Footprints of India in Balochistan & Karachi

Under the garb of remedying political and economic grievances of East Pakistan, he formulated six points formula and fanned Bengali nationalism. Unearthing of Agartala conspiracy case in 1968 turned the secessionist into a hero in the eyes of Bengalis. Indian media was instrumental in lionizing Mujib.
Breakup of One-Unit Scheme, one-man-one-vote and change of separate electorate to joint electorate by Gen Yahya Khan so as to appease the agitating Bengalis gave the Awami League (AL) electoral victory in a platter. Year-long election campaign allowed Mujib to use high-handed tactics to not only intimidate the people of East Pakistan but also inflame Bengali nationalism. Indian media and secular Bengali intellectuals presented West Pakistan as a villain and publicized Mujib’s six point program as a panacea for all the problems of East Pakistan, which in actuality amounted to secession. All criminal and illegal acts of AL thugs were ignored under the policy of appeasement.
After sweeping the elections through massive rigging, Mujib and his henchmen became more arrogant and uncompromising. They stubbornly maintained that new constitution will be framed strictly in accordance with six points and refused to accommodate viewpoint of second largest party PPP. The situation became uncontrollable in Dacca on 1 March after Yahya unwisely postponed inaugural session scheduled in Dacca on 3 March on the insistence of Bhutto and hawkish Generals. It sparked horrible conflagration and let loose genie of Bengali nationalism.
On the afternoon of 3 March, Mujib demanded immediate return of troops to barracks and to hand over security of Dacca to him, or else his men would resist them. He also demanded cessation of flow of reinforcement from West Pakistan and disarming of non-Bengalis. Eastern Command Commander Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub capitulated to his wrongful demands, which was a blunder. Gen Gul Hassan said that to allow Mujib to restore calm was ‘somewhat like leaving a virgin in the care of a habitual rapist’.
A state within state was created and Bengalis took orders from Mujib only. Everywhere the chanting of ‘Joi Bangla’ could be heard. New Bangladesh flag was hoisted. Mujib’s hostile tantrums amounted to virtual independence. In order to provoke Gen Yahya to use force and thus give an excuse to start a popular civil war aided by India, a planned massacre of non-Bengalis including Biharis and pro-government Bengalis and rape of West Pakistani girls was unleashed. Their properties were torched and valuables looted. The madness continued till 25 March filling the roads and streets of Dacca and other major towns with blood. Stench of the dead bodies littered on the roads unattended became unbearable and it became difficult to breathe. Over 100,000 people, mostly Biharis were hacked to death. Stories of ‘torture to death’ are too horrifying and blood curdling to narrate and have been narrated in hundreds of books.
Non-Bengali and loyal elements butchery continued with unabated venom. None came to the rescue of the hounded. They were baffled and found themselves at the mercy of hounding wolves. They had no weapons to fend for themselves and no place to hide and as such got slaughtered like sheep. Even our media was blanked on the ill-conceived ground that broadcasting of atrocities would evoke a severe backlash against Bengalis in West Pakistan. The biased western media team located in Dacca turned a blind eye to the carnage of non-Bengalis. It also turned a blind eye to India’s meddling and induction of 90,000 Indian soldiers in West Bengal in March 1971.
The troops confined to barracks kept hearing the savageries committed on men in uniform and their families with impotent rage. Attacks on Army pickets were stepped up and the Army jeered at. Soldiers were spat upon and called Yahya dogs.
Sizeable number of men in Khaki and their families particularly those serving in East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) and East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces were hacked to death. By such acts, the Army was being deliberately provoked to lose patience and to take punitive action. This would have given Mujib and his henchmen a weapon to whip up anti-Army emotions thereby dubbing the Army as an occupation Army. It would have paved the way for civil war thereby fulfilling the requirement of India.
Yahya’s regime was subjected to extreme criticism for its procrastinating attitude and its passivity to confront Bengali defiance against the state. All those who mattered in West Pakistan and pro-Pakistan Bengalis exerted extreme pressure on President Yahya to take punitive action against the dissidents. Even Bhutto prodded him to use full force regardless of casualties before it was too late.
During the ten-day negotiations in Dacca in March 1971, Yahya team trying to find a way out of impasse remained totally defensive and apologetic and had no card to play. They kept giving in and got nothing in return. No political leader including Bhutto could soften up Mujib. The Mujib led team on the other hand maintained a highly belligerent and uncompromising posture. It was amply clear that AL simply didn’t want a constitutional agreement conducive to the retention of national identity. His mentors had briefed him not to agree on any point or concession offered at any cost.
Matiur Rahman in his book ‘Bangladesh Today’ writes, ‘It was indeed most mind boggling to note that while Yahya Khan and his team persistently offered power to Mujib, the latter constantly hedged, refused to agree to any settlement, shifted his position from six points and refused to accept any formula within the framework of a united Pakistan’. Mujib had made up his mind to part ways and that too through violent means.
It was on the evening of 24 March 1971 when Yahya got convinced that Mujib didn’t want anything short of confederation that he gave green signal to Gen Tikka Khan to save the federation. Orders to unit commanders were passed verbally on the morning of 25th March. The toughest challenge was in Dacca where the outcome of crackdown would have decided the fate of East Pakistan. The city and its suburbs housed heaviest concentration of armed rebels followed by Chittagong. As per foreign press reports, there were 200,000 weapons with the militants in East Pakistan.
Despite extremely heavy odds, the troops numbering 12000 went into action and by early morning of 26th, Dacca was cleared of miscreants and in next few days all other critical towns were also taken over since the rebels had fled. Reinforcement from West Pakistan were rushed in only when it was found that EBR, EPR and Police had also rebelled and rebellion had got transformed into a well-planned civil war supported by India.
When the prejudiced foreign journalists were ousted from Dacca by Gen Tikka, the jilted journalists got settled in Calcutta and played into the hands of Indian media. Indo-western-AL media cooked up fabricated stories of all kinds of atrocities and quoted highly bloated figures of those killed in Army action on 25th March and subsequently. All this was done to smoke-screen the large-scale atrocities committed by AL urchins and anti-social elements. The next round of killings and rapes was undertaken by Mukti Bahini after 23 November 1971, later joined by Indian forces. Raping of Bengali girls and women at a mass scale was undertaken by Indian Army and BSF soldiers in the refugee camps in India during their confinement period of over nine months.
It is ironic that today the AL led government at the behest of India is demanding apology from Pakistan for the so-called war crimes, and is convicting aged Jamaat-e-Islami members through Kangaroo courts, who had played their honorable part to save their motherland, but is completely ignoring the barbarities of its own members against Biharis and West Pakistanis and their collaboration with hostile India.
Can we notice the footprints of India in Balochistan and in Karachi where quite a few similarities with former East Pakistan crisis can be discerned? Are we alive to the two brewing lavas which are primed to burst? The only thing which probably has frustrated the designs of our adversaries is that the Army kept itself aloof. Hence the story of ‘genocide’ couldn’t be played. ‘Missing persons’ story played up in Balochistan didn’t prove so tantalizing to evoke an international outcry, particularly when ground checks negated the stance of propagandists.
(The writer is a retired Brig, a defence analyst and a columnist)
asifharoonraja@gmail.com

Since the high profile hearing on September 27, 2012, where Mr Akhtar Mengal presented his six-point roadmap for peace and stability, 109 innocent civilians and political activists have been killed along with four journalists.

Although the conflict in Balochistan has shattered the lives of ordinary citizens, it is an undeniable fact that ‘organised chaos’ has overwhelmingly empowered paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies. In fact, there is an undeclared emergency in the province, where the Baloch political process has been systematically stagnated and criminals and extremists are allowed to flourish and take control of society.

Despite the Supreme Court’s efforts and intentions, it seems unlikely that Balochistan’s bloodletting will stop in the near future. Since the Constitution is regarded as a mere piece of paper and overlooked by the ‘supreme authority’, i.e., the military establishment, the Court’s order will not discourage perpetrators of human rights violations to get away with their destructions.

Nevertheless, in Balochistan, the majority of the populace is discontented with the state system and its institutions. In such an environment, where distrust between the Baloch and Islamabad is high — the Balochistan National Party’s (BNP) leader, Akhtar Mengal, took a very courageous political decision to briefly end his prolonged self-exile so as to facilitate delivery of speedy justice to the victims of a decade-long conflict.

The BNP chief was overloaded with facts and truths about the endless miseries of the Baloch people by the militarised state and about the gross human rights violations of his people by the non-Baloch security apparatus.

Despite Balochistan’s small population, countless Baloch political leaders have been produced before civil and military courts as ‘traitors’ and offenders, thereby incarcerated because of their political opinion. Nevertheless, this was the first time in the history of Balochistan-Pakistan relations that a political leader from Balochistan, accompanied by 40 senior Baloch-Pashtun leaders, appeared in the Court as a complainant against the state rather than as a culprit.

Along with Akhtar Mengal’s verbal statements, the BNP submitted a comprehensive nine-page declaration and a 70-page dossier in the Supreme Court on September 27. Both statement and dossier encompass historic facts about the troubled relation between Balochistan and Pakistan, including details of systematic political, economic and human rights violations in their homeland. Akhtar Mengal talked passionately and factually before the Supreme Court about Balochistan’s state of affairs, including the epidemic of enforced disappearances of political activists.

The honourable chief justice and judges graciously received Mr Mengal and repeatedly indicated that Baloch leaders have shown respect for the rule of law and reminded the federation (government) to respond likewise. However, despite the Court’s meaningful advice to the federation (civil-military establishment), it has struck back with repeated rhetoric. The federal government injudiciously denied all charges of proxy death squads, military operations, missing persons and displaced Baloch.

Although the BNP’s six-point confidence building measures are not a recipe for permanent peace, if implemented, they could lead to a conflict-resolution process. Peace prospects between the Baloch and Islamabad are swiftly fading. The Supreme Court’s slow motion process is unlikely to dent the establishment’s anti-Baloch policy. The purposeful killing of moderate Baloch political activists will continue unabated until the establishment achieves its objective of a Baloch-less Balochistan.

violence to affect Balochistan

The victim received multiple bullets wounds and died on the spot. His body was handed over to the heirs after legal formalities. The reason behind the killing could not be ascertained. Police have registered a case and started investigation.

In another incident, a shopkeeper was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Khuzdar district. According to the police, the victim, identified as Ali Muhammad, was in his shop when armed assailants came in and opened fire at him, killing him on the spot.

The body was handed over to the heirs, however the reason behind the killing could not be determined. Police have registered a case.

