Balochistan versus Pakistan

Author(s): Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 42, No. 45/46 (Nov. 10 - 23, 2007), pp. 73-79
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Balochistan versus Pakistan

AASIM SAJJAD AKHTAR

The conflict between

the past Baloch
three
ethno-nationalis
government of Pakistan has
chistan and the
persistent of the many cent
first time that c
that have persisted
ment in
and the co
disside
insurgency of the
of resources,
1970s and
wa
structures of the
action. With the federal gov
province in the 1
to reassert its authority by b
by nationalists th
cantonments and
stan in mega
1948 dev
[Kha
the province, The Baloch
militancy strug
in B
nent ethno-nati
This paper argues that the p
project of unitary
still broadly informed by th
not supported by
Baloch nationalism,
ince must
(nwfp) be
who w
to the state's commitment
matgar movement
nationalism rem
accumulation. The purely rea
areas. Sindhis too
insurgency explains its frag
nomic marginalis
allottees of state
notably, the east
Bangladesh only 2
nationalist movem
ances related to
ment in which Pu
settled in the wes
of this skewed st
Bengali anger ov
more than half t
status of nationa
lism between the
jute produced in
trial enterprises
and dismal repr
institutions of th
Both before an
which, importan
modern nation st
seceded - ethno-
on the country's
Pakistani state r
certain ethnic gr
ethnic difference
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
[ (amajid@com
politics even 60 y
activist associated with the People
conflict in Baloch
the Lahore University of Managem
. and must theref

