remained in Kalakot, Lyari alongwith his family for couple of years to research on Balochi Culture & language, where he was provided full-fledged support from the Baloch community, even though later the area was infested with gangsters. During his stay he had been continuously attending different Balochi social ceremonies / Deewans of the community.

Balochi magazines, other famed figures, poets, sportsmen, singers, artists…

Labzank was the only & famous Balochi magazine of the community, but since then 2004-2005, it was discontinued due to financial & unknown reasons, Mr. Abdul Wahid Baloch remained the Editor of the magazine. Recently couple of other Balochi magazines like Sichkan, Suhato are being circulated in Balochistan area. Waja G.R. Mulla, a Baloch poet & author of Bazn & Mr. Waja Baig Mohammad Baigul, a Balochi fiction writer & poet also hail from Lyari.

Professor Ali Muhammad Shaheen, (a Baloch from Punjab) is a known figure of Lyari, he is a social worker & famous for providing free law education near vicinity of Foot Ball House, Lyari, which is currently occupied by Karachi Rangers, due to situation of the area. Prof. Shaheen also participated in an election but was defeated by one of the PPPs candidate.

Apart from these known figures, Baloch journalists, Lawyers, Doctors, civil servants, businessmen, motor mechanics, Engineers, Bankers, teachers, nurses, are also part & parcel of Lyari life. However, ratio of active Baloch lady workers are less, as compared to male because of the tribal background & lack of education.

In the field of sports legendary footballers like Pride of Performance: Umar Baloch (Late), Ghulam Abbas Baloch, Muhammad Yousuf Senior, Ali Nawaz, Dad Muhammad, Ustaad Qasim, Master Ameen, Ghafoor Baloch, as well as the famed boxers like Hussain Shah, Rashid Qambrani, Sajid n Jan Baloch and what not the famous bodybuilder, Sikander Baloch (Ex-Mr. Pakistan, International Judge for Bodybuilding competition) also belongs from Lyari.

Like sports in the field of showbiz too Balochi artists are not lagging behind like old Balochi singers Faiz Muhammad Baloch (late), Sattar Baloch(late), Aziz Baloch, Noor Muhammad Nooral, Ustaad Shifi (late), Jarok, Amina Tooti & many more. Currently Abdul Rehman Sorayzai (from Baghdadi) is a famous musician from Lyari, he also performed & awarded in a concert at Sweden.

Balochi TV artist Mr. Anwar Iqbal (originally belongs from Lyari) is equally famous all over Pakistan, he had the opportunity to work in famous PTV plays like Uncle Hurfi (as Qamar), including Qasim Jalali’s famous history dramas like Akhtri Cahatan, he had also produced first Balochi film titled: ‘Ammal Maanganj’, the concept & writer of the movie was Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi.

Ammal Maangang is basically based on true Balochi historical love story, like Heer Ranja, Sassi Punno, but this movie could never be released, due to people’s agitations, perhaps Baloch people were not mentally prepared for that break-through at the moment & Waja Anwar Iqbal had suffered a heavy loss.

He is currently settled in Lahore & is working in various TV dramas of different Pakistani channels with leading roles. ‘Vash TV’ is a new arrival for educating Baloch people, it is basically a pure Balochi news & current affair channel but facing marketing problems. Other Balochi artists are Sarfaraz Baloch, Waqar & Danish Baloch, Zubair Takor, Raja (he also worked in a PTV drama as a Baloch Boxer), Yousuf Jan, Wali Raees, Mansoor Baloch, Sohail Baloch, Asad Wali (a brilliant kid with beautiful voice) are also famous figures not only in Lyari but in entire Iranian & Pakistani Balochistan including anywhere where Baloch lives. Every block buster Indian or English movies are dubbed in Balochi language, with excellent professional audio quality, these videos usually run at local Lyari cables or can be found in VCD/DVDs at Jan Video, Rainbow Centre, Saddar, Karachi.

These are the only Balochi artists from Lyari, otherwise in Iranian & Pakistani Balochistan and abroad at Europe there are a large number of Baloch singers & musicians.

Currently after gang war a musical program was organized by a group of youths in Lyari. Actually there is a lack of platform & support from the government & community, otherwise Lyari is full of talents.

Political vacuum….the consequences….