Separately, a water tanker driver was injured in a firing incident at Kirani Road, Quetta. Police said that the victim, Syed Hussain Abbas, was on his way home when two gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on him, leaving him injured. The assailants fled from the scene.

He was shifted to the Civil Hospital for medical aid. Police are investigating the incident. app

In the southeastern district of Bolan, gunmen opened fire on two buses late Sunday, killing eight people including two women, police official Iftikhar Bugti said. BRP spokesman Sarbaz Baluch claimed responsibility for the shooting.

“We had launched an appeal for a complete strike and the buses bound for southern Sindh and central Punjab provinces had ignored our appeal. We therefore opened fire on them,” he said in a telephone call to AFP.

Police and residents said Sunday’s strike was almost complete across the impoverished and insurgency-hit province, with 21 out of 30 districts affected. People blocked roads and erected barricades in several places on highways leading to Iran, the southern port of Karachi and other important cities, they said.

The strike was endorsed by other political and religious parties in the province, with around 300 people demonstrating in Quetta to demand the extradition and trial of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for ordering the operation in 2006.

BEFORE me is a collection of short stories titled Injeer Kai Phool. I have just finished reading it and am in a state of shock. They are all sad stories about people who are doomed, with a deeply pessimistic mood running through them.But let me first give an introduction to the book. The stories are from Balochistan, written in Pashtu, Brahvi and  Balochi. Short story writer Afzal Mirza has translated them into Urdu. Two Urdu story writers, Asif Farrukhi and Mohammad Hameed Shahid have commented on them.

I was introduced to Balochistan’s fiction through a collection of short stories written in Urdu by Tahir Mohammad Khan. They were finely written stories focusing on the social life in the region with particular reference to women, who seemed unfairly treated.

The story writers included in Injeer Kai Phool are far more critical of the social conditions in Balochistan. They are bitter, painting the picture in dark colours. As portrayed by them, here is a world where the poor man is doomed to live in the most wretched of conditions while the wealthy live in luxury. They make only rare public appearances and perhaps that too for the sake of highlighting the wretchedness of the poor. The poor don’t know where to go for help. In Abdul Qadar’s story “Doctor”, even the doctor blatantly refuses to help the woman whose dying husband requires emergency treatment.

Nature, too, appears indifferent to the plight of the poor. Fated to live in tents, they are at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather. In heavy rainfall their tents, along with their meagre belongings, are swept away, leaving them shelterless.

Arif Zia’s story “Barish ki Dua” brings before us an ironic situation. Suffering from a long drought, people gather to pray for rainfall. A little girl coming out from a nearby tent sees them praying and recalls her experience of the previous year’s rainfall and starts to worry about what will happen to her tent if the prayers are answered. The innocent girl prays to God to have mercy on her ailing mother and hold back the rain.

But the sufferings of the characters in these stories don’t emanate from their poverty alone. In these stories we come across deep-seated prejudices and age-old tribal customs which have created grave problems for society. An acute sense of honour has led to a terrible practice known as ‘honour killing’. A mere suspicion is enough justification for trigger-happy male members of any family to commit murder. The recurrence of this theme in different stories highlights the gravity of the problem.

The stories give the impression of reality. They seem to be pieces picked up from real life and reproduced with deeply felt expression which speaks volumes about the genuineness of the storytellers. That is why, while reading these stories, we cannot remain aloof for long. We soon forget that we are reading fiction and become involved in the situation and start feeling for the characters.

The depiction of social ills is steeped deep in genuine emotions. In this starkly realistic depiction we occasionally see potential for romance, such as in the story “Injeer Kai Phool”. But the female protagonist’s sense of duty does not allow her to enjoy the pleasures of these moments. She is soon awakened to the bitter reality of her life.

These stories bring to us awareness about a region which is sadly only vaguely known.

Zurutuza had to sneak into Balochistan, because Pakistan does not allow journalists in there without a permit.One of the reasons they don’t want journalists poking around is that they might investigate what’s happened to the Baloch who live in and around the mountain where Pakistan’s been testing its nuclear arsenal:

In Chagai, very few people can read, and fewer still are untouched by the pain of hunger, unemployment, the “disappearances”. But without a doubt the major worry in this mountainous region on the Afghan frontier is water. Not the scarcity of it, as is the case in so many other regions of Balochistan where it seldom rains. Chagai is lucky to have a lot of underground water. There’s only one problem: it causes cancer. In order to acheive a balance of power with India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, Islamabad exploded five nuclear detonations here in 1998. The villages close to Raspoh mountain, where the nuclear tests were conducted, were evacuated. But,the last few years have seen a spike in spontaneous abortions, foetal malformations, and many cases of cancer.

Before moving away from Raspoh village, Wazeer went to live with his brother in neighboring Dalbandid. He says that the water came out yellow from the taps, although for some time now Wazeer has forgotton what colors are. Like many in the area, eye cancer has left him blind. Nobody told him not to wash his face with this water.

Incidentally, as Ahmed Rashid points out, the Bush administration poured 11.9 billion of our tax dollars into Pakistan, and 80 percent went straight into the coffers of the military. The Obama administration has promised Pakistan 1.5 billion a year for each of the next 5 years.

Our tax dollars at work–paying off the Pakistan Army so that the Taliban won’t get its hands on the nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile the Pakistani Army takes the $$$ and funnels some of it to the Taliban to make sure they are an ever-present “threat”.

And the Baloch get nuked, disappeared, and pushed to the margins of Pakistan.

Extortion, global style.

Balochistan: Pakistan’s Media Remain Silent

A delegation of Balochistan civil society and lawyer’s community visited the protest camp, outside Quetta Press Club, to express their solidarity with families of abducted and extra-judicially killed Baloch activists. The delegation has assured the protesters that they will support them at these hard times and stand with them in solidarity.

They said the Journalists Community in Pakistan has not had their right to this day. According to a recent report of Bytes for All, an Organisation striving for online press freedom, Journalists, students, lawyers and political activists from Balochistan were being illegally abducted and extra-judicially killed and that atrocities against them were on the rise. There is a total media blackout on such atrocities in Pakistan. Recently Baloch freedom seeking Organisation had boycotted Urdu channels stating that the Pakistani media was completely silent on Balochistan issue, the report added.

The delegation said that non-governmental Organisations working for press freedom also say that whatever is happening in Balochistan the Pakistan mainstream media is misrepresenting it. They do publish news but that doesn’t reflect the true voices of indigenous people. For example, the delegation said, there was no coverage of the token hunger strike protest of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons in the media.

The members of Balochistan Civil Society and Lawyers Community further said that in Balochistan the media person are being forced and threaten to publish news that are not even worth publishing. Due to pressure and harassment Journalists are forced not to present the real picture of Balochistan conflict.

Qadeer Baloch, the Vice Chairman of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, told the delegation that the state brutalities and atrocities, operations and dumping of mutilated bodies have increased and these are sign of expanding the occupation over Baloch land. But, he said he was surprised at the media’s silence.

The writer hosts a show called “Capital Circuit” for News One

Balochistan has become the ultimate test of our national conscience. The province has been betrayed by everyone including the Pakistani state, the successive provincial governments, the sardars and even the insurgents. The case of insurgents, the dissidents or sarmachars as they are often called, is the most instructive as their betrayal to their people is not widely recognised. They have repeatedly asked their Baloch brethren to die for an independence that would take them from one slavery to another. If you have any doubts, take a look at the plight of the Baloch in the neighbouring countries. The resource-rich region is far behind in human development making it a conspicuous prey for all ambitious forces in the region. That means that the province’s opportunistic elite, right now working closely with Islamabad, might get richer but the lot of the poor Baloch will not ameliorate even if the province wins independence. Meanwhile, more blood is being spilled every moment in Balochistan.

And the state’s role has been no less obnoxious. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and his toadies managed to transform their personal dislikes into a campaign against the Baloch people. Since then, the state has not only killed its own citizens but also gathered a motley crowd of opportunists and sycophants around it that does its best to retard the prospects of peace. This class has two subsets. The one governing the province is corrupt and totally divorced from ground realities and the other, without any substantial following, resorts to aiding and abetting the alleged kidnappings and extrajudicial killings in the province. Together they have blinded the state apparatus.

This is not to say that there is no hope of peace at all. The post-Musharraf defence establishment seems ready to mend fences and build peace. However, the PPP-led coalition government has not been able to come up with any serious plan. A classic example was the recently held two-day national workshop called “Balochistan Situation: Perceptions and Realities — The Way Forward”, organised by the National Defence University (NDU) in Islamabad, which I attended. The prime minister was invited to give a policy speech on the issue. Unfortunately, whosoever had written his speech blew the opportunity. The prime minister spoke not only of foreign involvement — the proof of which has been hard to come by — but also categorically stated that no dialogue could take place with those who burn Pakistan’s flag. The speechwriter did not realise that in the civilised parts of the world, flag burning is considered a legitimate form of democratic protest.

The more pressing issue is of human loss in the province. Islamabad has always been aware of the province’s geostrategic, mineral and trade potential. Somehow, what it forgets is the plight of its citizens living above those mineral deposits and by ignoring them, it risks jeopardising 44 per cent of the country’s landmass.

Unfortunately, those who were complacent during Musharraf’s operations, today do not want the establishment to realise that the insurgents can even be brought to the table. It is, indeed, a responsibility of the country’s intelligence community to find out how to best engage the dissidents. The ongoing judicial activism, while admirable, cannot provide a lasting solution. The army repeatedly indicates its readiness to back a peace initiative. But such an initiative can only be taken by the federal government and that, too, without involving Mr Rehman Malik as no one takes him seriously in Balochistan.

The fact is that no one has a monopoly over the sufferings and the Baloch, the law enforcement agencies, the Pashtuns and settlers have all suffered and precious lives have consequently been lost. That means that instead of trying the Irish or the Sri Lankan approaches, we will have to finally follow the South African example of peace building. If this cannot be done quickly, then remember, sir, that all has already been lost.

He said this in a condolence statement issued in reaction to the killing of Malik Noor Ahmed Qambarani Baloch, an old confidant of his father and veteran Baloch national leader, Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, whose killing Hyrbyair said was orchestrated by the death squads of the Pakistan intelligence agencies.

“I knew Mr. Qambarani personally,” he recalled, “he was a brave, committed and selfless Baloch.” He further said that although the enemy has physically separated him from us but his ideology lives on and will be guiding light for the Baloch youth. “The sacrifices of Baloch martyrs including Noor Ahmad Qambarani will be written in golden words on Baloch history pages”, added Mr Marri. “Baloch nation knows the target killers of their beloved ones and they will be held accountable and each one of them will be brought to justice”, he assured.