Economic & Political weekly November 17, 2007 73

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

This paper will attempt to analyse the most recent manife- When Partition finally came to pass, the predominant force
station of Baloch nationalism in the "longue dure", with a of the Pakistan movement - the up Muslim salariat - acquired
particular focus on the continuities and discontinuities between the reins of government in cahoots with the Punjabi Muslim sal-
the present movement that of the 1970s. The existing literature ariat, in spite of the fact that the up was not part of the new state.
confirms that the nature of Pakistani state formation and its un- Crucially, the Muhajir/Punjabi-dominated civil bureaucracy
changing posture towards oppressed nationalities after the sece- acquired almost unchallenged control over the levers of state
ssion of the eastern wing have ensured that ethno -nationalistpower with the complicity of the Punjabi landed notables, and
resistance is structurally ingrained into the socio-political fabricthe Muslim League politicians, the vast majority of whom hailed
of the country. However, the recent phase of ethno -national re- from outside the Pakistan areas and therefore had no consti-
sistance would appear to be a direct response to the aggressivetuency within the new state. This "politics of compromise" was
pursuit of neoliberal policies by the current military govern- based on a consensus amongst these groups that any democratic
ment - and in particular the establishment of direct control ofdispensation would result in power shifting to the eastern wing
land by the centre - as opposed to a pro-active and organised on account of the demographic majority enjoyed by the Bengalis,
movement. Thus it follows that the current "movement" is far who comprised 53 per cent of the total population of Pakistan
more fragmented in comparison to that of the 1970s. Nonethe- [Jalal 1994:154-58].
less, in conclusion we postulate that, regardless of the weak- Over time, a military-bureaucratic oligarchic form of rule was
nesses of this present phase of the ethno-nationalist struggle in the consolidated as a largely Punjabi army threw in its lot with the
province, the nationalist idiom remains compelling to the ma- bureaucracy and landed notables of Punjab to keep the Ben-
jority of the Baloch and that only a comprehensive change in galis out of power. This oligarchic dispensation remained
the unitary state structure can ensure peace in the province. intact throughout the first 24 years of the country's existence
due to the complicit support of the propertied classes of the west-
Colonial Inheritance and State Formation ern wing, and this alliance of forces repeatedly thwarted all at-
Hamza Alavi's (1987) well known, albeit somewhat dated, tempts
argu- to institutionalise a political process through which
the ethnic
ment posits the Muslim nationalist movement in British India to imbalance in state institutions and the decision-
making structure more generally could be redressed [Alavi
be a struggle of what he calls the "salariat" - or the auxiliary
1972; 1990]. It was thus that Bengali nationalism reached
class of salaried professionals typically seeking employment
within the institutions of the state - rather than a millenarian
a feverish pitch, and, in the aftermath of a bloody military
operation
movement of a monolithic Muslim community across the sub- initiated in March 1971, and the belated entrance
of the
continent. More specifically, Alavi's contention is that India into the fray, the new state of Bangladesh came into
primary support for the All-India Muslim League (aiml)being
that following the Pakistan army's surrender in Dhaka in
December
was to become the Pakistan Muslim League after partition was 1971.
found amongst the educated elite of the United Provinces While
(up) it is indubitable that the ethno-nationalist idiom in
Pakistani
which did not become part of Pakistan. Moreover, within the politics has been in large part a function of an exclu-
Pakistan areas, the Muslim salariat was greatly overshadowed
sionary political and economic order, it would be nave to com-
pletely ignore what analysts associated with the "perennialist"
by its Hindu counterpart, with only the Punjabi Muslim salariat
school
somewhat comparable in education and professional access to of thought would assert are the cultural bases of national-
the up Muslim salariat. ism [Smith 1998]. By this logic, nationalism cannot be reduced
simply to a political movement that emerges as a corporate group
Alavi goes on to show that the Muslim nationalist movement
lays claim to material resources under the guise of being a "na-
essentially evolved as a movement of the up salariat to assert itself
tion",
vis-a-vis the Hindu majority, and that it reflected the fears and in- but instead national identity should be seen as rooted in
historically shared symbols such as language, territory and
securities of a minority community facing the prospect of majori-
tarian democracy.3 While Alavi's insights cannot be ignored,broader
more aspects of culture. Ethnic nationalism can even deve-
lop "as people mobilise their own social and cultural resources
recent scholarship has also suggested the importance of consider-
as a 'defence, a resistance against the depredations' of what
ing the ideational dimension of the Muslim nationalist movement
has been for many the largely empty promise of the liberal na-
[Talbot 1996]. More generally, the precise nature of the power-
tionalism
sharing arrangement in the new state can only be understood by transported to the third world". In the case of the
Baloch
considering the role of landed notables, particularly in Punjab, as there exists a substantial shared history and cultural
imagining which underpins nationalist sentiment. Accord-
well as the role of migrant politicians, civil servants, and indeed
ingly Baloch nationalism cannot be reduced only to functional
the subalterns who acceded to the logic of the political economy
of defence [Jalal 1990; Waseem 2002] .4 As such, it was onlyengagements
after of the Baloch elite with the state as a means of secur-
ingend
the British announced their intentions of leaving India at the political and economic resources [Titus 1996].
of the second world war that influentials in the Muslim majority
Old Wine in New Bottle
provinces - and most crucially the Muslim landlords of Punjab
- decided to ally themselves with the aiml, at which point the
Remarkably, a little over a year after the Pakistan People's Party
(ppp) government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power following
latter was able to negotiate with the departing colonial authority
on behalf of India's Muslims [Jalal 1985]. the military's ignominious defeat, the centre had once again

