Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area and the smallest in terms of population, 43 percent and 5.94 percent respectively. Balochistan is so very diverse in terms of ethnicities, as there are approximately 52 percent Baloch, 36 percent Pashtoon and the remaining 12 percent are Hazaras, Punjabis, Uzbeks and Seraikis. Balochistan also has plentiful natural resources like Saindak, Reko Diq, Gwadar port, oil, gas, coal, and so on. However, since the independence of Pakistan there have been insurgent groups who destroyed the whole beauty of Balochistan.
The word insurgency means “revolt”. When a group of people take up arms against its own central government, it is called an insurgent group. Currently we are living in the fifth insurgency. The first ran from 1948 to 1950. Before independence, current Baluchistan comprised four princely states which were Kalat, Lasbela, Kharan, and Makran. The province’s shahi jirga (royal council) decided to join Pakistan on 29 June 1947. The princely states except Kalat acceded to Pakistan.
However, the Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yar Khan, wanted the independence of Kalat. After some time as an independent state he decided to accede to Pakistan on 27 March 1948. This decision of Ahmed Yar khan led his brothers prince Abdul Karim and Muhammad Rahim to revolt against his decision in July 1948 and they refuse to lay down arms against central government. Due this revolt the Quaid-e-Azam and his successors permitted Ahmed Yar Khan to retain his title until the province’s dissolution in 1955.
The second insurgency was started in 1958 and lasted 1959, in which Nawab Nauroz Zehri took up arms in resistance to the One-Unit policy. It was the time of the first martial law administrator Gen Ayub Khan. However, in the end he and his group were arrested by the military.
The third insurgency was started in 1963 and lasted until 1969 because President Ayub khan established military bases in troubled areas of Baluchistan, which came under the influence of Sher Muhammad Bijrani, who didn’t like it. The other major problem was that Bijrani wanted equal dividends of the profit which the state got from Sui gas, but Ayoub denied this, due to which a civil war started. It ended when Yahya Khan ended the one-unit policy and gave Balochistan the full status of a province.
The fourth insurgency was in 1973-77, when Z.A Bhutto dismissed the provincial government of Balochistan on the pretext that arms had been recovered in the Iraqi embassy for Baloch rebels, and imposed a martial law in those specific areas, which led to an armed insurgency.
The federal government needs to promote political dialogues with these insurgents’ groups because it is not the work of the military to engage in dialogue. If again the military tries to control these insurgent groups by hard power the Baloch insurgency will remain, and a sixth insurgency seems likely in future. That’s why the federal government of Pakistan needs to not repeat history otherwise unfortunately Balochistan will be the next example of Bangladesh.
The fifth insurgency, which still continues, started on 3 January 2005, when one Captain Hammad raped a lady doctor, Shazia Khalid, in the Sui Gas compound, which sparked the conflict. President Pervez Musharraf’s unusual comments and biased judgement led to a violent uprising by the Bugti tribe, which disrupted the supply of gas to much of the country for several weeks. In 2006, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a 79-year-old political leader of the Baloch, was killed in fighting with the Pakistan Army.
Apart from history there are many factors which led Baloch to insurgent groups such as socio-economic problems, the weak financial position, education, and infrastructure, medical facilities, and so on, created an inferiority complex among the youth of Balochistan.
In Balochistan, especially in rural areas, there is still a lack of basic education, and 47 to 50 percent of children are out of school. Illiteracy in those areas exceeds 90 percent. In 2006 the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan review said that the level of facilities of education, accessibility to the facility of sanitation, electrification and accessibility to safe normal water is relatively lower in Balochistan than in the rest of the country. The right to education is every person’s fundamental right in today’s world, which the federal government ignored in the rural areas of Balochistan. There are no hospitals in the rural areas which is why when there is an emergency people shift their patient to Punjab or to Quetta hospitals. unfortunately on the way patient often expire, especially women during pregnancy.
The other major factor is the lack of political representation. Due to being uneducated, mostly the youth of Baloch tribes are servant of their nawabs or sardars and at the cost of their youth these nawabs and sardars fulfill their own interests. When the federal government stop these nawabs from exploiting their youth these nawabs command their servants to join the insurgent groups and then train them for bomb blasts and other such terrorist activiies.
Another factor is the people are not given equal dividends to Baluchistan’s resources. The whole of Pakistan is using and making profits from the resources of Balochistan, but the residents of Balochistan didn’t get equal shares. For example, Sui gas was discovered in the 1950s and was supplied to all provinces except Balochistan, and Quetta got gas pipelines only in 1988.
Another major factor is the missing persons: in 2001 the Pakistan Interior Minister acknowledged that around 1100 Baloch had disappeared and till now very few came back home, with their families still trying by protest and having hopes that one day their beloved one will come back home.
It is the failure of successive governmental authorities which did not reach out to the real issues of the people of Balochistan. This continuous process of marginalization and underdevelopment of the province had led to inner, exterior fault lines which were used by nawabs and sardars as well as by foreign powers in their interests or in weakening Pakistan.
From the beginning the founder of Pakistan didn’t realize that what they are propagating is not the one single religious identity which will be able to subsume the ethnic fault lines. This did not happen in 1971 and didn’t seem to be happening in the case of Balochistan.
All those grievances can be tackled if the federal government improve the socio-economic conditions of Balochistan, started projects in which the economic, political, social problems would be recognized and acknowledged, provide jobs to the youth of Balochistan, especially for Baloch tribes, establish schools, colleges, universities and give Baloch special quota in these institutions. When the youth get education, they have their own ideas and will not follow their nawabs’ or sardars’ orders without logical thinking. After that these youth will also participate in opportunities given to them by the state. When other tribesmen see how their youth are getting education, they will also be willing to give education to their children.
In that process the youth of Pakistan will be easily separated from those insurgent groups, and then it will be easy for the federal government to negotiate with those groups. When they lose support from the youth they will have no other option except to accept the conditions of government. The Pakistani government needs to develop a comprehensive political strategy to ensure that the Baloch people will regain their trust in the legitimacy of the federal government and there is a need to bring an end to the old system of patronage politics.
There are many huge development projects in Balochistan which can only be started with the approval of regional authorities. It is the interest of the state to reconcile with Balochistan by placing its resources with the people of Balochistan.
The federal government needs to promote political dialogues with these insurgents’ groups because it is not the work of the military to engage in dialogue. If again the military tries to control these insurgent groups by hard power the Baloch insurgency will remain, and a sixth insurgency seems likely in future. That’s why the federal government of Pakistan needs to not repeat history otherwise unfortunately Balochistan will be the next example of Bangladesh.