Praising the sacrifices made by Baloch nation Hyrbyair said that Baloch National Liberation movement gained enormous popularity during a short span of time in comparison to national movements of other nations. Mr. Marri said that the Pakistani intelligence agencies were frustrated with the growing popularity of the Baloch nationalist movement. In order to counter the political movement, they were creating underground death squads to target kill the most educated and enlightened members of the Baloch society. These death squads of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, he added, keep changing their color all the time and operate under different names. He said that these groups are involved in abducting and kill & dump of youth but they must realise that Baloch struggle for freedom will continue until the last occupying Pakistani soldier withdraws from Baloch land.

“We have credible information that differences are occurring among these death squads because some Baloch have joined them for sake of money but now they realised that they are being exploited and used against other innocent Baloch. Several of them have abandoned these proxy groups but later, under the instructions of Pakistan intelligence agencies, they were killed and dumped”, said Mr Marri, adding that rest of the separated people in fear of being killed and dumped have kept silence.

The Baloch leader warned the civilized world to realize how dangerous Pakistani state’s collaboration with radical Islamist groups was as it would lead to destructive consequences for the world peace. While these groups were currently being mushroomed to undermine the Baloch nationalist resistance movement, one day they will turn against the whole world community. He appealed to the international powers to help the Baloch against Pakistan’s policies supportive of Islamic extremist groups.

Courtesy: the Baloch Hal
Addition by: Baloch Warna

Taj Mohamad berisig

Published by Balochistan Volunteer Foundation, Volume No.1, June 2010, (pp. 65-94) examines the historical aspects of Baloch nationalism. The paper concludes that though the seeds of Baloch nationalism were sown in Balochistan in the colonial era, but its full flowering occurred as a result of centralising policies of modern post-colonial state, which contradicted and restrained the historical high degree of cultural and political autonomy of the Baloch. The paper explains that to a large extent the Baloch uprisings in Pakistan helped in forging a political consciousness amongst the Baloch people; based on common ethnic, cultural and historical ties transcending tribal loyal-ties.

A GLIMPSE ON THE BALOCH NATIONALIM

By Professor Dr. Taj Mohammad Breseeg

 The 20^th century has been witness to the rise and development, of the politics of Baloch identity and nationalism. Nationalism may be defined in one of two ways – by ethnic or civic criteria. While ethnic nationalism is based on the consciousness of a shared identity, culture, belief in common ancestors and history, civic nationalism is encompassed within a geographically defined territory. In practice, ethnic nationalism has had an advantage over territorial or civic nationalism because the former appears as a natural continuation of a pre-existing ethnicity. The nationalists believe that their corporate interests are best protected by possession of their own state in the international system.

A community has an identity when its members are able not only to distinguish it from other communities, but also to convey its distinctive character in words, gestures, and practices, so as to reassure them that it should exist and that they have reason to belong to it. Thus the emergence of a national identity involves a growing sense among people that they belong naturally together, that they share common interests, a common history and a common destiny. To this extent the Baloch have undoubtedly an obvious claim to national identity, as demonstrated by perceptible political, economic and social events peculiar to the Baloch.

Historically, the period between the 13^th century and the end of the 15^th was the most significant in the development of the Baloch ethno-linguistic community. With respect to this, the process was just as complex and fundamental. Internally, the Baloch society moved from the smaller unit of clan to the larger one of tribe and territorial differentiation. Externally, it began to assimilate vast segments of other ethnic groups: Iranians, Indo-Aryans of Punjab and Sindh, Arabs, Pashtuns, etc.

A nation may be divided amongst several states. Such a nation is a multi-state nation – or, more appropriately, a trans-state nation. The Baloch today are a trans-state nation. Since the 1920s, their ‘coherence and unity’ have been growing steadily, and it is directed to the establishment of an independent “Greater Balochistan”, which comprises mainly the Pakistani province of Balochistan, the Iranian province of Sistan-wa-Balochistan (Sistan and Balochistan), and the contiguous areas of southern Afghanistan. Thus, as ties of history, territory and ethnicity maintain a unified Baloch national identity that spans state frontiers, so does Baloch nationalism tran­scend the international boundaries, which cut across its linguo-ethnic homeland. There­fore, it is important to place the Baloch national struggle in Eastern Balochistan (within the state of Pakistan) in the context of the broader nationalist movement engulfing the Baloch in Iran and Afghani­stan. 

Numbering over 10 million (1981), the Baloch are one of the largest trans-state nations in southwest Asia. At present, their country is politically divided into two major parts: eastern Balochistan with Quetta as its capital has been administered by Pakistan since 1948; western Balochistan, officially known as “Sistan-wa-Balochistan” with Zahedan as its capital, has been under the control of Iran since 1928. The greatest number of Baloch today still live in Balochistan, though a large Baloch diaspora has developed in this century, especially in Karachi and other cities of Sindh, Punjab, Oman, and in recent decades in the Gulf States as well.

The Baloch people are distinct from the Punjabi and the Persian elite that dominate Pakistani and Iranian politics – they are Muslims but more secular in their outlook (in a similar fashion to the Kurds) with their own distinct language and culture. However, it is Balochistan’s strategic location, with a long coastline on the Gulf and its function as one of the gate-ways from and to Central Asia and Afghanistan, and as the most important check point of the Gulf’s oil, that has placed it in a pivotal position in the Subcontinent’s, and since the post colonial years in Pakistan’s and Iran’s, history.

Having its origin in the Balochs’ distinct geography, ecology, culture and history, Baloch nationalism emerged as an ideology in the early 1920s. Representing a popular movement against alien domination, its principal goal is the Baloch national self-rule in their homeland, an aim sought to preserve their national and cultural identity, thus advocated and pursued universally by the Baloch of all classes and social strata.

The ethnic element (ethnicity) constitutes the salient feature of Baloch nationalism. The weakness of ethnicity, however, is its inability to maintain the terminal loyalty of the masses at the national level. Sub-national rivalry, based on tribal loyalties, divides the Baloch national movement. These rivalries are then used by the central governments to weaken the Baloch, in both Iran and Pakistan. Thus the Baloch movement, in contrast to many other national liberation movements, has experienced a persistent contradiction between its traditional leadership and the relatively developed society it seeks to liberate.

A strong sense of ethnicity has existed among the Baloch for a very long time. From the 17th century to the mid-19th century, much of Balochistan was under the rule of the independent Khanate of Kalat, and the autonomous Baloch principalities (Western Balochistan) that produced a flourishing rural and urban life in the 18th century. Although a people of mixed origin, the Baloch constitute an ethnicity which has proved its vigour throughout the ages. They have withstood the inroads of more numerous and developed peoples such as the Mughals, Turks and Persians, and despite certain affinities with the latter, they have succeeded in maintaining their separate identity. Their vitality has been demonstrated by expansion into non-Baloch regions as well as by the Balochization of neighbouring people.

The Baloch may be divided into two major groups. The largest and the most extensive of these are the Baloch who speak Balochi or any of its related dialects. This group represents the Baloch “par excellence”. The second group consists of the various non-Balochi speaking groups, among them are the Baloch of Sindh and Punjab and the Brahuis of eastern Balochistan who speak Sindhi, Seraiki and Brahui respectively. Despite the fact that the latter group differs linguistically, they believe themselves to be Baloch, and this belief is not contested by their Balochi-speaking neighbours. Moreover, many prominent Baloch leaders have come from this second group. Thus, language plays a less important role in the Baloch nationalist movement in Eastern Balochistan, because, as indicated above, language ties do not unite the whole Baloch community.

Despite the heterogeneous composition of the Baloch, in some cases attested in traditions preserved by the tribes, they believe themselves to have a common ancestry. Some scholars have claimed a Semitic ancestry for the Baloch, a claim which is also supported by the Baloch genealogy and traditions, and has found wide acceptance among the Baloch writers. Even though this belief may not necessarily agree with the facts (which, it should be pointed out, are very difficult to prove, either way), it is the concept universally held among members of the group that matters. In this connection Kurdish nationalism offers a good parallel. The fact is that there are many common ethnic factors which have contributed to the formation of the Kurdish nation; there are also factors which have led to divisions within the Kurds themselves. While the languages identified as Kurdish are not the same as the Persian, Arabic, or Turkish, they are mutually unintelligible. Geographically, the division between the Kurmanji-speaking areas and the Sorani-speaking areas correspond with the division between the Sunni and Shiite schools of Islam. Despite all these factors, the Kurds form one of the oldest nations in the Middle East. It is interesting to note that like the Kurdish ruling tribes, various Baloch ruling tribes have also pretended to an Arab descent and proudly displayed Arab genealogy – a fact no doubt due to the religious prestige which attaches to Arab descent among Islamic peoples. However, even those who have claimed such descent have never considered themselves anything but Baloch.

The Balochs’ ethnic background, social organisation, culture, history, and sense of territoriality are proof of an age-old Baloch qaum (nation). In many ways, this is a projection of modern concepts into the past. Nevertheless, the Baloch have undeniably had a pool of characteristics which encouraged the development of separate identity well before the 20^th century and gave rise to an assertive ideology of Baloch nationalism during the national movements of 1920s and onward. Thus they are united by their belief in common ancestors, culture, history and Sunni Islam. While there is no one dialect or language common to all Baloches, the speakers of the various dialects and languages regard themselves as Baloch and are so regarded by one another. A unity of tradition and culture complements this unity of languages. While it is true that Baloch are divided today between tribesmen (migratory or sedentary) and urban dwellers, their social mores were formed in the tribal cauldron.

Of the various elements that go into the making of the Baloch national identity, probably the most important is a common social and economic organisation. For while many racial strains have contributed to the making of the Baloch people, and while there are varying degrees of differences in language and dialect among the various groups, a particular type of social and economic organisation, comprising what has been described as a “tribal culture”, is common to them all. This particular tribal culture is the product of environment, geographical, and historical forces, which have combined to shape the general configuration of Baloch life and institutions.

The above-mentioned characteristics of the Baloch not only unite them but also separate them from the dominant neighbouring cultures. This recognition of their ethnic separateness is reinforced by the separation of the Baloch from the Pakistani and Iranian national economies. Whether this non-participation is based on the difference between centre and periphery, urban vs. rural, industry vs. agriculture, or intentional discrimination, Balochistan lacks modern factories and modern industries. It has shared in neither the development of these countries’ infrastructure nor in the rewards of their economic development.