74 November 17, 2007 Economic & Political WEEKLY

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launched a military operation against another dissenting ethno-
national group. The new populist government managed to piece
together enough support from the parliament to conclude a new
constitution which made considerably more overtures to ethno-
nationalists under the guise of increasing provincial autonomy. The
constitution was begrudgingly accepted by nationalists in the op-
position, most importantly the National Awami Party (nap), which
had formed coalition governments with the Jami'at-e-Ulama-Islam
(jui) in both the nwfp and Balochistan [Leghari 1979:190-93].
However, tension between the two provincial governments
and the centre increased steadily, the former attempting to as-
sert their autonomy, the latter insistent on asserting authority.
By October 1972, conflict had already emerged in Balochistan,
ostensibly between tribes that were aligned on either side of the
centre-province divide. By February 1973 the ppp government had
dismissed both the Balochistan and nwfp governors - both mem-
bers of the nap - as well as the Balochistan provincial govern-
ment under the pretext that there was a plot being hatched to
overthrow the central government [Shafqat 1997:102].
It is believed that Baloch guerrillas outside of the nap-jui
government had already been preparing for armed struggle
against the centre following the success of the Bengali nationalist
movement in achieving separation from Pakistan. This guerrilla
faction was led by Sher Mohammad Marri [Noman 1988: 66] .6
While the nap-jui government was not initially implicated in the
guerrilla preparations, the Baloch sardars who were at the fore-
front of the nap in the province, namely Ataullah Mengal, Khair
Bakhsh Marri, and to a lesser extent Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, respond-
ed to the dismissal of their government by announcing their sup-
port for the guerrillas, insisting that nothing less than independ-
ence for Balochistan was acceptable. The Bhutto regime had thus
squandered the opportunity to once and for all dismantle the
military-bureaucratic oligarchic dispensation and overhaul the
relationship between the centre and ethno-nationalist dissidents;
Bhutto's "deep mistrust of groups demanding greater provincial
autonomy" allowed the military a chance to reassert its power very
soon after the humiliation of December 1971 (ibid: 67).
The struggle of the 1970s was one that enjoyed broad-based sup-
port across Baloch society, as well as nationalist and leftist forces
throughout the country. Broadly motivated by Marxist-Leninist
principles, many intellectuals and activists joined the struggle
from Punjab and other provinces, whereas within Balochistan, the
prominent sardar leadership of the nap was joined by the urban
intelligentsia and professional class, or in Alavi's words, the Baloch
salariat [Harrison 1981]. Among the more active components of the
Baloch salariat was the Baloch Students Organisation (bso), which
captured the imagination of a large number of Baloch youth.
Many bso members spent time abroad in the then ussr studying
and imbibing radical ideas, and have since become major players
in Baloch politics. The leader of the biggest nationalist party in the
Balochistan provincial assembly after the 2002 elections for exam-
ple, is a former bso chairperson, Abdul Hayee Baloch.
The insurgency was able to withstand tremendous levels of
state repression largely because of the active involvement of a
wide cross-section of Baloch society, due to the fact that all major
nationalist forces were united in and around the nap dissidents,
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
and ostensibly because there was at least some support provided
by external forces.7 Between 40,000 and 80,000 square miles of
territory in Balochistan were wracked by unrest, an estimated
20,000 insurgents were involved, and at least five direct clashes
between government forces and the insurgents took place weekly
[Ahmad 1974]. Meaiiwhile the government deployed 80,000
troops over the four-year insurgency [icg 2006:6].
Ultimately, the fact that immediately adjacent countries, and
particularly Iran, were hostile to Baloch nationalism, as well
as the tremendous use of force by the state to crush the move-
ment, ensured that it was suppressed [Harrison 1981]. Leaders
fled abroad or were jailed, while the young cadre of the move-
ment was, and continues to be subjected to, harassment and
intimidation. Almost paradoxically, it was after the Zia-ul-Haq
led coup that toppled Bhutto that many nap leaders including
Wali Khan and the major Baloch sardars were granted amnesty.
However, there was to be no revival of resistance. Instead, in
September 1979, two years after the imposition of martial law,
pro-establishment candidates won the non-party local body elec-
tions in the province conducted by the regime, reflecting just
how comprehensively the infrastructure of the movement had
been destroyed [Jalal 1994:17s].8
Myth of Development
After a gap of 25 years then, militancy in Balochistan has resur-
faced. Needless to say there are considerable differences between
the present movement and that of the 1970s. The confrontation
this time appears to be between a much more amorphous band of
militants and the authorities over the fate of Balochistan's natu-
ral resources, the building of military cantonments in the prov-
ince, and so-called "mega development" projects, including the
soon to be completed Gwadar port on the south-western tip of
the province. While the broader demand for provincial autonomy
continued to inform the ethno-nationalist discourse, it is clear
that the present phase of the struggle has emerged in response to
the current military regime's initiatives to establish greater con-
trol over the resources and territory of Balochistan.
This unique conjuncture is explained by the government's
commitment to intensive neoliberal accumulation, and is best
understood through the framework offered by David Harvey
(2003) in explaining, as he calls it, the current phase of capita-
list imperialism.9 Specifically Harvey suggests that since the mid-
1970s when a structural shift took place in the global economy
from a largely production-centred basis to a financial one, there
has been a reassertion of state-led accumulation akin to what
Marx called "primitive accumulation". Harvey calls this "accu-
mulation by dispossession" and defines it as a process thtough
which gluts of financial capital needing spatial outlets acquire,
typically through the medium of the state, territory in which
"spatio-temporal fixes" can be undertaken.
Balochistan's vast land mass - comprising over 40 per cent
of Pakistan's territory - and its reasonable endowment of natu-
ral resources including land, gas, minerals, as well as a highly
strategic coastline, mean that it is a viable target for spatio-tem-
poral fixes. The fact that the regime plans to construct military
cantonments in Sui, home to Pakistan's largest known supply of
November 17, 2007 75
SPECIAL ARTICLE