During the gang war, and prior to Benazir Bhutto’s death (when she was at Dubai and PPPs political wheel was stuck), a larger political vacuum was created, which was apparently filled by gangsters but PPPs graph had already went down in Lyari due to behavior of its celebrated leaders & after the murder incident of Murtaza Bhutto.

This notion was demonstrated during one of the local elections, when a Baloch candidate, Mama Younus Baloch (from Muslim League Noon group,) also gave a tough time to PPPs candidate (Waja Abdul Khaliq Jumma). But after the death of Benazir Bhutto, the situation is again in the favor of PPP in Lyari i.e. the sacrifice has settled ‘everything’.

The 18th October, 2007 was the day when hundreds of Lyarites lost their lives in a crowded procession during Benazir’s arrival in Karachi, later on 27th December, 2007 (at the time of Benazir’s assassination) the worst kind of riots had erupted in all over country especially in Karachi and Lyari, where dozens of warehouses, shops were looted & burned down by the party workers & gangsters.

Lyari has always remained the experimenting place for religious figures & Jihadist too. It was the time, when Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was out of the picture & 9-11 had already taken place. In these days, Lyari was the abode of so-called religious Pakhtoon extremists.

They had carefully chosen this under privileged area for hiring & brain washing innocent Baloch youths for sending them to Jihad in Afghanistan, even drug addicts were not spared.

Through the inflammatory speeches many youths, instead of family confrontation had actively participated in ‘Jihad’ at Afghanistan & lost their lives. With their increasing religious influences many Madarassas were also built up in the area, resultantly, people have become more & more religious, these impressions are visible like thousands of years old cultural traits have also been abandoned like majority of women are tending to use ‘full burqa’ with black hand gloves & socks, instead of wearing Balochi Chahdar.

Still now Lyari is the favorite visiting place for religious elements, every now & then a Moulvi with loudspeaker can be heard in un-usual times.

Even these incidents & drawbacks, Balochs are assumed to be more tolerant & peaceful people than any other community in Karachi. For example, there do live a little population of Hindus, Christians at Bangi Para, also there are Memons, Kachis, Bohris at Chakiwara, & some minority of Pakhtuns, & Urdu speaking masses together with Balochs but one can hardly hear any major clash with them.

During the time of Indo Pak partition & riots, majority of Hindu families were protected by Balochs, except some later incidents where MQM terrorists had attacked some Baloch areas at Osmanabad and situation got worst, but in no case the majority of common people were involved.

The Present Lyari, hopes & fears…

Due to rise of gang actions i.e. routine target killings, firing, clash with police, seizure of shops, economical, political, cultural & sports activities were also halted. Majority of victims were Balochs & non Baloch shop owners were also forced for closure of their business or asked to pay extortions. In this phase, various families of affected areas also migrated to other part of Karachi. During this time, gangsters also looted empty houses by blowing them out through hand-granads.

It was the scene of total destruction, people were without food & water, schools were closed down. Finally a complete clean-up operation was carried out by the government. But the main characters of gangsters went underground or fled away to interior Iranian or Pakistani Balochistan, while few main characters have now diluted themselves into politics.

The death of daughter of East, and Lyari ki Beeti have brought more miseries for Lyarites, as many of youths are still without jobs, which were earlier promised for them. Recently several processions & agitations were & still being recorded by Baloch Youths & PPPs co-workers.

Many people of Lyari still believe that Zardari is directly or indirectly involved in Murtaza Bhutto & Benazir Bhutto’s murder and prior to Benazir murder & during her reign as a Prime Minster, when Murtaza was killed by agencies, Zardari had already become a disliked person in the area.

It is said that time is a great healer, thanks to the peace, revival of political, cultural & business activities in the locality, people are again coming back to life…The two rival gangs aka Rehman & Arshad Pappu groups have already bound with a peace agreement.

Presently, many walls of Lyari can be seen with writings like Tera bhai mera bhai Khan bhai Khan bhai…. As Mr. Khan (former Rehman dacoit) has amalgamated himself into the politics. But really, he is doing some marvelous jobs for the poor localities like providing door to door supply of drinking water, reconstruction of sewerage lines & roads, eradication of gang activities i.e. extortions & mobile snatching incidents are also rare in the area.

The custom, foods, streets, places….