The Baloch history, tradition, culture, language, sense of territoriality and their common ethnic background form the cohesive bases of Baloch nationalism, while geography has had both positive and negative effects on it. Geographical isolation, of course, did not give rise to nationalism, but there are few factors that strengthen the nationalism of a people more that the belief that they are culturally and historically unique in the world. To the extent that geography was responsible for the uniqueness of the Baloch character, culture, and history, it helped create a national particularism, which in turn served as a catalytic force for the growth of national sentiment in Balochistan.

The same climatic and geographical conditions that aided the growth of Baloch nationalism, from another point of view hindered this growth. As the difficult mountain and desert terrain historically protected their independence, and made it difficult for invaders to annex the Baloch territory, on the other hand, the harsh climate and scarcity of water did not give the Baloch a chance to emerge as a feudal nation. The harsh climate and the scarcity of water forced the Baloch to live a nomadic or semi-nomadic life or to migrate to the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, East Africa, or the Arab Middle East.

Balochistan can boast vast gas deposits as well as minerals like chromium, copper, iron and coal. Gas is found in commercially viable quantities in Sui and Pirkoh (Pakistan). This is an important factor in the attitudes of the various Central governments regarding the question of Baloch self-determination, and has strengthened the Balochs’ own feeling of being treated unfairly.

The historical experiences have played an important role to the formation of the Baloch national identity. In this connection the Swiss experience shows a remarkable similarity. In the Swiss case strength of common historical experience and a common consensus of aspirations have been sufficient to weld into nationhood groups without a common linguistic or cultural background. It should be remembered that the history of the Baloch people over the past hundred years has been a history of evolution, from traditional society to a more modern one. (“More modern” is a comparative term, and does not imply a “modern” society, i.e. a culminating end-point to the evolution.) As such, the reliance on tribal criteria is stronger in the earlier movements, and the reliance on nationalism stronger in the later ones. Similarly, the organizing elements in the early movements are the tribes; the political parties gradually replace the tribes as mass mobilisation is channelled into political institutions.

The Baloch constitute a nation distinct from that of the Persians and Punjabis by every fundamental test of nationhood, firstly that of a separate historical past in the region at least as ancient as that of their neighbours, secondly by the fact of their being a cultural and linguistic entity entirely different from that of the Persians and Punjabis, with an unsurpassed classical heritage and a developed language which makes Baloch fully adequate for all present-day needs and finally by reason of their territorial habitation of definite areas.

The growing presence and power of the British East India Company along the coastal and eastern provinces of India and the simultaneous disintegration of the Mughal Uzbek and Safavid empires in India, Central Asia, and Persia respectively, ripened the conditions for the whole of Balochistan to unite within the framework of a single feudal state (Kalat State). The rulers of the mightiest of the khanate accomplished this unification. They came from the Kambarani or Ahmadzai dynasty (from the founder of the dynasty-Mir Ahmad who reigned in 1666-1695). However, it was the sixth Khan of this dynasty, Nasir Khan I, known as the Great, who drove the frontiers of the Khanate of Kalat northward into Afghanistan, southward into the Makkoran, westward deep into Persian territory, and eastward into Punjab and Sindh as far as Karachi.

The Baloch destinies, however, changed radically around the time, when the British and the Persians divided Balochistan into spheres of influence, agreeing on a border in the mid-19^th century. It should be remembered, up to the British advent, the Baloch had developed into a major power in the region. They were ruling not only Balochistan, but also the two richest provinces of the region, Sindh and Sistan. The British, whose occupation of the eastern part of Balochistan began in the 1840s, were interested in Balochistan for military and geopolitical reasons. In order to protect their colony (India) from the rival expansionist powers such as Russia, France, and Germany, the British used Balochistan as a base to protect their interests in their sphere of influence (Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf region).

To prevent Baloch unity and to suppress their nationalist tendencies the British exploited the Baloch tribal system. Sir Robert Sandeman advocated a new socio-political system, called the “Sandeman System” or Sardari Nizam for developing the authority of the tribal chiefs. In 1854, the Khan of Kalat became a British protectorate. The treaty of 1876 gave birth to new political forces in Baloch society, the decline of the powerful feudal overlord (the Khan) and the rise of a new feudal elite (Sardars).  The Sandeman system granted complete autonomy to the tribal areas.  The status of the Sardar (chief among equals) was changed into that of a feudal lord and the tribesmen were declared subjects.

The spread of the modern doctrines of nationalism among the Baloch, and the resulting active participation of the Baloch intellectuals in nationalist activities was in large measure a reaction against British and Persian supremacy. The First World War and its aftermath mark an important stage in the growth of Baloch nationalism. The extent and intensity of nationalist feeling among the Baloch was profoundly influenced by the impact of the Russian Revolution, the defeat and break-up of the Ottoman and the abolition of the Caliphate, the anti-imperialist movements of the Afghans and the Indians, and the revolutionary ideas set in motion by these events, as well as by the propagation of the Wilsonian principles of national self-determination.

Frequent internal divisions of tribe and social class have marked the development of Baloch nationalism since its emergence in the 1920s. National boundaries have also fragmented Baloch nationalist groups and made it difficult to present a united front to governments. Governments too have become adept at exploiting Baloch divisions. Their policies towards Baloch minorities have often shaped the goals of Baloch nationalist parties – which at various times have called for cultural and social rights, autonomy or independence.

The first apostle of the Baloch national movement was Yusuf Ali Magasi. In the early 1920s, Magasi and his friends established the “Anjuman-e Ittehad Balochan” (Organization for the Unity of Baloch), an underground political organization, for the liberation of Balochistan. From 1931, the Anjuman with Magasi as its president started to work openly. Having lived in his youth in cosmopolitan Lahore (British India), Magasi was familiar with the anti-imperialist struggle and the material advancement of modern nations. Magasi’s definition of Baloch nationalism, and his understanding of who was a Baloch, was based on history, tradition, bloodline and religion.

Thus the material with which the early Baloch nationalist leaders began to build Baloch nationalism was the ethnic characteristics of the people of Balochistan and the surrounding area. As discussed in chapter three, the Baloch have a long history, going back to at least 3000 years. They have creation myths, a written record, and a body of literary works (primarily oral). While the Persian and the Punjabi peoples share many of these earliest cultural markers, there are sufficient differences to mark the Baloch as a unique people. Being a colonial movement, the Baloch national movement picked up the language of European nationalism as early as the 1920s. Thus, concepts such as the modern nation, identified homeland, and the right of self-determination, were taken from European ethnic movements.

The Baloch have consistently resisted all attempts at encroachment upon their independent status, whether by the British or the Iranian governments. Their various rebellions in the Eastern and Western Balochistan, besides being violent manifestations of Baloch nationalist sentiments, were also waged in defence of the Baloch way of life. The extension of the external authority of the British into the Baloch country, accompanied by the new and unfamiliar economic and technological process of modern civilization, roused the tribal resistance in the same manner that it had roused the resistance of the Pashtun tribes in the mid-19^th century, and increased the vehemence of Baloch nationalism.

It appears that the British reversed their policy in respect to Balochistan after the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. Thereafter, concerned with con­taining the spread of the October Revolution, they assisted Iran to incorporate western Balochistan in 1928 in order to strengthen the latter country as a barrier to Soviet ex­pansion southward. The same concern also led later to the annexation of Eastern Balochistan to Pakistan in 1948. Henceforth, the Baloch and their homeland were divided against their will between three states, in order to enable one great power to enhance its strategic position against an­other big power.

Thus, as indicated above, the superimposed division, in turn, has provoked the rise of Baloch nationalism and their sense of irredentism, bringing them into conflict with their respective states, which are intent on preserving the inherited status quo from the big powers. It is the superimposition of this divi­sion that has served as the main cause of conflict between the Baloch and the states in which they were incorporated. Since then, the Baloch nation, with its distinctive society and culture has had to confront in both of the “host” states centralizing, ethnically-based nationalist regimes – the Persians and the Punjabis – with little or no tolerance for expressions of national autonomy within their borders.

Following the fall of Mir Dost Mohammad Khan in western Balochistan in 1928, the aggressiveness of nascent Persian nationalism gave rise to new grievances and apprehensions, for besides wounding Baloch national pride; it threatened the Baloch national identity with extinction. The Pahlavi regime was intent on building a Western-type secular nation – based on the Persian national, linguistic and cultural identity. The Baloch response was a series of revolts throughout the 1930s, led by the tribal chiefs. However, by the end of 1937, the last of these was brutally repressed. Thousands of Baloch migrated to eastern Balochistan and Sindh. It should be noted that, while some of these revolts were well organised and had well-defined political aims, others were no more than violent protest against some real or imagined injustice. Whatever their cause, every fresh outbreak seemed to fill the cup of Baloch bitterness.

Obviously one of the main reasons for the failure of the early Baloch revolts was the local, feudal, tribal and patriarchal characteristics of revolts, which often centred around a local influential leader, followed by the members of his tribe. Even the Baranzais in Iranian Balochistan, although well organised at the higher levels, never penetrated to the broad masses of the Baloch people. Similarly the major cause of the failure of the 1930s and the 1940s national movements was the lack of a modern social basis for nation building. The Sardars opposed modern institutions and reforms. From 1929-1948 there were no colleges, universities or industries. There existed only the tribal elite and the oppressed class of nomads and peasants. The nationalists, mostly of lower middle-class background, were not in a position to mobilise the Baloch people in the tribal areas because of the strong control of the chiefs as well as the opposition of the British. To weaken the tribal chiefs they looked for help outside the border of Balochistan. They entered into an alliance with the All India Congress (while the Muslim League refused support because of its alliance with the Khan and the Sardars).

In the twentieth century the formation of new nation-states following World War I and the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, had a profound impact on Baloch society. Since then, Baloch history has been dominated by struggles between communities, which became minorities in new nation-states and national governments which have sought to divide, to dominate and to suppress their aspirations. These conflicts have created large population movements. Many thousands have been forced to leave their homes and land and many more migrated to escape poverty and oppression. As discussed in chapter two, the Baloch regions of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained among the least developed in those countries. Tribal ties remain strong in many areas, and tribal leaders are still influential at local level, especially in Eastern Balochistan (Pakistan). However, population movements to the cities and the process of urbanization in recent decades have created new forms of political and social organization.

