No student of history will deny that the Baloch have taken up arms as a last resort and not the first one
Few things irritate the Balochistan nationalists more than the question by many interlocutors from outside the province as to what makes them angry with the central government and drives them towards armed struggle every few years. Such queries, in their view, betray a feigned ignorance of what has been done to them for six decades and an effort to deny the questioner's share of responsibility for it.
Throughout the country's history the people of Balochistan have complained of the failure of the custodians of state power to make a sincere effort to understand, or even acknowledge, their plight. As a result their lament has grown lengthier and lengthier and their bitterness at being abandoned deeper and deeper.
Although the whole population of Balochistan has been agitating against their deprivations, the Pushtuns and the Baloch have different sets of grievances and it is only the latter that have been taking up arms in support of their cause. We are at the moment concerned only with the Baloch's alienation form the state as it is the main cause of the present crisis in that region.
The Baloch have never got over their shock and anger at the way the accession of Kalat state was manipulated. What hurt the nationalists more than the military operation against the Khan of Kalat was their feeling of betrayal.
Unlike the Indian Congress that viewed the future of the princely states after the British departure from the subcontinent wholly in terms of the political rights of their populations, the Muslim League leaders persisted in a purely legalist interpretation of the end of British paramountcy. As a result, the Khan of Kalat and the state's relatively young radicals could not reconcile themselves to a negation of the Kalat brief that the Quaid-i-Azam himself had presented before the Cabinet Mission.
The result was that Prince Abdul Karim gave a call to arms. He failed because the people in general had been taken into confidence, or considered worthy of being approached even, neither by the Kalat Khan nor the leaders of Pakistan. The latter thought the matter ended once Abdul Karim was put in a jail in Lahore. No attempt was made to explain to the people why matters followed a particular course.
Balochistan was promised something like provincial status on the morrow of independence. In February 1948 Quaid-i-Azam recognised the right of the Balochistan people to have the same rights as were allowed to their compatriots in the rest of the country. A reform committee set up in 1949 recommended a provincial legislature, adult franchise and some regard for tribes' unity while demarcating electoral constituencies. But the people of Balochistan were made to wait till 1970 to attain provincial status.
Between 1949 and 1970 the centre's policy of ignoring the Balochistan people's opinion forced them into confrontationist politics, especially during 1954-70 when most of the time they had to agitate against the One-Unit. One of the offshoots of the One Unit scheme was the revolt of Sardar Nauroze Khan. The way the 80 years old chieftain was treated makes the Baloch angry to this day.
In 1972, the Baloch believed their rights had begun to be recognised but their representative government was dismissed and the central government chose to deal with the Baloch youth's resistance through a military operation instead of the democratic way of negotiation. The impasse ended only when Gen Ziaul Haq pretended a change of heart and acting contrary to the advice he had given to Mr Bhutto and PNA leaders he stopped military action. But there was no meeting of the hearts, no political discourse, and the Baloch were left to sulk and nourish their grievances.
The Musharraf era has been the darkest phase for the Baloch because in this period the government excesses started directly affecting the common citizen. The grabbing of the Gwadar land hit a large number of people who were not sardars. The exclusion of the Baloch from the beneficiaries of development projects radicalised the educated and jobless youth. The Baloch were humiliated in unprecedented ways. None of the politicians who crossed Gen Musharraf's path was humiliated the way Sardar Akhtar Mengal was. The ordinary Baloch were insulted on account of the hair on their face and for wearing their traditional shalwar. (As a reaction the young sardars and students who had switched over to jeans resumed wearing their shalwar and keeping long hair with a vengeance.) The Baloch have reached their present state of alienation because the centre has proved to be unworthy of their trust.
No student of history will deny that the Baloch have taken up arms as a last resort and not the first one. More often than not they have reacted to use of force against them.
Writing from his death cell to his favourite child (Ms Benazir Bhutto) Mr Bhutto observed that a settlement of the Balochistan crisis had been made difficult by the fact that much blood had been shed. His successors did not study his finding and continued to bleed Balochistan (i.e. Nawab Akbar Bugti, Ballach Marri, Ghulam Mohammad, Rasool Bakshsh, et al) and make the political tangle more and more intractable.
The present government started making gestures of goodwill towards Balochistan but it has been found wanting in capital to deliver on its promises. Its latest package is unlikely to generate a meaningful debate.
There were many occasions in the past when open-hearted dialogue could lead to healing of the Baloch's wounds. But killing Nawab Akbar Bugti was preferred to negotiations with him and Nawab Khair Bukhsh Marri was kept in prison instead of talking to him. Now that the Baloch youth have been alienated Islamabad wants to talk to any Marri, any Bugti, any Mengal or any Bizenjo, but neither the senior nor the younger leaders of the Baloch resistance are listening. They will not respond positively so long as their support among the youth continues to grow.
The real problem Islamabad faces today is that it lacks both the intellectual strength and the authority needed to establish a discourse with the Baloch youth. The situation will not improve till a fresh election is held in Balochistan but elections cannot be held until the Baloch people's over-riding concerns about missing persons and displaced people are addressed and decision-making powers are restored to civilian, elected representatives of the people.
Writer: By I. A. Rehman
Source: http://www.jang.com.pk
No comments:
Post a Comment