If watched over Google Earth many streets of Lyari depicts like jumble of labyrinths, here is a land problem. This area is thickly populated and holds vertical expansion, 3-4 multi storied houses are built upon 40-80 sq yards area, yet property value is still in the limits, the reason is Balochs normally do not sell their homes, many houses are from the time of pre-partition and were the property of Hindus. Even during the worst gang war, the people who had early migrated to other areas have now come back.

However, at road’s corner construction of new flats can be observed, where minimum value of a flat is Rs.7-10 lacs. Usually these flats have been owned by rich Baloch families, many of whom are landlords or Dubai settled.

The parking of these roads also packed with 4 wheels, land-cruisers. Fashionable beauty parlors, saloons can also be found over there. In the evening these flat dwellers rich youths can be seen walking in shorts while wearing headphones, while at the same place there are youths of old Mohalla working in Auto shops / garages in grease tainted clothes or selling mangoes / dates.

Jatpat or Kachi Market is a famous market near Chakiwara, Lyari, majority of Balochs from Gul Muhammad Lane, Singo Lane, Kalakot, and Bihaar Colony, even from Shershah or Hub Chowki do shop here.

This market is amazing, everything which is related to Balochs are sold here. Be it Balochi darman (Balochi herbs), Balochi embroidery, soren machchi (salted dried fish), goraku (a kind of tobacco used in tobacco pipe / blower often known as Chillims), Iranian dates or goods like detergents, carpets, grease / motor oil, chappal, petrol / oil etc, even Iranian medicines are sold here, which are not common in any other part of Karachi. Goods transport facility from Lyari to interior part of Balochistan (which is a direct route to Iran) is also situated here.

This place is also a famous food street in Lyari, where Burger, Haleem, Chicken Tikka, Quorma, Qeema Paratha, Seekh Kabab, tea, milk & sweet shops, bakery can be found. Recently a Loss Vegas styled Wheel of Fortune (gambling centre) has also been set-up with the auspicious of Khan & Police Bhai. The ‘official timings’ of this wheel of fortune is after Nimaz-e-Maghrib, when crowds gather. The other traditional food specialty of Lyari are fried fish & its eggs (machi-e-aik) when fishing season is on, the famous sheek (seekh) is another fiesta where mutton, fat, liver & other ‘eatable organs’ are roasted on coals.

At Hasht Chowk, where good transporters & various hotels are present there is also a foot place. The famous Chicke Chargha is sold here. Actually Hasht Chowk is a round about (can be seen over Google Earth) with road ways to 8 different directions, however this place remained quite notorious for mobile & money snatching as I’m too one of the victims.

The closure…

In this beautiful magical labyrinth, every Baloch is becoming a hopeful person, they are learning from their past, they are now more committed with their future, they want to survive in this mega multi ethnic jungle i.e. Karachi. But they love their abode, no matter if it is the stink of garbage or hashish or donkey’s shit, in Lyari Baloch natives will always prefer to live with their own people, as they don’t want to separate with their unique heritage, loving memories of childhood, because for Baloch Lyarites there is no other beautiful place in the world but LYARI.

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Why Always Balochs of Lyari??