In 1947, the nationalists faced a new situation in the politics of Balochistan due to the lapse of paramountcy. It is important to note that the disintegration of the British Empire gave the Baloch an opportunity to regain their freedom from the British. Following the end of the War, intense political activities developed among the Baloch nationalists in Balochistan. They obtained a parliamentary majority in the elections of 1947. In 1948, while the nationalists were struggling for independence, the Sardars, made an alliance with the Muslim League. In return, Jinnah promised to look after their interests. The reactionary tribal elite could not join the Khan who wanted to introduce modern institutions instead of protecting the tribal and feudal system. Thus, the annexation of Balochistan into Pakistan was a result of the old and dying tribal and feudal system, represented by the Baloch tribal chiefs. The Anjuman (1920-1933), and the Kalat State National Party (1937-1948) represented the Baloch masses opposed the Sardary System.

In March 1948, contrary to the agreement of August 1947, Pakistan forcefully annexed the Khanate of Kalat. Thus, the Baloch state, which emerged with the first Baloch confederacy under Mir Jalal Han in 12^th century, came to a tragic end in 1948, one year after the partition of the Indian subcontinent to India and Pakistan in 1947. For a brief period (1952-55), however, the Khanate was given semi-autonomous status as the Balochistan States Union.  But this arrangement collapsed when West Pakistan was declared a single province in October 1955.  In July 1970, Balochistan was restored to separate provincial status, its boundaries incorporating the former British Balochistan and the Balochistan States Union.

During the fifty years of the existence of Pakistan, three wars have been waged in Balochistan. Agha Abdul Karim’s rebellion was the first in a series of insurrections against the government of Pakistan. Under the pressure of the Pakistan government, the Khan of Kalat declared Agha Abdul Karim and the National Party to be rebels, on May 24, 1948. Because of its resistance to annexation and its co-operation with the rebel prince, Agha Abdul Karim, the Government of Pakistan banned the Kalat National Party in June 1948. On May 26, 1948, Agha Abdul Karim with his rebel group had entered Afghanistan and set up his headquarters at Mazar Mohammad Karez in the Shorawak area, in the hope of acquiring support for a sustained war against Pakistan. But the Afghan Government did not approve of the presence of the prince and the National Party in its territory.

Agha Abdul Karim’s resources were limited and so was his area of operations. Karim started his movement in the Jhalawan area, backed by some nationalist leaders and with the secret approval of the Khan. His rebel followers were not more than 500 to 700. Due to poor planning and the lack of the expected support from Afghanistan, the prince and his partisans were forced to re-enter in Pakistan and surrender. Agha Abdul Karim’s rebellion was clearly of little immediate importance because it lacked both unified Baloch political support and Afghan military support. But what did make it significant in the long run was the widespread Baloch belief that Pakistan had betrayed the safe conduct agreement. The Baloch regard this as the first of a series of “broken treaties” which have created an atmosphere of distrust over relations with Islamabad. Agha Abdul Karim and his followers were all sentenced to long prison terms and became rallying symbols for the Baloch nationalist movement.

The 1950s and 1960s were decades of political upheaval in Pakistan. In Balochistan tribal structures suffered major setbacks, largely due to detribalisation and the rise of urban population, and later to land reforms initiated by the central governments. Similarly, a visible change occurred in the cultural field. In the early 1950s, the Baloch press was established. In the subsequent years of the 1960s and the 1970s many books, periodicals, and newspapers proudly reported the evidence of the past. Thus to heighten national consciousness, new avenues were opened to learn about the past, about present culture, and about other national phenomena by means of written words. Since then, by the popularisation of Baloch history, Balochi classical poetry and the positive characterisation of Baloch personality and society, the Baloch press has played an important role for the imagination of the Baloch nation.

Following the fall of the Khanate, the Baloch leadership accepted the political reality of Pakistan. As for ideology the “Ustaman Gal” (People’s Party) marked the first time in Baloch history that the Baloch stopped asking for outright independence. They couched their demands in terms of autonomy. The Party, however, maintained that only elected democratic governments at the provincial and national levels would guarantee autonomy to the minority nationalities within the framework of constitutional provisions.

The continued existence of military rule in Pakistan from 1958 to the early 1970s obstructed a democratic solution to the Balochistan problem and exacerbated inter-regional tension. The prospect of a democratic political system was lost when the Pakistan army refused to accept the results of Pakistan’s first general election in 1970, which led to the dismemberment of the eastern half of the country, now known as Bangladesh. Moreover, the sense of betrayal by Bhutto’s civilian regime, which had signed constitutional guarantees of Balochistan’s autonomous status, added to the growing nationalist sentiment, which fuelled the four-year rebellion in the 1970s.

Throughout the period since the partition, Baloch have had an uncomfortable relationship with the central government of Pakistan: relations were poorest in 1973 when they engaged three divisions of the Pakistan armed forces in a bitter and intense armed struggle. In 1973, the Pakistani security agencies discovered Soviet arms in the Iraqi Embassy at Islamabad. The government alleged that these arms were for the liberation movement of Balochistan. The Baloch nationalists not only denied this allegation, but also regarded it as a conspiracy by Bhutto and his allies to provide a cause for military intervention aiming at a take-over in the province.

However, despite a new constitution, which guaranteed a degree of provincial autonomy, in less than a year the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Bhutto, dismissed the Baloch government on 12^th February 1973. In justifying the dismissal, the centre charged the provincial government with responsibility for several cases of lawlessness in Balochistan and alleged its support, in collusion with foreign governments, for Baloch and Pashtun separatists. In practice, however, Bhutto acted against the NAP because, having provincial governments led by a party other than his own, limited his personal authority, and because of the pressure from the Shah of Iran.

Thus, in the 1970s, open warfare between the Pakistan military and Baloch nationalist guerrillas, whose demands ranged from self-rule to outright independence, racked Balochistan. Guerrilla war went on for more than four years and came to a stand still in 1977, when General Zia ul-Haq ousted Bhutto. However, the Baloch movement, which had come into being in the aftermath of Sardar Ataullah Mengal’s government, might have lost its ardour, but it did not die, as claimed by the Pakistani authorities. In fact, a case can be made that national feelings have grown in potential in the Baloch society and, given the right circumstances, could mount an even greater challenge to the Pakistani state. Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo’s demand for the specific inclusion of the right of secession for the federating units in the event of military take over in violation of the constitution indicated a deep mistrust of the country’s political set-up by the Baloch in the 1980s.

Though it is true that Baloch uprisings in 1948-50, 1958-69, and of 1973-1977 were mostly fought on the inter-tribal basis, but it would be highly misleading to term these uprisings just confrontation of some sardars (tribal chiefs) with central government to safeguard their narrow feudal interests and privileges as some Pakistani scholars allege.[1]  On the contrary, these uprisings were very reflection of growing contradiction between the newly built modern centralised state of Pakistan and a distinctive national group, the Baloch.

The 1973-77 insurgency intensified the ever-widening gap of distrust and mistrust between the Baloch and the central government. This mistrust ultimately gave way to greater demands for a confederation of the four peoples of Pakistan. The leaders of the sub-nationalities, in self-imposed exile, formed an organisation, the Sindhi, Baloch, Pakhtun Front (the SBPF), in April 1985 in London to demand a confederation in Pakistan. Similarly, the so-called democracy of the 1990s in Pakistan like that of its military rule led to further alienation of the Baloch. Speaking on May 2001, in a PTV (Pakistan TV) programme on provincial autonomy, the former Chief Minister of Balochistan, Akhtar Mengal blamed the rulers of Pakistan for suppressing the will of the Baloch people and violating flagrantly all the previous accord, including the one made with the Khan of Kalat on August 4, 1947.[2]

By contrast, in Iranian Balochistan, Reza Shah and subsequently his son Mohammad Reza adopted an iron-fist policy towards the Baloch. For the past several decades the Persians have never hesitated to use their military might against the Baloch to silence their voice. The official Iranian policy reflects their determination to suppress any nationalist movement in their country. It was due to this background that the Baloch national movement in Iran was less vocal than its counterpart in Pakistan in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Iranians used harsh methods to crush Baloch identity. It was forbidden to wear the traditional Baloch dress in public or to speak Balochi in schools, and it was a criminal offence to publish, distribute, or even possess Balochi language books, magazines, or newspapers. Balochistan was isolated from the outside world and closed to foreigners. The Iranian policy of destruction of the Baloch identity, or Persianization of the Baloch under the Pahlavis may truly be comparable to that of the Turkish government’s policy against the Kurds under Kemal Ataturk (1923-38). The Turkish government followed a policy of systematic extermination and Turcification of the Kurdish people in the Turkish controlled Kurdistan. Thousands of Kurds were deported to Western Anatolia, the Kurdish language was officially banned and Kurdish books were confiscated and burned. Even the words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” were to be omitted from all textbooks. The Kurds were to be called Turks – “mountain Turks”. Consequently, this policy of Turcification fanned the Kurdish nationalism furthermore and deepened their separatist aspirations. As the Turcification of the Kurds in Turkey provoked the Kurdish nationalism, so did the Persianization policy of the Iranian authority to the Baloch nationalism in Iran.

During the whole Pahlavi era the Persians continued their assimilation and Persianization policies in western Balochistan. In 1957-9 and again in 1969-73, the Pahlavi administration used military force to crush Baloch resistance to its attempts to enforce assimilation. Subsequently, more subtle ‘pacification’ methods were used. Baloch tribal leaders were appointed as intermediaries and representatives of government interests with the aim of bridling the economic and social development of Sistan-wa-Balochistan. In spite of the application of diverse means of subjugation, the Iranian Baloch maintained a perception of themselves as a culturally independent qaum (nation). This was demonstrated by insurgencies against the Khomeini regime, which initially raised the hopes of the Baloch for greater provincial autonomy.

The Shah of Iran gave much importance to the area, which he always considered very important for the security of his country. Since Iran had a Baloch minority problem, any uprising in eastern Balochistan was thought to directly influence Iran. The Iranian government under the Shah kept a close watch on developments in the Pakistani part of Balochistan. Iran and Pakistan collaborated, due to their joint fear of Baloch national aspirations. It was argued that one of the reasons Pakistan’s Prime Minister Z. A. Bhutto dismissed the nationalist government in the province was because the Iranian government thought the Baloch nationalists in eastern Balochistan, might encourage dissidents in western (Iranian) Balochistan.

With the collapse of the monarchical regime in 1979, the Baloch began their political activities openly. The “Sazeman Demokratik”, the “Ittehad ul-Muslimeen”, the “Zrombesh”, and many other political and cultural organisations were formed in Balochistan. This period, however, lasted months, not years. The pattern was repeated of Baloch nationalist aspirations reappearing whenever the central government showed weakness. The new regime pursued a policy of Persian ethnic supremacy toward Balochistan, a continuation of the policies of the monarchy.

