Balochistan on Fire

I was fortunate to know Malik Siraj Akbar at Asian College of Journalism. He enriched my understanding of a lot of issues and contributed to my growth as a person. Unfortunately, Malik could not attend the full academic year at ACJ because he is a Pakistani. Visa problems you see. By the time the Indian government decided Malik was not likely to blow up ACJ he had missed five months. Still we had him with us for six months and he brought a fresh perspective with him, apart from being very popular.
This perspective is important because Malik is from Balochistan, currently Pakistan’s most troubled province. Ever since the recent targeted killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a prominent tribal and political Baloch leader, the lid has been blown off Pakistan’s Baloch policy. Malik was passionately involved in Balochistan’s politics and talked endlessly about its problems. “There is so much wrong with Balochistan,” He once told me. One could perceive a sense of disenchantment when he spoke.
Malik was not an extremist, in the sense that he did not subscribe to the stand of Baloch radicals when they demanded “Baloch self-determination” or even “Baloch independence”. He believed in Pakistan and wanted the province to remain part of it.
“All my friends chide me for supporting Pakistan.”
However he was upset that his province was getting a raw deal from the federal government, and Punjab in particular. Outsiders had cornered most of the jobs in the province, the resources, particularly natural gas, was being piped out of Balochistan leaving very little for local consumption, most government jobs were held by outsiders, he explained.
One day I asked him why he was still pro-Pakistan. He replied that the rule of the sardars, or tribal chiefs, was just as bad. The feudal rule of the sardars of the various tribes – Bugti, Mengal, Marri – is as much to blame as any other reason for the province’s backwardness in education, healthcare, infrastructure and other social and economic indicators. Akbar Bugti was the sardar of the Bugti tribe. His iron-fisted rule over his tribe alienated many Baloch and earned him enemies within the province opposed to his feudal and autocratic ways.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, with Akbar Bugti’s death even moderate Baloch have been forced to take a pro-Bugti position. Already a legend in his lifetime, the manner of his death (the 80 year old was bombed by helicopter gun ships in his mountain hideout) has made him a martyr for the Baloch cause. Ironically, Bugti was considered pro-Pakistan and Islamabad’s points-man in the province till he fell out with the rulers. He voted for Balochistan’s accession to Pakistan in 1947. He justified his current anti-Islamabad stand on the grounds that he was fighting for Balochistan’s rights, as suggested by this interview he gave to Praveen Swami.
What now for Pakistan? Echo’s of 1971 all over again? A lot of Pakistani’s think so. Read this excellent piece by Ayaz Amir in Dawn. Pakistan’s rulers don’t seem to have learnt any lessons from the Bangladesh debacle. You cannot answer political problems with military solutions. Pervez Mussharaf, who has the tact and subtlety of a sledgehammer, is a military man who only understands the language of force. As he once famously remarked at a press conference “I am a fighter, I will fight you all the way.” Unfortunately, machismo and bluster do not go down very well in civilian life.