Baluchistan Nationalist Movement and Unrest in Pakistan

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Baluchistan Nationalist Movement and Unrest in Pakistan

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Baluchistan Nationalist Movement and Unrest in Pakistan

Nasreen Akhtar

AbstractPakistan is one of the most complex multi-ethnic societies in the developing Islamic world. Each of the ethnic groups that now comprise Pakistan has very distinctive identity, folklore, history and political interests. However, Pakistan’s nation builders were not alive to the ethnic question and failed to integrate ethnic groups into a Pakistani nationhood through recognised principles of autonomy, representation and empowerment. Instead, a non-representative, military-led authoritarian system suppressed legitimate regional and ethnic aspi-rations, relying too heavily on Islam and Pakistan ideology (two nation theory) to forge a sense of common nationhood. It didn’t work: since the 1950s there have been four major insurrections against the central government by Baluch nation-alists. Although the Baluch national question has its roots in the colonial era, it emerged as a significant political and security issue because an over-centralised and non-representative power system couldn’t address the issue of ethnic diver-sity. Baluchistan is now a hub of interests for regional and major powers.

KeywordsBaluchistan, Baluch nationalism, Pakistan, ethnicity, regionalism, identity, diversity, representation, empowerment, autonomy, authoritarianism, insurrection, Islam

Introduction

Ethnic nationalism in the post-World War II era has salience across the world. Although the phenomenon burst on to the world stage in the late 1960s, ‘it achieved phenomenal proportions after the end of the Cold War. This refuted the beliefs shared by many liberals and Marxists that ethnic consciousness was pri-mordial and reactionary and was bound to vanish once developments have taken place and classes disappeared’ (Jalali and Lipset 1992: 585).

Ethno-national movements have appeared in varying intensities in the devel-oped world, such as North-Irish and Scottish movements in the UK, Walloon and

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South Asian Survey 18(1) 121–135 © 2011 ICSAC

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DOI: 10.1177/0971523112469528 http://sas.sagepub.com

Nasreen Akhtar is Assistant Professor, Politics and International Relations, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan. E-mail: [email protected]

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122 Nasreen Akhtar

Flemish movements in Belgium, Basque separatists in Spain and Quebecois movement in Canada. In the transitioning post-Soviet world, ethnic conflicts led to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. The Third World is full of examples of ethnic national movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America (Jalali and Lipset 1992).

The only conclusion one can draw from the resurgence of the ethnic factor is that these ethnic movements have emerged in multifarious forms and under vari-ous conditions. Some movements have been started by large ethnic groups such as those in Quebec and former East Pakistan. Others have been started by small ethnic minorities as, for example, Frissians in the Netherlands and Jurassians in Switzerland. Some ethnic movements emphasise cultural markers such as those in Basque and Quebec. Others are predominantly based on economic issues, for instance, the Welsh and Scottish movements. The movements exist in both demo-cratic and authoritarian frameworks (for example, India and Belgium, and Uganda, respectively). Also, ethnic movements have emerged in unitary states like France as well as federal states such as India (Jalali and Lipset 1992: 586).

Pakistan has been facing several national movements since its inception as well, the Baluch nationalist movement being one of them. The national question in Pakistan has its roots in the colonial era. The three prominent movements, Baluch movement, Sindhi movement and Pashtun movement existed in rudimen-tary form during the British Raj in the form of regional autonomy movements, which emerged as a result of indignation at the policies of the colonial state (Amin 1993: 57–59). In the post-independence period, Baluch and Sindhi movements crystallised during the Ayub Khan period (1958–69).

Baluchistan has witnessed a resurgence of ethno-national movements ever since independence from British rule in 1947. Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan in terms of territory, covering 40 per cent of its land, but the smallest in terms of the percentage of Pakistan’s population, of which it constitutes only 6 per cent. The two principal ethnic groups are the Baluchi and Pashtun (who con-stitute a roughly equivalent percentage), while there also exist other ethnic groups such as the Punjabis, Sindhis and Brahvis.