By comparison, however, like the Baloch political parties in Eastern Balochistan (Pakistan), the major nationalist organisations, which came into existence during or after the Iranian revolution, concentrated their demand on self-autonomy for Balochistan within Iran. However, the Baloch political life was short-lived in Iran. In the early 1980s, the clerical regime ordered the Baloch parties disbanded, to be replaced with Islamic komitehs (committees) and Revolutionary Guards controlled by the central government. Ayatollah Khomeini distrusted the Baloch not least because theirs was a purely secular agenda. Moreover, he was a Shiite Muslim and the Baloch were predominantly Sunni. While the Baloch could be acknowledged as Sunnis, no ethnic or “national” minorities were recognised in the new constitution of the Islamic Republic.

Since the end of the Second World War great changes have occurred for the Baloch throughout Balochistan – gradually at first but accelerating since 1970 because of the changed political economy of the Persian Gulf. In Afghanistan major factors affecting the Baloch have been the Helmand river development schemes, the government’s Pakhtunistan policy, and the Afghan Revolution in 1978. In Iran the successive Pahlavi governments attempted to neutralise the Sardars and at the same time suppress any activity among the Baloch that could lead to ethnic consciousness or solidarity.

Comparatively, the conditions of the Baloch in Pakistan are definitely better than those of Iran and Afghanistan. But they are still far from satisfactory, the Baloch of Pakistan have consistently fought to improve them economically, culturally and politically. In Pakistan too the Baloch have suffered much injustice. Consider, for example, what happened to the Baloch in the 1973-1977 insurgency. Like their brethren in Pakistan, the Baloch in Iran also consistently resisted the reactionary Persian domination and have shown a fervent desire to live under an independent or autonomous Baloch State as their natural right.

Since the early 1970s, the growing modern intelligentsia has been displacing the traditional intelligentsia, mainly the sardars and the mollas, in the urban centres. In the 1993 elections, the BNM (Balochistan National Movement) a mainly middle class party, succeeded in winning two national assembly and six provincial assembly seats. In the provincial elections of 1993, the BNM secured over 60 percent from Makkoran.[3] Another feature of changing social relations is the increasing access of urban women to education, and their participation in social, economic, political and cultural life outside their homes. These transformations left their impact on the nationalistic movement, expanding its social bases and increasing political, ideological and organizational tension.

Moreover, the circulation of money during the Bhutto period, and the fruits of the Gulf syndrome gave strength to the Baloch middle class whose interest collided with its more powerful and well-established Pashtun counterpart. As a result, business sectors such as transport, which were previously monopolised by the Pashtuns, are now witnessing the entrance of a rising Baloch middle class. The change of ownership of some transport businesses like Chiltan Transport from Pashtun to Baloch hands in 1992 was another testimony of this fact.[4]

Baloch nationalism is the antithesis to the politically and economically dominant and exploitative Iranian (Persian) and Pakistani (Punjabi) states’ nationalism, a pattern similar to the rise of the Kurdish nationalism in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, and Turkey). In spite of more than 70 years of its existence, Baloch nationalism has not succeeded in achieving its goal, the right of self-determination for the Baloch nation. It is difficult to reach a single plausible explanation, but judging from the finding of this study, one could cautiously conclude that by that time due to a dominant tribal social base, a sense of Balochness had not evolved which was sufficiently strong to force a different course of events.

Nevertheless, the Baloch nationalism has steadily developed. Every time, after being crushed, the national movement arose more forcefully than before. Comparatively, in 1948, Agha Abdul Karim and his rebel followers were about 500 to 700. In 1958, Nauruz Khan fought in a wider area against the Pakistani army and around 1000 to 5000 guerrillas were with him. By July 1963, the guerrilla activities under the command of Sher Mohammad Marri increased in the Jhalawan and Marri areas. The fighters had established a score of camps, where the people were given training in guerrilla warfare. It was estimated that there were nearly 400 hard-core hostiles in each area, apart from hundreds of loosely organised part-time reservists. Meanwhile, the last war (1973-77) involved more that 55,000 Baloch guerrillas at various stages of the fighting, and almost every section of the Baloch population was affected in central and eastern Balochistan by this war. A similar evolutionary process seems to have happened in Iranian Balochistan, after the erosion of central authority in Iran following the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, made the prospects for Baloch nationalism appear more promising in Iran than in Pakistan.

Though the seeds of Baloch nationalism were sown in Balochistan in the colonial era, but its full flowering occurred as a result of centralising policies of the modern post-colonial states of Pakistan and Iran, which contradicted and restrained the historical high degree of cultural and political autonomy of Baloch populace. To a large extent the sporadic Baloch uprisings in Pakistan helped in forging a political consciousness amongst general Baloch populace; based on common ethnic, cultural and historical ties transcending tribal loyalties.

The Cold War, however, led indirectly to the weakening of the Baloch national movements both in Iran and Pakistan. Because both the countries were to be America’s allies against Soviet expansion in the Gulf region, the United States was prepared to support them in furthering her own foreign policy initiatives. Since the West supported Tehran and Islamabad, so the Baloch turned to Baghdad and Kabul. Thus the U.S. policies indirectly helped to strengthen the two countries in their attempts to suppress the Baloch movement for self-rule during the whole Cold War period. In this regard, the Iranians’ use of the U.S. supplied arms against the Baloch movement in 1973-77 is the most striking example.

The political situation of Baloch today reflects two contradictory tendencies. As the old warrior Sher Mohammad Marri in the early 1990s stated, “Baloch nationalism has penetrated the masses and is not confined to the Nawabs and Sardars alone”.[5] The urbanization, detribalisation and the migration of the Baloch people to the cities of the region, have contributed to the development of mass national consciousness. Yet their political leaderships have often fallen prey to internal divisions on both ideological and tribal lines. Divisions between the Balochs’ political parties started with Zia’s party-less elections in 1985, and later it sharpened during the so-called 1990s democracy. The regional aspect of the Baloch issue, as well as the growing complexities of Baloch society have greatly complicated the task of the Baloch national movement in achieving unity and a coherent strategy to achieve their goals.

The material analysed above warrants the conclusion that the Baloch form a distinct nation and that their national consciousness is strong enough to consider their national movement as having deep roots in the convictions and aspirations of that nation. The divisive factor of tribal loyalties will tend to play a constantly diminishing role because of the impact of modern civilization, which is changing the cultural patterns in the whole southwest Asia. The paper also attempted to connect the Baloch problem with the past policies not only of the Baloch inhabited states but also of the Great Powers in an effort to demonstrate that no Great Power interested in the region can afford to ignore the Baloch problem or avoid the formulation of a Baloch policy as part of an over-all Southwest Asian policy.

Published: 4th July 2012

Eyewitness Balochistan-12 The two realities of Pashtuns and Baloch

Amir Mateen

QUETTA: People in Balochistan hate it when the self-styled armchair experts sitting in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi generalize about them. Baloch intellectual Dr Janazeb Jamaldini is incensed every time “my Punjabi friends” call him Balochi. “Well, I like to tell them that I am a Baloch and my language is Balochi.”

Pashtuns are equally upset when others mix Baloch with Balochistani. “It pains me to explain that I am not a Baloch but a Pashtun who lives in Balochistan,” said former National Assembly Speaker Nawab Wazir Jogezai. Dr Jamaldini asked a group of media persons recently to “please go and tell your tv anchors to stop generalizing us as if we are a monolithic monster.” Balochistan is so huge-44 per cent of Pakistan and the size of Britain-that every area has its own set of unique issues. The issues of Mekran which does not have a strong sardari system and lively political culture are different from, let’s say, Dera Bugti where Nawab Akbar Bugti has left a huge vacuum. Or the issues of Zhob vary from the problems in Sibi or Mastung. But there is one generalization that can be safely attempted: the story of Pashtuns in Balochistan is different from the reality of Baloch. Both live in their own ethnocentric worlds.

The Pashtun belt is relatively stable. Their lands are more fertile, endowed with finer flora and fauna. They also have better availability of water which translates into better orchards and agriculture, which remains the biggest employer in the absence of any industry. Pashtuns would like to claim that they are more industrious and hardworking. Their superior work ethics is reflected by their dominance in business, trade and transportation in Balochistan.

Pashtuns are definitely better educated-girls more than boys. Loralai girls win most top educational positions in Balochistan. This places Pashtuns at advantage in job market, services and educational quotas wherever merit is concerned. These are, of course, also the bounties of living in a belt that is relatively safer.

Pashtuns have their share of problems like the ever growing crime, the spillover of Afghanistan in the shape of talibanisation, drugs and arms smuggling. But the nature of their issues is different from the ones that Baloch face. Insurgency hardly exists in Pashtun areas. Never has. Here it is more kidnappings for ransom than target killings. This goes without saying that they are equally weary of army’s over reach in Balochistan and want more power and resources for the province. But their bigger grouse is now directed against the estranged bedfellows-the Baloch.

Pashtuns feel they are being held back and squeezed by Baloch. “We don’t have any insurgency in our areas,” says Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami’s former Senator Raza Mohammad, “why should we suffer; Pashtuns are the biggest ethnic group and they should be adjusted in jobs and quotas accordingly.”

Pashtuns, like Hazaras, fume that their students get admission in medical college by securing more than double marks of Baloch.

Pashtuns claim they are equal in population if not more. However, they lag behind Baloch in area who are in majority in 20 out of 30 districts. Understandably, Pashtuns would like the distribution of resources on the basis of population and merit. Interestingly, Pashtun nationalists have always opposed Punjab for favouring the population formula but in a twist of irony they now want this to be exercised in Balochistan.

It makes sense that Baloch should support the continuation of the affirmative action of sorts through district quotas. This is the only way Baloch can try to match Pashtun dominance such being the nature of their reality. The total collapse of law and order, the rampant targeted killings and bomb explosions in Baloch areas has exacted a huge tall on ordinary people. The abundant natural resources of the Baloch areas cannot be used because of lawlessness. The long coast line, including Gwadar Port, fails to take off under the circumstances.

Business is down. Unemployment particularly among the youth is increasing. Movement is restricted because of insurgency. The clock of life stops ticking after sunset. Markets and offices remain frequently closed because of violence and strikes. People in most Baloch towns live without basic amenities like clean drinking water, sewage system or electricity supply. Life in thousands of remote villages that pockmark the rugged plains and barren mountains is even more miserable.