natural gas, Gwadar, a highly strategic coastal city, and Kohlu Balochistan has remained largely marginal to public discourse
where there are reportedly major deposits of untapped energy in recent years, and is still politically and economically the most
reserves, would seem to corroborate this "territorial imperative". excluded of all provinces in Pakistan. The quite sudden atten-
This also seems consistent with the increasingly blatant resource- tion that the present government has decided to accord it has
grabbing antics of the dominant state actor, the military, which has been couched in the language of "development". Indeed General
in recent decades built up a huge corporate empire, with capture and Musharraf has consistently claimed that the purpose of "security
commercialisation of land as one of its major components [Siddiqa operations" taking place in the province is to suppress the resist-
2007] .10 The establishment of territorial control has also facilitated ance of "anti-development" forces ('Musharraf Warns Slogan-
the expanding interests of multinational capital which has sub- mongers', May 23, Dawn). In particular, the central government
stantively increased its presence in Pakistan during the tenure of has insisted that it is the "tribal sardars" that are keen on keep-
the present regime. Most importantly, Chinese companies were ing their subjugated people backward and ignorant, whereas
given almost exclusive contracts to undertake construction of the the government is attempting to extricate the Baloch from the
Gwadar port, the first phase of investment totalling $ 248 million vicious grip of these sardars.
of which the Chinese provided $ 198 million [gop 2005]. This official discourse flags a couple of crucial points. First,
while tribal sardars have always maintained a central position
Discourse on Gwadar within Baloch politics, they neither monopolise political dis-
course
The nationalist discourse surrounding Gwadar indicates thenor maintain substantial political influence but for the
broader fears of cultural extinction that remain embedded immediate geographical areas in which their tribes are settled.
within Baloch politics. Alongside the demand that "development For example, the Mengal, Marri and Bugti tribes, arguably the
projects" benefit the Baloch, including but not limited to the pro-most politically visible of all of the Baloch tribes are concentrated
vision of employment for Baloch youth, nationalists have alsowithin a relatively small geographical zone towards the north-
protested that Gwadar is likely to precipitate an influx of non- east of the province. Second, ethno-nationalism in Balochistan
Baloch into the province - for jobs, and due to broader multiplier- while centred around the broad political slogans of autonomy
effects - that will further skew the demographic imbalance inand self-determination - is heavily influenced by the real mate-
the province. For at least two decades the Baloch have claimed -rial concerns of the Baloch salariat. In fact, as Ahmed (1998) ar-
the Sindhis have been at it for even longer - that they are beinggues conclusively, of all the major ethno -national movements in
turned into a minority in their own province due to successivePakistan's history, the centre has been most successful in reign-
waves of in-migration. Indeed, it is widely believed within theing in the Pakhtuns primarily because the Pakhtun salariat has
province that figures in the last national census held in 1998 werebeen co-opted through induction into the institutions of the
deliberately fudged by the government to avoid the uproarstate, including the military and the bureaucracy.12
that would necessarily have ensued if the genuine extent of As such, the recent history of Baloch nationalism emphasises
the Pakhtun demographic majority in Balochistan had becomeexclusion from the power-sharing arrangement, and has been
public knowledge.11 It has been recently established that mas-represented both by the Baloch sardars and the salariat, with the
sive land acquisition has taken place in Gwadar that is nothing lessformer often considered the symbolic figurehead of the Baloch
than a transfer of land from Baloch to non-Baloch hands (Dawn,people. While it would be facile to downplay the importance or
February 7, 2007). Thus the capture of land is not only a real mate- centrality of the sardars, it is important to bear in mind that of the
rial concern but is considered cultural encroachment as weil. dozens of tribes in Balochistan, the state has always patronised a
It is important to bear in mind that the vast majority of Balo-large number, a practice that can be traced to the so-called Sande-
chistans territory has remained largely outside formal state juris-man system under the British whereby the tribal system that the
diction since the incorporation of the Kalat state into Pakistan incolonial power encountered was consolidated through the grant-
1948. Under the British, present-day Pakistani Balochistan wasing of hereditary rights to "chiefs" and then vesting in them sub-
split up into two distinct entities, namely British Balochistanstantial authority to effectively mediate between ordinary people
and the Kalat state. The former was administered by the colo-and the state in administrative, judicial and revenue-collection
nial authority similarly to the rest of British-administered India,matters [Ahmad 1992:97-101]. At the present time, one of the
replete with the formal institutional power of the 'thana' andmajor dissident Baloch sardars of the 1970s, Ataullah Mengal
'kutchery'. In contrast, Kalat was a princely state and, like theclaims that "72 sardars are sitting in Musharraf's lap" ('Interview
more than 500 princely states across India, was accorded consi-with Sardar Ataullah Mengal', The Friday Times, July 7-13, 2006).
derable autonomy to conduct its affairs as it saw fit so long as itThus the nationalist movement in Balochistan must be considered
accepted British sovereignty over external affairs and provided much broader than simply a whim of sardars, and in fact, it can be
Delhi with a certain fixed revenue [Ahmad 1992: 113]. Accord-argued that Baloch nationalist sentiment has survived in spite of
ingly, in many of the areas comprising the former Kalat state, the complicity of many sardars with the state oligarchy.
the Pakistani state's writ has been limited; this not only pro-
vides insight into why insurgents were able to hold the stateResurgence of Insurgents?
at bay for four long years in the 1970s, but also lends weight toThe state's attempts to depict the conflict in terms of a dicho-
this paper's claim that establishing territorial control over Balo- tomy between itself as pro -development and the sardars as
chistan represents for this government, an end in itself. anti-development are based primarily on the well-publicised

