These attacks are a pointer to the growing need for Pakistan's politicians to seize the initiative in the search for a negotiated solution to the crisis. The crisis, of course, has gone on since the 1960s, when the military regime of Ayub Khan went no-holds-barred in launching operations against Baloch insurgents. Thousands of Baloch as well as large numbers of Pakistan's soldiers lost their lives at the time. If Ayub Khan had thought that the Baloch rebels would be eliminated by the army, he was to be proved grievously wrong. And yet the same mistake was committed by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s when governments led by the opposition in Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (today's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) were dismissed. Fresh new assaults were initiated against insurgents in Balochistan.
The grievances of the Baloch people have across the generations been ignored by successive Pakistani governments. Indeed, it has generally been that governments have given a free hand to the army to root out what the Islamabad establishment has always demonised as terrorists. That has been the narrative, one which has been repeated in the aftermath of the train hijacking and the suicide attack on the soldiers' buses. There is little question that scores of casualties have been the result of the attacks. Obviously, a good number of BLA activists have also perished. But where there should have been some soul-searching on the part of the government, there has only been defiance, repetitions of the old slogans of destroying the rebels, enemies of Pakistan as they have once again been referred to.
There can certainly be no justification for the violence the BLA and indeed the Majeed Brigade have resorted to in recent weeks. And no one will support the Baloch guerrillas when they stop buses at gun-point, pick out the Punjabis among their passengers and riddle them with bullets. At the same time, when the guerrillas make it a point to go after Chinese engineers and other officials involved in the development of the village of Gwadar into a modern sea port, one will condemn such acts. But then comes the question of why the BLA and other anti-government outfits are engaging in such violence.
There is a simple answer to the question: Despite Balochistan's being the repository of Pakistan's mineral resources (the headquarters of the country's geological survey has been in Quetta since the founding of Pakistan in 1947), this wealth has not touched the lives of the Baloch people. They have for decades lived in abject poverty while the rest of the country has experienced remarkable development. In more ways than one, it is a throwback to the 1960s, when the Bengalis of erstwhile East Pakistan complained that foreign exchange earnings from the jute and tea they grew in the province were utilised in the development of West Pakistan.
It is obvious that groups like the Baloch Liberation Army, the Baloch Raji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS) and the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group would like nothing more than for Balochistan to be turned into a sovereign state and thereby cut its links with Pakistan. While that is an issue dependent on the degree to which the Baloch nationalists are able to convince their people that they need to move out of the Pakistani state structure, it has now become an absolute necessity for Pakistan's political parties and leaders across the spectrum to go for a new policy over the restive province. The state of denial which has been there for decades will not help. Neither will it help Pakistan to have its military further handle the situation. If anything, the army has consistently mishandled Balochistan. Baloch politicians have been humiliated for ages. Nawab Akbar Bugti was murdered in a ruthless military operation ordered by General Pervez Musharraf.
Over the years, thousands of Baloch men have been picked up by the soldiers, never to return home. The bodies of Baloch dissidents have been strewn in diverse regions of the arid province. Some dissidents fleeing abroad have not been spared either. Given such realities, one understands only too well the emotions which impel young women like Mahrang Baloch into leading thousands of Baloch men and women on a long march all the way from Quetta to Islamabad. Their objective was simple: they demanded to know from the authorities the whereabouts of their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers abducted by the army across the years. With Mahrang Baloch have been other women, in whom fear is absent but plenty of grit and courage is there. Sabiha Baloch, Sammi Deen Baloch and scores of others have defied the Pakistani establishment and in the process have garnered unprecedented public support for their campaign.
The activities of the BLA and other guerrilla outfits together with the campaign for the truth to be revealed by Islamabad about the Baloch 'disappeared' are reasons why Pakistan's political classes need a serious rethink about the situation in Balochistan. There is no gainsaying that the army has once again brought Pakistan to a precipitous point in its history. The preponderance of the army has not only prevented democracy from taking roots in Pakistan but has also, and gravely, exacerbated circumstances in Balochistan and to a certain extent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. It is today an image where Pakistan as a state is regarded as an instrument of repression by the Baloch. The Baloch are a people whose place on the social scale is a good many rungs below that of Pakistanis in the other provinces of the country.
Politics goes haywire when soldiers meddle with it. That is precisely what has happened in Balochistan. Unless Balochistan is taken out of the hands of the Pakistan army by Pakistan's political leaders, the chasm between the province and the rest of the country will widen further. The state will need to speak to Baloch nationalists if a catastrophe is to be averted. And, yes, military operations in the province will need to cease; accountability over the human rights violations committed till now must be ensured.
Balochistan must be treated with dignity. If it is not, its people will coalesce around the nationalists today calling for an independent Baloch republic.
ahsan.syedbadrul@gmail.com