The biggest loss is in education. The educational structure in the Baloch belt has crumbled in the face of lawlessness. Schools are either closed or partially functional in the absence of teachers and resources. Examination cheating is rampant. The ones who manage to get degrees are handicapped in skills because of bad schooling. They drop out even when they get admission in higher or professional colleges. Information Technology University in Quetta enrolls 90 per cent students from Balochistan on open merit. Only three students from Gwadar have managed to pass out in seven years out of an annual badge of 1500 students. The rest simply drop out.

A whole generation of Baloch is growing up with little or no education. “Our future generations will also pay for the educational lapse,” said BNP’s Munir Baloch, pointing out that the leadership in earlier insurgencies was conscious about this. “The present lot of leaders who have no ideological training do not understand. Or they do not care.”

Baloch dominate the executive political power-only one Pashtun became Chief Minister in 42 years. But their ratio in government machinery will continue to shrink because of the relative educational backwardness.

Much to the Baloch chagrin, the gap left by the settler teachers is being filled by the better qualified Pashtuns. Almost all replacement of roughly 80 Punjabi teachers in the Balochistan University who left because of tension are Pashtuns. Baloch lag behind Pashtuns in competitive examination, promotions and postings because of their better schooling. As other ethnic groups are scared to work in Balochistan the gap is filled by Pashtuns from other provinces who easily gel with their local tribesmen. This will lead to more Pashtun dominance —hence more Baloch anxiety.

The reality of Baloch and Pashtuns, it seems, is going to grow further apart.

On behalf of Balochistan National Party and people of Balochistan, let me sincerely thank you for your attention to underreported human rights emergency and understanding of Balochistan’s strategic and political importance concerning peace and stability in the region.

In fact, due to Pakistan and Iran’s iron-curtain policy vis-a vis Balochistan, the sheer scale of political repression, enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and exploitation of marginalized Baloch people by the both repressive regimes has gained very little regional and international attention.

Although it’s hard to bury facts in currently globalized world and particularly in presence of marvelous communication tools but many repressive regimes including Pakistan, are using death squads, fear, intimidation and systematic blockages to slowdown the flow of information and facts.

And that’s what exactly happening in France-sized Balochistan region. In last three years seventeen Journalists abducted and killed because of their determination to unearth truth about slow-motion genocide of Baloch people.

Dear Members of Swedish Parliament,

To eradicate the Baloch national aspirations once and for all, the Pakistani army is waging a war with no regards for Baloch lives and human dignity. The war against the Baloch is being waged without witnesses. They are refusing access to foreign observers, journalists and humanitarian organizations.

No doubt this very timely initiative and debate over underreported conflict in Balochistan would be very useful to elevate the status of forgotten conflict in Balochistan and alarming human rights emergency.

Despite all efforts by the oppressive state, human rights defenders efforts and persistent human rights campaign resulted in several credible reports that include International Crisis Group reports on conflict in Balochistan, Amnesty International, and Asian Commission for Human Rights, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Human Rights Watch reports on enforced disappearance and crimes against humanity.

In fact, this august gathering will further give impetus to the peaceful Baloch struggle for national-right of self-determination including recognition to the hundreds of democracy and human rights activists those extra-judicially killed by the despotic Pakistani state.

Ladies and gentlemen:

The peace-loving Baloch are living a life at the gunpoint in the shadows of inhuman atrocities by the most atrocious state establishment in the contemporary world. Their physical survival is at stack with the systematic and organized acts of genocide being carried out by radical Pakistani Security Agencies.

No doubt, greater understanding about conflict in Balochistan is very critical for countries such as Sweden which believe on high standards of human rights principle.

The ongoing conflict has serious strategic and security implications for the Western world where moderate Baloch political and human rights defenders daylight abduction and extra judicial killings are order of the day by the US and European equipped rogue security forces.

Moreover, it’s well documented fact that during 2002 to 2011, around eight thousand people have been killed, a quarter of a million displaced, around eight thousand political activists enforced-disappeared and eight hundred senior democracy activists have been extra-judicially killed by the ethnically imbalanced Law Enforcement Agencies, creating a Rwanda like scene in the region.

Honorable Member Parliaments:

Balochistan: Balochistan is not a tiny or land locked region like Kashmir and nor a poorly resourced country.

Balochistan, a France-sized territory, straddling Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, sits on world’s three largest copper-gold deposits, huge wealth of oil and gas – located on immensely strategic intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East.

Balochistan also shares 1200 km long strategically significant coastline – from where world’s 40% oil passes.

Unlike their extremely religious neighbors, Baloch are more casual and you can say very moderate in their observance of religion.

Despite political differences, all Baloch political groups believe on democratic and secular political ideas and firm believer of human rights principle.

However, during last six decades there have been systematic efforts both by Islamabad and Tehran to destroy moderate social fabric of Baloch society and promote extreme religious tendencies to counteract against historically moderate Baloch national movement.

Both, in Pakistan and Iran there is an undeclared restriction on Balochi language, literature, media and journalist activities.

Dear colleagues,

The Pakistani reaction to the peaceful Baloch struggle has and had been to employ ruthless muscle power in order to force the Baloch into submission.

Since the inception of Pakistan, state has come into open conflict with the Baloch on four occasions – 1948, 1958, 1962, and, most bloodily, from 1973 to 1977, when a democratically elected government of Baloch people was overthrown and both Iranian and Pakistan military and air power was used to kill thousands of unarmed Baloch civilians.

During 1948 to till date, in four major and uninterrupted assault against moderate Baloch people, Pakistani state has killed 20,000 civilians, one million displaced, immeasurable plunder of Baloch natural wealth including denial of all basic human, political and economic rights.

The protracted conflicts between Pakistan and the Baloch have caused tremendous sufferings for the Baloch in men and material besides its negative psychological impacts on the society.

The ongoing military aggression started in 2001 is the continuation of that policy; nevertheless, it surpasses all previous military operations in its intensity and ruthlessness.

The atrocities of Pakistani forces constitute violation of international human rights and cherished humanitarian laws and many of these actions could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ladies and gentlemen:

Pakistani forces including Frontier Corps (F.C.) with Taliban-like tendencies, has been responsible for disproportionate and indiscriminate rocket, artillery and helicopter gunship attacks on civilian areas. There has been widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and houses throughout Balochistan.

Many of the actions by the State come into the orbit of the legal definition of articles II and III of UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to give you a brief description of various aspects of Baloch Pakistan relationship.

1. Forced accession; In a historical perspective, the Baloch Pakistan conflict began with the forcible incorporation of the Baloch State into the newly created religious state of Pakistan in 1948.

2. De-politicization; The Baloch access to the political process has been deliberately suspended, to the detriment for conciliation and co-existence with the State. During the last six decades, only three provincial governments with a semblance of the Baloch representation were allowed to function for nearly 3 years in total. During the remaining period, the province was ruled by the central government in Islamabad through proxies.

3. Exploitation of Baloch wealth; The process of expropriating the natural resources of Balochistan is going on from the very beginning. One of the major reasons behind endless oppression and ongoing genocide in Balochistan is Baloch people’s strong opposition to Pakistan’s naked-exploitation of Baloch wealth.

Dear Colleagues:

Intensified conflict, killings and human rights violations in Balochistan are directly linked with China’s desires for deepening control over Balochistan natural wealth.

Despite appalling human rights situation and state killings of Baloch activists, Pakistani government extended copper-gold mining contract including many other mineral related energy related projects to the Chinese firm, which pays huge sum of money to security forces, those involved in abduction and killings of activists.

Nevertheless, resource-rich but impoverished like Somalia, Balochistan is the epicenter of Pakistan’s deadliest nuclear program.

In 1998 Pakistan conducted its nuclear test in scenic mountains region of Raskoh.

4. Marginalization; Cultural exploitation of the Baloch is another characteristic of the Baloch and Pakistan conflict. Having a distinct Central Asian socio-cultural background different from the Indian originated Islamic cultural ethos, it is very painful for the Baloch to witness the domination of their socio-cultural tradition being dominated by a so-called and artificial Islamic culture of Pakistan.

5. Deliberate underdevelopment:

In addition the years of military operations, discriminatory policies and poor governance has resulted in extreme underdevelopment of the region. Resource-rich Baloch region is marked by a high rate of poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment.

Due to hunger and malnutrition Balochistan has the highest infant and maternal mortality ratio in South Asia.

The only development Balochistan has witnessed during last one decade is 200 % increase in military and paramilitary cantonments to further suppress the democratic and moderate voice of peace-loving Baloch people.

Dear Colleagues:

Recommendation: Due to obvious reasons without neutral international supervision, there is no chance of a peaceful resolution of the Baloch Pakistan conflict and there is no hope of lessening the miseries and sufferings of the Baloch people.

In recent decades, longstanding conflicts of similar nature in Europe, Africa and Asia have been resolved forcefully and peacefully with active help and facilitation of civilized world.

Application and implementation of the UN articles on the right of self determination for oppressed nations was successful in bringing peace in East Timur, Kosovo and South Sudan.

The right of self determination for the Baloch means regaining their lost sovereignty and their survival as a distinct nation in the wider community of nations.

Before initiating a meaningful process of conflict resolution it is imperative that international community must put pressure on Pakistan:

1. To suspend all covert and overt military operations against the Baloch people.

2. All missing persons should be produced before a court of law

3. All proxy death squads operating under the supervision of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Frontier Core should be disbanded

4. Baloch political parties should be allowed to function and resume their political activities

5. Military Persons responsible for inhuman torture, killing and dumping of dead bodies of the Baloch political leaders and activists should be brought to justice

6. Measures should be taken for the rehabilitation of thousands of displaced Baloch from different areas of Balochistan

After taking the above mentioned confidence building measures, a meaningful negotiation between the recognized and genuine representatives of the Baloch and Pakistani military establishment could take place under international supervision to decide the future relationship of Balochistan with Pakistan.

The Baloch will welcome any mediation efforts from United States, United Kingdom, European Union and United Nations.

Dear colleagues,

International community’s direct engagement, facilitation and presence in Balochistan will serve three main purposes a) monitoring gross human rights violation and deceleration of unreported genocide of moderate Baloch activists, b) observation and monitoring of state-backed Taliban activities, c) denuclearization of France-sized Baloch region.

The Baloch are still hopeful that the international community will realize the gravity of the situation and come forward and fulfill its historic responsibility in saving a whole nation being systematically wiped out from the face of earth.

Thank you very much:

Akhtar Mengal

Balochistan National Party (BNP)

akhtarmengal@hotmail.com

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

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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

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Here Full text of an interview;

Q.Where is international political scenario leading to?