76 November 17, 2007 Economic & Political weekly

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 in
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Economie & Political weekly November 17, 2007 77

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SPECIAL ARTICLE - =

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78 November 17, 2007 Economic & Political weekly

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 ~ SPECIAL ARTICLc

committed to challenging the neoliberal globalisation [icg 2006 : 14] . Thus securing Balochistan is a crucial requirement
project
for
through a transformative strategy situated exclusively the success of the neoliberal project in the region, and particu-
within
larly of
the nation state context, on the other he doubts the efficacy so afor the Pakistani state which has allied itself very closely
with
strategy that emphasises global transformation in isolation. western governments and multinational capital. Conver-
Saul,
sely,im-
among others, argues for a strategy that acknowledges the Baloch nationalists remain insecure about the intentions of
all players that seek to use the territory and resources of Balo-
portance of the local, national and global rather than attempting
chistan for their own parochial purposes. This is the "New Great
to identify an exclusive site for radical resistance to neoliberal-
Game" and the stakes involved are extremely high [Rashid
ism. A ethno-nationalist struggle within a rentier post-colonial
2001].
state such as Pakistan that challenges the state itself, could If the long-standing struggle of the Baloch is able to
be one
such site of resistance. recognise the immensely important position that Balochistan
It is important to further contextualise this assertion.occupies
At the at the present time, and ally itself with forces commit-
ted nottoonly to the rights of the Baloch people, but also the "roll-
present time Balochistan is of crucial geostrategic significance
back"to
numerous world powers on account of its proximity of neoliberalism and the military-bureaucratic oligarchy,
the potentialities
Afghanistan and the Caspian region of central Asia. In fact, the for an overhaul of the ethnically-skewed and
closest warm water port to the Caspian region will becentralised
Gwadar post-colonial state can be exploited.