By Aftab Ahmed Baloch

As a part of so-called ‘Operation Cleanup’ last night around 2-3.00 a.m. Rangers tried to enter into some parts of Lyari i.e. Gul Muhammad Lane & adjoining areas but didn’t succeed, thanks to the brave people of Lyari (especially women & children), who inspite of severe cold, gathered at Moulvi Osman Park. Inspite of cold dead night, thousands of people rushed outside their homes, after announcements were made on loudspeakers.
It was nothing less than an act of terror from PPP government to cover their own war against terrorism.This incident must be sufficient to open the eyes of people of Lyari that PPP is nothing but proved to be a back stabber. PPP always used Balochs as a goat to slaughter them.. Thanks to the alleged PPP, MQM alliance, several innocent Balochs mostly of labor & innocent women were shot dead in Ranchore lane, old Golimar, and Garden area where Urdu speaking Mohajirs are also living.
The reason behind these killings is the chronic dispute of historical Gutter Baghicha, which is the promised land for Balochs (being the old settlements ) but MQM folks are wickedly trying their best to snatch this piece of land. Not only Balochs but Memon, Gujrati, Sindhi & Pakhtoon communities too are in Balochs favor but Mohajirs, as the growing monster & major stake holders of the city have much greater influence than poor Balochs, who are living in ‘c’ category area & are without economical & political platform, except using wheelchair of PPP.Rehman’s killing was also a part of conspiracy from this ‘alliance’ party, where he was killed alongwith other Balochs in a fake police encounter, which truths will never be revealed. Rehman was also used by PPP to gain Baloch votes in Lyari.
It was Rehman who saved Bibi’s life during 18th October, 2007 incident, where MQM blasted a bomb in Karsaz area. In this mind blowing incident, hundreds of innocent Baloch Lyarites were also killed but never compensated by PPP alliance government.During partition time, it was only Balochs & Sindhis who opened their arms & welcomed Urdu speaking immigrants, as no province including Punjab, NWFP, Jammu & Kashmir, was willing to accept them, but these people are really Namak Haraam as they are subjugating the sole aborigines of the city i.e. BALOCHS.Having zero tribal ethics, this fascist party is the identified ‘opportunist’ & can make ‘alliance’ with any party, be it PPP, Nawaz Group or dictators like Musharraf.
In recent years, thanks to Mustafa Kamal’s ‘untiring efforts’, MQM based area grew much stronger influence with a better infrastructure, as major key posts, organizations, law & order agencies proliferate with Urdu speaking people, leaving behind all other races of the city…Thousands of Mohajirs youths were employed as city wardens, so that future planning for penetration in police / law & order agencies can be made.Sindhi brothers must open their eyes because after Karachi, the next target will be Hyderabad & interior Sindh….
Various local Baloch leaders of Gutter Baghicha Tehrik (like Nisar Baloch & Nadir Baloch) have already been killed by ‘these elements’Readers must realize that these target killing incidents erupted when investigation of Moharram killings & Bolton Market incidents were being finalized or under way.
Moharram procession blast, Video footages were also showing the same truth i.e. Mohajir youths, equipped with weapons, flammable chemicals, iron cutters torching & looting every shop in their way.
Early in the past same chemicals were used to torch several innocent lawyers at Denso Hall, Karachi. After Moharram incident, much hue & cry regarding compensation was also being made by MQM so that sympathies of Memon communities (as majority of them belong to Sunni Tehrik) can be avail.The GEO (the Mohajir adapted channel) is also playing a double standard game. They never showed footage of Baloch persecution but always portrays one sided picture. In a slide Mr. Farooq Sattar said that ‘Lyari Gangwar aur MQM ka kia taullaq hai’?? i.e. What is the relation between MQM & Lyari gangsters??
While keeping ignored the killing & unlawful occupation of Gutter Baghicha…Lyari is not the only place in city famous for its gangs or drugs but Urdu speaking & other areas are also infested with weapons & routine target killings but since they are washed with ‘Abe-e-Zam Zam’ they are never reported in media.Mohajirs are forgetting that during their internal clashes with Haqeeqa & Muthahida, routine targeting killings, strikes, Lyari was the only place of peace in the city, where I personally witnessed, hundreds of persecuted Mohajirs took shelters in Lyari & again Baloch welcome them…
BUT what always we got in return is evident to all…
With these ‘stamped & alliance persecution’ over Balochs of Lyari, in the name of ‘Operation cleanup’, the PPP will automatically lose their vote bank in Lyari, because enough is enough, Balochs can never be fooled again & again with Shaheed Mohtarma Card or with fake slogans like Roti Kapra & Makaan. It is time that Balochs in Karachi must realize the situation & should form their own political platform in alliance with Balochs of Balochistan instead of using PPP wheelchair…Thanks to media organizations like Wash TV, the Baloch’s point of view are being presented bravely & Balochs are gradually realizing that PPP always used Balochs as their goats to slaughter or appease the ‘Unholy alliance’Be it Z.A. Bhutto (who had given order for bombardment over Balochs), dictators like Ziaul Haq, Ayub Khan or Musharraf or simply Zardari everyone played their dirty games with Balochs.
Jago Baloch Jago..
In order to protest against alleged operation cleanup, where rangers tried to enter into locality house & 24 innocent youths were arrested, a rally from Lyari to Karachi Press Club was successfully organized by People Peace Committee, Lyari.
The figure was mind blowing where thousands of people, including women & children took part. However, when it reaches near I.I. Chunrigar Road, the police & rangers threw tear gas shells, causing several Baloch women unconscious, while it is a matter of shame & wonder that during the Moharram riots the same police & rangers didn’t threw a single shell on the MQM terrorists, who were killing & torching shops.
But since Baloch’s blood is very cheap, so they didn’t hesitate….After recording their peaceful protest the rally was peacefully ended without harming any shop, people or vehicles which once again showed that Baloch are still the most civilized & tolerant people in the city.