Dr. Allah Nazar (DAN): After collapse of soviet union, it is said that there is an unipolar world system where capitalism rules. In international system many problems have emerged, and most significant of these is aspirations of oppressed nations. In this context, we assume that this century is century of nationalism and freedom of oppressed nations. Across the world, national question is emerging in many countries and many of these are marching toward their resolutions.

Q.NATO is withdrawing from Afghanistan. Has it achieved its interests?

DAN : They have succeeded in certain aspects. USA and its allies have economic interests in the region that are interdependent with resolution of Baloch National Question. If they want to take Central Asian resources, gas and oil to western markets, the only way out is that of Baloch. Without resolution of Baloch National Question, they will never achieve their interests completely because resolutions of problems in the region depend upon freedom of Baloch and other oppressed nations.

Q.How do you see the arrest and killing of Osama ?

DAN : Osama was their own creation. For Pakistan and ISI, he was a golden bird. I can say that Pakistan equally mourned his arrest as US celebrated it because Pakistan Army lost a credit card.

Q.What will be the impact of the recent changes in Mid-East on Baloch society? Can you evaluate?

DAN :A permanent resolution of Mid-East issues inter-depends with Palestine’s freedom. Until it is not recognized as an independent state, and its borders are not protected, the peace will not prevail in the region. Whereas the popular sentiments exist in Egypt, Tunis, and Yemen, it’s not a big blast. However, wherever changes come it will leave its impact, negative and positive, upon us. We will try to adopt their positive effects.

Q.How does Iran deal with Baloch in Western Balochistan? What are your views on the arrest of Abdul Malik Rigi?

DAN :Iran deals with Baloch the same way what Pakistan deals with us here. Baloch are occupied there too. They too have aspirations that their brethren Baloch in the East and the North live free, and they freely communicate with them. They too aspire for a free country. Iran kills Baloch in cold blood. They have been killed in thousands. The only difference between killing modus operandi is that Pakistan kills Baloch and dump their bodies in desolated regions, and Iran hangs them in the streets. I mean the attitude is same. Whereas the question is about Abdul Malik Rigi and his killing, as a Baloch I mourn death of every single Baloch.

Q.What will be the impact of strategic war between US and China and that of economic interests among Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, especially over access to energy resources?

DAN : Strategic interests are different for each of them. They want to get their strategic interests from Pakistan ,and economic interests in Balochistan. To Baloch, I say, everyone who helps the enemy is an imperialist. For example China is helping Pakistan military against Baloch, Baloch consider its role as imperialistic. In nutshell, the war of interests does not auger well for Baloch.

Q.It’s said that Pakistan has been using carpet bombs and chemical weapons against Baloch. What do you think whether it can use nuclear weapons or not?

DAN : Colonizers always use such lethal weapons to annihilate its enemy. We consider that its biggest goal is genocide of Baloch people. It has speeded up the genocide. Today, we as well as the civilized world is concerned about the safety of Pakistan’s nukes. These being in irresponsible hands with a dangerously irresponsible political thought can be used anytime for destruction of humanity.

Q.Can you estimate the scale of damage that ongoing Baloch war of freedom has inflicted upon Pakistan?

DAN : Perhaps Pakistan itself is not aware of the scale of damage. This is why it has not yet withdrawn from Balochistan. However the war has benefited Baloch so far. The proof of this is that this war halted the plan of huge colonial settlements in the shape of deep sea ports and other mega projects to devour and marginalize Baloch. The colonizer’s plan failed.I would add one thing here that Baloch is very sensitive about its freedom. The Baloch nation has passed through great changes in political thoughts and political consciousness, and the end result of the great change is an independent state (Balochistan).

Q.Is there any possibility of negotiation with Pakistan?

DAN : Impossible. Except on freedom. I would add here that Baloch nation will never accept any attempt of negotiation and reconciliation with occupant Pakistan at the cost of the life of Baloch nation.

Q.How far parties fighting for freedom are organized?

DAN : Whereas matter related to the organizations fighting for freedom when you see and analyze role of each of them, one thing would be clear that Baloch nation is going through a very painful and critical phase. Till today many tactics are being used to externally and internally control those who are fighting the war of national freedom, and these elements have become active. Instead of this, the freedom fighters are consistently and vigorously fighting the war of freedom.

Q.What is the standard of nationalism to you? In present circumstances, which party can be called a nationalist party?

DAN : Perhaps everyone has its own standard of nationalism. However, my standard of nationalism is that a person who fights and takes parts in armed struggle and in politics for national liberation, and is ready to sacrifice his life for the cause is a true nationalist. Similarly those who enjoy looking at the bodies of martyrs and strive to get privileges and benefits a particular class, can’t be categorized as nationalists. For example there are Baloch parliamentary parties like Balochistan National Party (BNP), Balochistan National Party( Awami), and National Party which do politics in the name of Baloch but in fact these are working against Baloch national freedom. They are helping Pakistan counter-insurgency efforts against Baloch nation.

Q.In your point of view, in what scale Baloch National Question has been highlighted in the world?

DAN :Due to the sacrifices of Baloch martyrs and indefatigable struggles of Sarmachars [freedom fighters], Baloch national question has echoed across the world.

Q.What is the role of Baloch women in the movement?

DAN :Its very inspiring and satisfactory.

Q.Everyday mutilated bodies of Baloch people are found. What’s the reason that they become easy prey to security forces and their intelligence wings?

DAN : Political cadres always work in surface. Therefore they get as easy prey. Secondly the enemy abduct and kill political workers to spread fear among people not to join the war of freedom. But, this strategy is counter-productive and pushing them more towards failure because the enemy has no idea of Baloch’s strong and uncompromising intentions.

Q.What will be the end of pro- Pakistani Sardars and tribal chiefs? And how many of them will be murdered during the struggle?

DAN : I don’t use the term “murder” here. Albeit, Baloch nation will hold them accountable. In the current war, in my view, except one Sardar, all other have negative roles. When we look into their present roles, we find them against Baloch and Baloch movement. In my opinion, they are not of Baloch traditions and culture but few commodities ready to be sold out.

Q.Who is that one sardar?

DAN :He is Nawab Khair Bux Marri.

Q.What is your message to the Baloch who serve currently in army, FC (Frontier Constabulary), intelligence agencies, and in administration?

DAN :The Baloch who do trivial jobs should consider freedom sacred instead. In a free country everyone has his due respect and role. On the other side, in a colonial system job is only a way of getting paid.

Q.What is your view about Mafia and the people who work as spy?

DAN :The liberation organizations have warned people in the Mafia for several times and have identified them. Not only among us but everywhere colonial power always use such tactics to defame freedom movement and to malign reputation of the freedom fighters.

Q.What is the figure of disappeared Baloch?

DAN :There are about 14,000 Baloch disappeared and they have been abducted by intelligence agencies: ISI(Inter-service Intelligence) and MI ( Military Intelligence). No one count the number of martyrs in a war of liberation.

Q.By this time, how many Baloch have migrated from their motherland? Can you estimate?

DAN :Hundreds of thousands. Even it is beyond estimation.

Q.In future, in a free Balochistan, can Baloch Sarmachars (freedom fighters) come up to the standard of a regular army?

DAN :They can absolutely because a freedom fighting organization is an alternative state, and they are trained in such manner that they can take the charge of administration of the state. In my opinion Baloch guerrilla can control state affairs in a standard way after freedom.

Q.Are you satisfied with current pace of struggle? Is there any need for speeding up the struggle?

DAN :Every time and every moment there is space for improvement, and there is need for struggling more. I think we have to struggle hard this time to compel the occupant to leave our country.

Q.Have you ever regretted that a large number of people have been killed and many disappeared? What will be the end?

DAN :I have no regret. This war is a war of sacrifices. No one can reach to the destiny without sacrifices. Half a million people were killed in South Sudan. Did they regret? Baloch is also fighting the war of independence. It is possible that the enemy would speed up the oppression in coming days. But our people are brave. You will regret if you don’t have a goal. We have an explicit goal. We are fighting and being martyred for the liberation of our motherland. Therefore, Baloch is proud of it, and ready for more sacrifice.

Q.According to some groups, a scenario of provincial autonomy will diminish the cause for freedom. What is your opinion?

DAN :This is absolutely a wrong hypothesis. This is being spread by touts of the state. Provincial autonomy is a deception. It is a fraud, and a source of gathering wealth by the privileged class. It is a way to placate the members of the parliament and promote their status.

Q.What were you feeling while being arrested?

DAN :I was deeply feeling my slavery. It confirmed the belief that I am an occupied people.

Q.What did you feel after being released?

DAN :I decided to start the struggle again, and joined the war of liberation.

Q.What makes you happier?

DAN :It is human nature that one becomes happy over happening of good things, and sometime one feels pain too. If these both things do not exist in a human, one can’t be called a human.

Q.Any hobbies?

DAN :Struggle for liberation and study.

Q.What do you study?

DAN :I study on freedom movements, autobiography of warriors, history, philosophy, religion, literature and almost I am interested in study of every subject.

Q.It is said that you smoke more. Any reason?

DAN :I am addicted now. At the start, I used to smoke less. Now I smoke more. However sometime, I do try to quit it.

Q.Are you interested in hunting?

DAN :Yes, I am.

Q.How many languages can you speak and understand?

DAN :I can speak in Balochi, Brauhi, and Urdu ,and I can understand English.

Q.Who is your ideal?

DAN :Every person who fights for his independence.

Q.Do you have any interest in sport?

DAN :I had interest in playing but now I have no time. I used to enjoy playing chess, volley ball, and table tennis.

Q.Have you ever fallen in love?

DAN :Yes, with my land.

Q.When did you weep last time in life and why?

DAN :Such moments come in life but can’t say anything.

Q.What is your weakness?

DAN :No comment.

Q.When do you get outrage?

DAN :No comment.

Q.Do you fear from death?

DAN :If death is inevitable, then why to fear it!

Q.Generally, political leaders are polygamist but you have married once. Why?

DAN :The matter is that I am not a political leader. I am only a fighter in the war of liberation.

Q.Which animal do you like?

DAN :I like ox and chakoor.

Q.What are your favorite colours?

DAN :Yellow, white, light blue and red.

Q.Which weapon do you like?

DAN :The weapon that is in the hand.

Q.Any message for Baloch nation?

DAN :They should understand the notorious strategies and trickeries of the enemy ,and should join the war of liberation because the enemy is in the trouble. It is in strain and very weak. The enemy is using new tools such as abduction against war of liberation. It is duty of every Baloch to understand trickery of the enemy, and be united.

Translated from Urdu by Adeenag Baloch