OUP’s two noteworthy publications
Syed Afsar Sajid
Title: ‘A history of the Baloch and Balochistan’
Author: Mir Naseer Khan Ahmedzai Kambarani Baloch
Price: Rs.1995/- — Pages: 540
Title: ‘Destined to Fail’
Author: Saira Aquil
Price: Rs. 1195/- — Pages: 217
Oxford University Press (Pakistan) has recently published two important books viz. ‘A
history of the Baloch and Balochistan’ and ‘Destined to Fail’. The first one is ‘an abridged
English translation of an eight-volume book in Urdu, written by a direct descendant of
the Khan of Kalat’ namely Mir Naseer Khan Ahmedzai Kambarani (1919-2013), while the
second book ‘focuses on a rather simple question: Why did the US fail to build a liberal
democratic state in post-Taliban Afghanistan?’
‘A history of the Baloch and Balochistan’
Dr. Martin Axmann, a noted political scientist and researcher associated with the Arnold
Bergstraesser Institute of Socio-Political Research in Freiburg (Germany) since 1996, has
contributed the ‘Introduction’ to the book wherein he dilates upon the subject from two
kindered angles i.e. the etymology of the word ‘Baloch’ and the history or historiography
related to their native land, Balochistan.
The story of the Baloch as elucidated in the original book is that of ‘a free, democratic,
federal, and extremely integrative people of principled, courageous, belligerent, but also
modest character’ who ‘led a largely peaceful and undisturbed life for thousands of
years’. They were never ‘the plaything of superior powers but always voluntarily allied
with the good and just’.
The book is divided into two major chronological parts: (1) 853 BCE–1547 CE, and (2)
1547—1988, that comprise 10 and 21 chapters each, with eponymic captions like
Balochistan and the Baloch; Foreign dynasties in Balochistan; the rise of Islam; Tribal
reorganization in Sistan, Turan, and Makran; Ameer Meeru Mirwani and the Baloch
reformation; the Baloch Confederacy under the Meerwani Baloch; the Kambarani Ameers
of Kalat; the Ahmedzai Khans of Kalat; the rise of Colonialism in India, Afghanistan, and
Persia; Ameer Khudadad and the British takeover of Balochistan; Ameer Ahmad Yar and
the independence of Kalat State; Pakistan and the annexation of Kalat State; Balochistan
States Union and the ‘One Unit’; and the impact of the 1970s Elections on Balochistan.
Axmann observes that ‘The writer of the book tells us that the Baloch are divided into
three main tribal groups namely Narohi, Brahui, and Rind who are purportedly associated
with Kurd tribes. All the clans of the Baloch tribes today originate from these three main
tribes ….. From about 1500 onwards, Baloch history becomes more tangible and is,
above all, a question of perspective and interpretation. This period of about 500 years is
the focus of the present study.’ Some thirty-eight facsimiles (images) of the ruling
hierarchy of Balochistan, in a descending chronological order, follow the ‘Introduction’
to the book.
The book may be described as a compendious historic document incorporating facts,
figures, and situations bearing on its two-dimensional subject viz. ‘History of the Baloch
and Balochistan’. Noted Baloch scholar Dr. Naseer Dashti’s book ‘The Baloch and
Balochistan’ can be a supplementary but useful reading aid in regards to the work being
reviewed here.
‘Destined to Fail’
This book is the brainchild of Saira Aquil, an Assistant Professor in the department of
Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Its sub-title reads:
‘Democracy and state building experiment in post-Taliban Afghanistan’. It has its origin
in her PhD dissertation. It looks into the US failings in the state and democracy-building
processes in post-Taliban Afghanistan when this subject keenly attracted many a scholar
and researcher of the twin concepts of statehood and political governance.
‘The book contributes to the critical debate of exogenous state and democracy-building
experiments pursued in the aftermath of Western-led intervention in war-torn societies.
The mistakes committed by the principal intervener, the United States, at the zero-hour of
state-building in Afghanistan could not be rectified in the following years of intervention.
The ‘multi-lateral state and democracy-building project’ remained a ‘unilateral decision-
making project’ in practice, making it less cost-effective. Furthermore, a systematic
inquiry into the processes establishes the rationale that political change is not the
guarantor of social change in conflict-ridden societies like Afghanistan. Failure of the
Afghan state and democracy-building experiment clearly shows that the US cannot fix
the world according to its own ideas.’
The contents of the book bear a list of abbreviations and acronyms, acknowledgements,
preface, introduction, notes, bibliography and index apart from its nine seminal chapters
with self-contained titles: (1) Understanding the failed state; (2) State formation in
Afghanistan: From tribal confederacy to a weak state (1747-1978); (3) The decomposition
process of the Afghan state: Soviet intervention, Afghan civil war and the Taliban regime;
(4) The exclusionary democratisation process in post-Taliban Afghanistan: An analysis;
(5) Impediments in the state and democracy-building processes: US’s contradictory
policies and security dilemmas; (6) The Taliban insurgency: Internal and external
dynamics; (7) Limitations in the state-building process; (8) Conclusion; and (9) Epilogue:
Leaving without a responsible end (2014-2016).
A plethora of literature exists on the subject that could be used as a supplement to
enhance an interested reader’s apprehension, perception, and understanding of the
conundrum that the instant book seeks to expatiate.
