ANALYSIS: Anti-Baloch clique? — II —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
ANALYSIS: Anti-Baloch clique? — II —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Courtesy to "The News"
The rulers should understand that lip service does not soothe the
wounds caused by decades of injuries and injustices. Difficult
decisions are needed to solve the problems and win the hearts of the
justifiably alienated Baloch
The Kalat state’s forced merger
with Pakistan ended 300 years of independent and semi-independent
Baloch state. The sovereignty and will of the people of Balochistan was
temporarily subverted. It was an epoch making event in the history of
the Baloch people. Colonialism, be it of Iran, Afghanistan, Britain or
Pakistan, has played the most important role in moulding the national
consciousness that had been present in formative shape all through
their history but had remained latent. This consciousness acquired at a
bitter price is now becoming the determining factor in their struggle
to be the masters of their destiny.
Not willing to allow the
Baloch a chance to recuperate and reorganise the second equally unjust
and illegal assault on Kalat was carried out on October 6, 1958, once
again on false pretences and premises. Nawab Nauroz Khan Zarakzai, a
septuagenarian, took up arms and led the Baloch resistance. As in 1948,
a wave of repression and reign of terror was let loose all over
Balochistan. Political leaders and activists were incarcerated in the
notorious ‘Kulli camps’ in the Quetta cantonment. The suppression of
rights by force created abiding antagonism and animosity.
On May
19, 1959, Nawab Nauroz Khan along with his fighters surrendered near
Anari Mountain after the authorities promised acceptance of their
demands on the Quran. Instead they were shifted to the Quetta
cantonment and tried by a special military court and sentenced on July
7, 1960. The death sentences were carried out simultaneously on the
July 15, 1960, at Sukkur and Hyderabad Central Jails.
For the
Baloch, Nawab Nauroz Khan and the seven martyrs symbolise the
determination to not to bow to unjust and brutal assaults on their
freedom and to resist regardless of the price that has to be paid for
this honourable path. Emulating them is the dream of every politically
conscious Baloch.
The 60s decade saw sporadic Baloch resistance
led by Mir Sher Mohammad Marri, Ali Mohammad Mengal and others. The
dissolution of One-Unit and 1970 elections gave a glimmer of hope that
the Baloch would get a chance of restricted self-rule. But the
subsequent illegal and unjust dismissal of Ataullah Mengal’s government
in February 1973 and the incarceration of Baloch leaders by ZA
Bhutto-led PPP government shattered those hopes.
This injustice
naturally led to a resistance by the Baloch and large-scale military
operations against them were launched on May 21, 1973, with Mawand in
Marri area being occupied. The 1973-77 conflict resulted in enormous
sufferings of the Baloch population in the province; forcing thousands
of Marris and other Baloch to seek shelter in Afghanistan. It was
during this period that the steel of the Baloch mettle was really
tempered and for the first time they felt confident that they could
take on the might of the state and survive to fight another day. This
struggle blazed a path for the future generations and without it
probably the flame of the Baloch struggle may have been extinguished
forever.
During the musical chairs democracy period the main
players were too busy undermining each other and the Baloch were left
alone. Then Musharraf unleashed a war of terror against the Baloch,
which resulted in the death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Nawabzada Balach
Khan Marri and hundreds of other innocent people. The plague of missing
persons visited once again with a vengeance. Recently mass unmarked
graves of victims of Indian atrocities were discovered in Kashmir. One
wonders if ever such graves, for they certainly exist, will be found
here. His era was the era of pseudo mega-projects, brutal
mega-operations and super mega sufferings for the Baloch people. The
present irreconcilable antagonisms are the result of the protracted and
indiscriminate use of force against the Baloch.
The PPP
government has been long on promises and short on positive action. The
much-trumpeted Balochistan package was rightly termed as a ‘band-aid on
a bullet wound’ by Alia Amirali Sahiba, a student activist of QAU. The
three-day joint session of parliament was expected to discuss the
formulated proposals with expectations of opening a new chapter in the
post-independence history of Balochistan. But the keenness or lack of
it shown by the parliamentarians in this supposedly important and
historic package belies the claims that this government or the state is
or will ever be sincere in solving the problems faced by the Baloch
people.
A report released by Pildat said that out of total 438
MPs — 338 in the National Assembly and 100 in Senate — only 38 (nine
percent) members spoke during this joint session. This pathetic
indifference itself speaks volume about the interest that the
government and parliament take in solving the problems. Unsurprisingly
the 20 months of PPP rule have been as barren for the Baloch as were
the nine years of Musharraf.
The president cannot have the right
to claim of serving the Baloch if the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali
Shah does not even know who ordered the Rangers’ action against the
Baloch of Lyari. And yet they tire not of posing as the champions of
Baloch problems. So much so that the president claims that he is under
threat from the anti-Baloch clique, which would be committing an
unpardonable blunder if it punished him for an act he is not even
remotely guilty of.
The rulers should understand that lip
service does not soothe the wounds caused by decades of injuries and
injustices. Difficult decisions are needed to solve the problems and
win the hearts of the justifiably alienated Baloch. Obviously, no
political party or individual has the will to take these decisions
because they can only do so at the greatest risk to their own existence
and none here would be willing to go to that extreme for the children
of lesser gods.
The establishment’s anti-Baloch policy is too
entrenched, too consolidated and too committed to allow far-reaching
measures to be endorsed and implemented; measures that may bring some
relief for the people. Because those who have been calling the shots
here — call them the anti-Baloch clique or the establishment — will not
consent to even the most basic justified demands of the return of
missing people, stopping construction of cantonments, military airports
and naval ports, withdrawal of the army, a halt to military operations,
rights over resources and the reining in of the FC because their
financial, commercial and imaginary strategic interests will be surely
hurt by any such roll back in Balochistan.
You do not have to be
a rocket scientist to understand that the establishment, guided by its
self-preservation instinct, had to be anti-Baloch, anti-Sindhi
anti-Pashtun and anti-Bengali since partition because without erasing
the historical national consciousness and identities they could not
hope to impose their ideology of Pakistaniat. However, they overlooked
the fact that millenniums old consciousness and identities cannot be
easily obliterated and replaced; little wonder that they have miserably
failed to either forge or impose a new identity. Certainly the Baloch
resistance has played a pivotal role in thwarting their designs.
Concluded)
Mir
Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement
going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at
mmatalpur@gmail.com
Notes