notes
1 See Ansari (2005).
15 While all of the political groups do salute the strug-
2 One could argue that the ethnic imbalance of the
gle of the militants and warn that support for them
state is symbiotically connected to the dominance amongst ordinary Baloch will increase if the state
of the administrative institutions, namely, the civil
bureaucracy and the military.
3 See also Brass (1974) who makes the important point
that the Muslim elite in the UP actually maintained a
disproportionate share of jobs and access to the state 16 Incidentally, it has been a falling out over the status
in relation to its overall percentage of the population,
but that this share was being steadily eroded.
4 In Gellner's (1983) language, the state adopted the
"high culture" familiar to Urdu-speaking migrants 17 Indeed, on various occasions since the emergence
and members of the Punjabi salariat as the symbol of
Pakistani nationalism while the "low cultures" of the
indigenous groups were marginalised. This ensured a
symbiotic relationship between the state and a criti-
cal mass of migrant subalterns and thereby created a
natural constituency for the state's censure of ethno-
18 Bugti himself had already announced his agreement
nationalist resistance.
5 See Tan (2005) who traces the roots of military power
in post-colonial Pakistan to the administrative order
in colonial Punjab.
6 Indeed, the Baloch People's Liberation Front (BPLF)
which was the main guerrilla force during the 1970s
insurgency had already come into being while Gen-
eral Ayub Khan was in power in the mid-1960s [Grare
2006:7].
7 It is beyond the scope of this paper to hypothesise on
the nature and extent of support that was garnered by
the insurgents from abroad, but the accepted conven-
tion seems to be that major sources of support were
Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
8 This fact becomes even more stark given that in none
of the other provinces were pro-establishment candi-
dates so successful. Nonetheless, this should not be
taken to mean that the acute feelings of resentment
amongst ordinary Baloch towards the centre lessened
in any way, just that actual political expression of this
nationalist sentiment was muted.
9 See also Arrighi (2005) .
10 See ICG (2006:16) for details on the land grab in
Gwadar; locals are quoted as saying "every general
has a plot in Gwadar".
11 The official figures in the 1998 census indicate
ethnic break-up of the population only in terms of
"mother tongue". By this count, approximately 55
per cent of the population of Balochistan is Balochi-
speaking while 30 per cent is Pushto-speaking. Even
if such figures are accurate, they do not necessarily
offer a good proxy of the actual demography of the
province.
12 In both institutions, the Pakhtuns enjoy participa-
tion that exceeds their overall share in the popula-
tion. On the other hand, Sindhis, Baloch and Siraikis
are acutely underrepresented in all administrative
institutions of the state, as the Bengalis were before
them.
13 Ahmed (2006) reports that in 2005 there were 187
bomb blasts, 275 rocket attacks, 8 attacks on natural
gas pipelines, 38 attacks on electricity transmission
lines and 19 explosions on railways lines.
14 The parties are the Balochistan National Party
headed by Sardar Ataullah Mengal, the Jamhoori
Watan Party of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti, the Haq
Tawar organisation of Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri
and the National Party (NP) of Abdul Hayee Baloch.
does not alter its stance, they all maintain a distance
from the sabotage attacks (interview, Nawab Akbar
Bugti, March 12, 2005; Senator Amanullah Kanrani,
July 16, 2005).
of "disappeared persons" between the chief justice
and the military regime that has precipitated the cur-
rent political crisis in Pakistan.
of conflict, government functionaries have acknow-
ledged that there has not been sufficient attention
paid by the federal government to Balochistan's
needs in the past and that this would be rectified by the
pro-development policies of the current regime.
with the militants that the time for dialogue was past,
saying in January 2006 that "it is war now" [Hussain
2006].
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