Historically, the Baluchis have not been a majority and are further divided along tribal and regional lines. Baluchistan’s issue is as old as Pakistan itself. Since Pakistan’s inception, the common Baluch have been at the same time neglected and oppressed by the both the central and provincial governments. State-centric policies have, broadly speaking, been unsuccessful in Baluchistan. Both military and civilian regimes have through their policies provoked the estrangement of mainstream Baluch opinion. Today, Baluchistan has become more an area of conflict and a ‘hub of interests’ for the international actors which have supported and harboured Baluch nationalists in the past and continue their support today.

Complex historical and social factors have shaped the interaction between reli-gion, ethnicity and politics in Pakistan, a multi-ethnic state which came into being




Baluchistan Nationalist Movement and Unrest in Pakistan 123

with the support of various ethnic groups. Yet it is now ethnic conflict which poses one of the gravest challenges to Pakistan’s security and survival. Such fis-siparous tendencies have been very harmful for Pakistan’s security and socio-economy, and have also affected Pakistan’s relations with other countries. In 1962, when Henry Kissinger was in Pakistan on a troubleshooting mission for US President J.F. Kennedy, a journalist asked him to comment on the Baluch insur-gency. His answer was: ‘I wouldn’t recognize the Baluchistan problem, (even) if it hit me in the face’ (Harrison 1981: 1). But ever since 1973, when an elected civilian government sent armed forces to curb ethno-nationalists, Baluchistan has become an area of conflict and remains one today. Development of Gwadar port and the war in Afghanistan have also shifted the interest of major powers to Baluchistan (Shaikh 2009). It has been argued that the Baluchi people at large may not have views as radical as those of many of their leaders ever since 1948. It is claimed in some reports that it is a mere handful of Sardars or feudal tribal leaders who have led the movement against the centre and have turned to help from abroad (Marri 2010).

For a variety of reasons, Pakistan has had enormous difficulty in develop-ing a coherent sense of nationhood. Ethnicity and religion both have polarised rather than unified society in Pakistan. Islam has remained at the centre of post-independence political discourse. Nevertheless, today Islam is less important; the central issue has become the fact that various ethnic groups have demanded con-stitutional rights and power. The creation of Pakistan was a crushing blow to those hoping to establish autonomous, ethnically defined states in the western border-lands of the Indian Empire. This included not only the Baluch but also the Pashtun peoples in the area bordering Afghanistan.

Baluchistan, economically stagnant, sparsely populated and arid, is Pakistan’s largest, youngest, internally most varied province (Ahmad 1973). Conflicts between Baluch nationalists and the central government have deepened and both have employed any resources at their disposal including, when available, state power. This is despite the fact that ethnic, religion or regional identity are so important; at its heart the conflict is about state power and the desire to employ it to enable a particular good, whether that good is seen as a strong unitary state of Kashmir or as the successful defence of Baluch autonomy (A. Khan 2003a: 282).

Why is Baluchistan believed by some to constitute a security threat to Pakistan? What went wrong during military and civilian regimes? Will Baluchistan become a new ‘frontier’ for the regional and major powers? These questions are examined in the following sections.

The Historical Antecedents of Baluchistan

The Baluch, originally from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea and ethnically kindred to the Kurds, have a strong sense of cultural distinctiveness, rooted in an




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arcane language possibly derived from the lost language of the Medean civilisa-tion that existed in Asia Minor some six centuries before Christ. Shortly before the British arrived on the scene in the nineteenth century, a more or less parallel Baluch political identity had begun to develop under the leadership of a chief, Nasir Khan, who established a loose Baluch confederacy that lasted for nearly a century, though paradoxically as a tributary of Afghanistan (Harrison 1978: 142).

Britain’s agenda for the Pashtun and Baluch settled regions was to subordinate them but to not subjugate them completely, and to employ their autonomy to develop them into buffer states. During the colonial period, Baluchistan was a complex mix of administrative regimes: the Kalat state, British Baluchistan and areas that the British leased from Kalat. British Baluchistan (which was made up of Pashtun areas that Afghanistan ceded to the British in the 1879 Treaty of Gandamak,1 and the Marri-Bugti tribe zone) and the leased areas were directly administered.