Anyhow, the rally once for all proved that only with the unity we can achieve ‘anything’. Secondly, the media role is very important to make things good or worst.

It is irony that only our Balochi channels i.e. Wash & Balochsitan Sabz baat were telecasting the rally news & some other channels in some extent mentioned it but GEO the ‘leading news’ channel only relied on a single ‘slide’ which is a clear proof that either this channel is run by MQM or they were ‘under pressure’ otherwise they would live telecast the rally in case it was run by MQM or Mohajir folks.

Characters

Sheh Murid

Sheh Murid was the son of Sheh Mubarak, the chief of the Kahiri tribe. At that time when a man was known for his arts, Murid was famous as having mastered the art of swordmanship, horsemanship, and archery. For his skills and braveness he was ranked the highest in the army of Mir Chakar Khan Rind, the chief of the Kahiri army. Murid’s bow made of steel was so heavy that he was known as the “Lord of the Iron Bow”, because none but he alone could draw and shoot arrows from it.

Hani

Hani was the daughter of the Rind noble Mir Mandaw;mandwani rind it is clear from epic poems she is fether mentioned as Dinar, some say she was Murid’s cousin. Hani was a paragon of loyalty and devotion. Everyone knew her for her good character and chastity. Hani was engaged to Sheh Murid and had been a childhood friend of Murid.

Story

Sheh Mureed o Hani, The great balochi Folk-love story

The legend is that one day when Mir Chakar and Sheh Murid were returning from a day of hunting, they stopped at the town where their fiancées lived. Since a Muslim Balochistani Baloch woman traditionally never appears before her betrothed before the wedding, Mir Chakar and Sheh Murid decide to visit each others’ fiancées. Sheh Murid went to Mir Chakar’s fiancée, who brought him clean water in a silver bowl. Murid, dying of thirst, drank the entire bowl in a single gulp and became sick. However, when Mir Chakar went to Hani, Sheh Murid’s fiancée, she brought him clean water in a silver bowl in which she has placed dwarf palm leaf, properly washed. The chief was surprised by the pieces of straw, but he drank the water with care in order to avoid swallowing the straw. When he departed he found Murid vomiting and sick. Murid told him that the water had made him ill because he drank a lot of water on an empty stomach. Now Mir Chakar realized that Hani had acted wisely by putting pieces of straw ino the water.

Some time later, Mir Chakar organized a gathering where poets put forward poetry of heroes etc. At the height of the revelry Mir Chakar asked the nobles to make vows on which they must pledge their lives. Every chief at the gathering made a vow. Mir Jado swore that he would chop off the head of anyone who touched his beard at the assembly of nobles. Then Bibarg vowed that he would kill anyone who kills Hadeh. He was followed by Mir Haibitan who vowed that if anybody’s camel joined his camel-herd he would never give it back. At last came the turn of Sheh Murid, who, madly in love with Hani, pledged that if anyone asked for anything in his possession on his wedding day, he would give it. Later on, Mir Chakar vowed that he would never tell a lie for the rest of his life. He was true to his word: He never in his lifetime after that was found to have lied. Mir Chakar tested Mir Jado’s word by asking his young son to touch his father’s beard during an assembly of nobles. The young boy innocently did as he was told, Mir Jado turned his face and moved the boy hoping no one noticed. However Mir Chakar encouraged the boy to repeat the action. the boy grabbed his father’s beard once more. The entire assembly became silent and looked towards Mir Jado. Will he be true to his word? Full of wrath, Jado unsheathes his sword and smites the head of his innocent son in the presence of all the Rind nobles. Mir Chakar also tested Bibarg and Haibitan, finding them true to their word. Now it was time to test Sheh Murid. Murid hosted a festive gathering on his wedding and invited renowned poets to entertain the audience. And at the close of the festivities, Sheh Murid, was ready to depart with his possessions. Mir Chakar asked for Hani. Sheh Murid was shocked; he thought that he would have asked for his bow which was a unique bow and he was a very good marksmen with a strong bow. He was known as The Lord Of The Iron Bow. With a heavy heart and much sadness he told Mir Chakar to take Hani. The unexpected demand distressed him greatly, and Murid realized that he had lost Hani. If he did not keep his vow he would be mocked and future generations would have contempt for his name. Soon after the annulment of Murid’s engagement with Hani, she was soon married to Mir Chakar. But Murid was so shaken by this turn of events that he abandoned his former life and passed the days and nights in worship of Allah. He also composed poems eulogizing Hani’s beauty and openly expressing his passionate love for her. The scandalous news of Murid’s love for Mir Chakar’s wife became the talk of every household in Balochistan. His father Sheh Mubarak tried to advise him, he composed a poem in Baluchi of the advice that his father gave him and the response to the advice. The poem in Baluchi is as follows:

