BNP’s president and former chief minister of Balochistan Sardar Akhtar Mengal, in his telephonic address, termed the current operation in Balochistan as “the worst” among all operations carried out against the people of the country’s largest province in the last six decades. He rightly pointed out that Baloch political workers and the bright minds of the Baloch society was being systematically picked up by the security establishment, put into torture cells and killed brutally. Hopeless from the current judicial system, Sardar Mengal has called upon the United Nations to intervene in Balochistan to stop what he bills as the “Balochicide” by the security forces.
Karachi has always remained the center of Baloch politics and culture. Even today, the country’s largest city houses more than four million Balochs. Their living standard and economic conditions are abysmal, though. The port city is the center of Balochi art, culture and music. However, the absence of a Baloch nationalist party to meet the genuine aspirations of the Balochs in Karachi has remained a great tragedy. Many political parties, including the BNP of Sardar Mengal, as shown by its name, has confined its political constituency to Balochistan rather than expanding it to the Balochs living everywhere.
In the midst of not having an organized political party, a bulk of Baloch leaders and activists started to look at the Pakistan People’s Party for their support. In spite of great support from the Balochs, the PPP, on its part, never came up to the expectations of the Balochs living in Karachi as well as in Balochistan. Worst still, the Balochs in Karachi always stood in support of their brethren in Balochistan during every hardship but a similar warm response was never offered by the Balochs of Balochistan when their compatriots in Karachi faced hard times. Karachite Balochs have always reacted to the atrocities committed in Balochistan by protesting. According to one veteran Karachi-based non-Baloch journalist: “Baloch journalists were kidnapped by the governments of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf. They went missing for days. They have always had to face the heat of the happenings inside Balochistan.”
The Balochistan National Party should rename itself as the Baloch National Party and work on mobilizing support among the Balochs living in Sindh and the Punjab. In order to gain the attention of the national and international media and human rights groups toward the state of affairs in Balochistan, it is very important for the Baloch nationalists to have an effective presence in Karachi. Because of the enormous size of the media in Karachi, it is often seen that protests and rallies in the industrial city gain more attention in the media than the ones that are organized inside Balochistan.
Likewise, Baloch political parties should work more closely with the Sindhi nationalists as they share common issues. There is a need for cooperation between the progressive and secular forces in Sindh and Balochistan. The latest successful collaboration between BNP and Sindhi nationalists parties like Sindh United Party and Jiye Sindh Quomi Mahaz is a positive move toward the right direction. It should not be prejudged as the inception of a new chapter of cooperation between Baloch and Sindhi nationalists but it has surely come as a reminder about the need to reactivate the dormant Pakistan’s Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM).
The crisis in Balochistan is so huge that it urgently needs to be brought to the public attention. Unfortunately, people living in larger cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad even do not have a clear sense of the grave violation of human rights because of a blackout of such reports in the so-called national media. As these political parties get together and organize such agitations, they will manage in creating more awareness among the masses in other provinces about the state of affairs in Balochistan.
http://www.thebalochhal.com/2011/02/editorial-baloch-sindhi-protest-in-karachi/
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