Pakistan’s Repression Of Baluchistan
In 1758 the Khan of Kalat, Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch, revolted against Ahmed Shah Durrani, defeated him, and freed Balochistan, winning complete independence.
In the 1870s, Baluchistan came under control of the British India. During the time of the Indian Independence movement, three pro-Congress parties were active in Balochistan’s politics, such as the Anjuman Watan Baluchistan which favoured United India and totally opposed the creation of Pakistan. In 1947, unlike Jammu & Kashmir which merged with India, the Kingdom of Baluchistan refused to merge with the newly created State of Pakistan. Baluchistan, shares its border with Iran, Afghanistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the Arabian Sea.
However finally Baluchistan was forcibly occupied by Pakistan in 1954, nearly 7 years after it had freed itself from British Sovereignty and had become an independent country.
Since then, the people have gained nothing except becoming Pakistan’s largest and poorest province despite being rich in natural resources
The Balochs, who form approximately 50 per cent of the total population of Baluchistan, entered the region in 14th century CE. Baluchistan, which is volatile and rife with historical tensions, has witnessed regular insurgencies since Pakistan Army first forcibly entered the free Country of Baloch state of Kalat in 1948 and then forcibly merged it with Pakistan in 1954.
Balochs complain about forced occupation and long-standing social and economic neglect in addition to a deteriorating human rights scenario in their country by the Pakistan Occupation Forces. Baluch people have faced extreme deprivation and marginalisation not only from Pakistan but also Iran which also has a large Baluch population in areas adjacent to Baluchistan. The Iranian province of Sistan, and the southern areas of Afghanistan including Nimruz, Helmand and Kandhar provinces are home to Baluch people. This has resulted in a strong desire for liberation among them and forming a greater Baluchistan.
Though very rich in natural resources, presently all this wealth has been handed over to the Chinese for exploitation. Thus resentment has been fuelled by billions of dollars of loot by the Chinese in the region through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The locals say that this CPEC gives them little benefit as most new jobs have gone to outsiders and to the Chinese themselves.
The Baluchistan conflict has a long, complex history, but since that time the stakes have risen as Baluchistan’s wealth of copper, gold, gas and coal deposits caught China’s eye. The prospects of Pakistan’s most reliable ally pouring in money excited successive governments while fuelling Baloch resentment over how little would come their way.
Baluch freedom fighters have frequently targeted Chinese construction in Gwadar, a port on the Baluchistan coast, near the entrance to the strategically-important Gulf. In 2018, the Baluchistan Liberation Army launched an assault on the Chinese consulate in the southern port city of Karachi, killing four Pakistani police and civilians.
Allah Nazar Baloch, head of the ethnic Baluch group Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF), also vowed further attacks on a Chinese economic corridor, parts of which run through the resource-rich province.
The planned $46 billion trade route is expected to link western China with Pakistan’s Arabian Sea via a network of roads, railways and energy pipelines.
Baluchistan, freedom fighters have waged an independence battle against the Pakistani occupation. It has grown in profile as ally China develops mining there, has long been plagued by enforced disappearances. Families say men are picked up by the Pakistani security forces, disappear often for years, and are sometimes found dead, with no official explanation.
The 2006 arrest of Akhtar Mengal, the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, is a glaring example. He was arrested and denied basic rights of medical treatment or bedding while being imprisoned. Adding insult to injury, he was also kept in a cage during subsequent court proceedings.
A Pakistani commission set up nine years ago listed 6,506 cases of enforced disappearances nationwide by the end of 2019. Most came from the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Karima Mehrab, a refugee from the Baluchistan who was also known as Karima Baloch, went missing in Toronto’s downtown waterfront area. Police found her dead body later.
Mehrab was a prominent student organizer who campaigned for Baluchistan’s freedom from Pakistan, and later fled to Canada amid threats. She was named one of the BBC’s 100 inspirational and influential women of 2016.
Previously, Sajid Hussain, a Baluchistan journalist and activist living in exile in Sweden, was found drowned there, according to media reports.
In 2020, the Baluchistan National Party (BNP) quit Prime Minister Imran Khan’s parliamentary bloc, frustrated by unfulfilled promises to address Baloch grievances including the festering issue of the disappeared.
The ethnic identity of the Baloch has remained in sharp contrast to the ultra nationalism that defines the Pakistani state. Therefore, the Pakistani security forces, who see many of the Baloch nationalist groups as terrorists, have crushed any opposition or demand for reform.
Using the military to quell any Baloch uprising into submission has become a norm, and any attempts at protest have been reduced to naught.
While gas was discovered in the province in the 1950s, it was largely used to supply Karachi and Punjab, with Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan only receiving access to these local resources in the 1980s.
Since then, Islamabad has provided this natural gas only to supply the army cantonments in Baluchistan, and as of 2014, 59 percent of the urban population of Baluchistan did not have access to the resource.
As of January 2020, the Sui Southern Gas Company, which supplies gas to Sindh and Baluchistan, reported the shortfall of gas at nearly 40 percent.
Such deprivation, combined with the repression and blatant disregard for the Baloch people, is held as justification for their increasing resentment and larger aspirations for freedom from forced occupation by Pakistan.