Departure and return

Sheh Murid then decided to leave the country and visit unknown lands across the seas. He followed a group of mendicants going to perform their pilgrimage at the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Arabia. As tradition has it, Sheh Murid remained in Arabia for 30 a long time during which time he truly became a mendicant and lived the life of an ascetic.

After spending years away, he returned to Sibi in shabby clothes with his hair hanging down to his waist. In the company of a band of beggars he passed himself off as an anonymous mendicant begging for alms at the palace of Mir Chakar Khan Rind. The maidservant gave bowls filled with grain to each mendicant, but when she presented this food to Murid, she saw that Murid’s eyes were fixed upon Hani. Hani recognised him at once but held herself back as to not arise suspicions, but Chakar saw a sparkle in her eyes.

Recognition of Sheh Murid

As a favorite pastime of the Chakarian age, the Rind nobles gathered for an archery competition. During the contest, the nobles noticed the curiosity and interest of Murid, the leader of beggars. At first the Rind nobles treated him with a certain amount of disrespect on account of his shabby appearance, laughing at him and asking how a mendicant clad in tattered clothes could bend a bow and hit a target. They gave him a bow and arrow. He bent the bow but it could not bear the power of his arms and broke into pieces. They gave him another one, which he also broke. After he broke the third bow the Rind nobles grow a bit suspicious that he might be Sheh Murid. They sent someone to fetch Murid Khan’s bow, which was made out of steel and was called jug (yoke) because of its form and weight. The epic tells us that this famous weapon had been tossed in a pen for sheep and goats after the “master of the iron bow” had departed and it had no owner to care for it. Because of its weight and toughness, it was useless in the hands of anyone else. When it was turned over to him, Sheh Murid caressed and kissed it, gently touching the strings as if they belonged to a sacred instrument; he scrutinized every inch. Then, as a master archer, he rolled up his beggar’s mantle, bent the bow with great skill, and shot three arrows from it, passing one through the hole left by the previous one. The Rind’s suspicion that this beggar was in fact Sheh Murid was confirmed after the trial of the bow. The Rind nobles stopped Murid and a servant was sent to ask Hani for Murid’s distinguishing signs and marks, which she would know because they had played together as children. Hani told of a sign on the upper left thigh, which her bracelet had made, and another one behind the eyebrow. When the Rinds checked the signs, they at last recognized Sheh Murid.

Union and departure to unknown world

Although Mir Chakar married Hani, however he was unable to consummate the marriage, Whenever he approached Hani, he would freeze as if paralyzed. For years he carried on this way and realised that Hani can never truly be his. When he found out that Sheh Murid had returned, he Told Hani that Sheh Murid was a great man and deserved her, so he divorced her and told her she was free to go to Sheh Murid

Hani, who had not forgotten her first and only love, decided to go to him, she told him that Mir Chakar had realised his mistake and has now freed her so that they (i.e. Sheh Murid& Hani) could be together. But Sheh Murid told her that he had now reached a different level and cannot step down from that level to take her she was a means by which he had reached closer to Allah. He took leave of her.. On the following day Murid visited his father’s camel herd, chose a white she-camel, mounted her, and disappeared from mortal eyes. He has become the immortal saint of the Baloch, and the common belief among the Baloch is that: ta jahan ast, Sheh Murid ast (Until the living world, Sheh Murid remains immortal.)

Haji Dad Mohammed is from the lineage of Sheh mubarak. he was born in 1902 to Muradow son of Musa. he was the youngest child of 3 children. His father died when he was quite young and his brothers died in their twenties. due to tribal enmity he found himself threatened because lack of support and protection from other family members. Several raids were made at his home he managed to outwit the enemy and fled to Oman. He lived in Oman for a short period and then migrated to zanzibar.