Ruled by a Khan, Kalat was nominally independent, though, as in the other princely states, the British exerted their dominance by various means including vetting the Khan’s officials and paying subsidies to tribal leaders. The four princely states of Makran, Kharan, Lesbela and Kalat were brought under British informal rule. In 1876, Sir Robert Sandeman concluded a treaty with the Khan of Kalat and brought his territories including Kharan, Makran and Lesbela under the British Raj, which retained ultimate suzerainty but did not attempt intensive control or taxation since the value of these relationships was essentially strategic.

According to the treaty of Gandamak, the Afghan Amir (Yaqub Khan) ceded the districts of Quetta Pashin, Sibi, Hrani and Thal Chotiali to the British. In 1883, the British leased the Bolan Pass, southeast of Quetta, from the Khan of Kalat, but in perpetuity. In 1887, some areas of Baluchistan were declared British territory. In 1893, Sir Mortimer Durand negotiated an agreement with the Amir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rehaman Khan, to fix the Durand Line running from Chitral to Baluchistan as the boundary between Afghanistan and British India. This boundary was later repudiated by various Afghan regimes on the ground that it was imposed by the British colonial government of India upon a weak neighbour (Entessar 1979: 97).

After World War II, the British government’s announcement of its intended withdrawal from India provided the occasion for Afghan leaders to question once more the validity of the Durand Line.2 Afghanistan contended that the inclusion of six million Pathans in the North-West Frontier Province into the newly estab-lished state of Pakistan was unjustified. The Afghan leaders maintained that the Pathans had close ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties with the Afghans and they should be given the opportunity to join Afghanistan or create an independent homeland following the partition of India. Instead, the Pathans and Baluchis were limited to choosing between India or Pakistan in the plebiscite conducted in July 1947 (Entessar 1979: 97).





Post-Independence Baluchistan’s Resentment and Resolution

The Khan of Kalat collaborated with the British but periodically demanded that all Baluch areas someday be returned to his domain. When Great Britain with-drew from the subcontinent in August 1947, the Khan refused to join the newly created state of Pakistan, declaring an independent Baluchistan. Faced with the prospect of Pakistani military moves against Kalat, the Khan offered to accept a confederated status granting the control of defence, foreign affairs and currency to the central government, but his proposal was rejected (Harrison 1978: 143).

In fact, the Baluch people’s struggle for political rights began as soon as the state of Kalat signed an Instrument of Accession with Pakistan on 27 March 1948.3 Ahmad Yar Khan had signed the Instrument of Accession despite the fact that it was rejected by both houses of the Kalat State (PIPS 2008: 18). In fact, the acces-sion increased resentment among the Sardars (chiefs). A month after the Khan signed the Instrument of Accession, Abdul Karim4 led an armed group into Afghanistan in protest against the agreement (Titus and Swidler 2000: 50).

Pakistan did not want to lose the tribal areas, so with the departure of the British, Pakistani central governments have attempted to reverse the Sandeman policy of internal tribal autonomy to meet the goal of a strong and centralised state. In the process, the attempt has been to merge the fiercely guarded Baluch identity into a composite Pakistani identity. The agreement between Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam (Father of the Nation) and the Khan of Kalat, had promised full autonomy to the Baluch tribes, but the Instrument of Accession was not honoured after Jinnah’s death. This breach of trust proved to be a turning point in Baluchistan’s history.

Politics of Land, Language and Resources

Natural resources are important for nation building. Conflicts over water, oil or food can destroy states while the control or distribution of resources can bind people together. Equally, the perception of organised injustice in distribution can undermine the state’s security and its legitimacy. This is what happened in East Pakistan (present Bangladesh) in the years after independence in 1947. As Tariq Ali (1970: 60–61) has pointed out:

Inequitable distribution of resources by the central government had isolated the Bengali from the state, especially after 1954, when the overall economic situation deteriorated. Out of the total development fund, East Pakistan’s share was only 22.1% and non-Bengali businessmen, financed by capital from West Pakistan, had set up most manu-facturing enterprises. East Pakistan, therefore, gradually become a complete colony; its raw material was used to develop Karachi and the Punjab.




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We are in danger of seeing this very phenomenon repeat itself in Baluchistan today. The authority of the state of Pakistan as an impersonal and just arbiter even after the secession of East Pakistan and the founding of the state of Bangladesh has continued to erode. The partial and predatory state structure serves the power-ful and preys on the weak. Political institutions are consequently ineffective. The perception that ‘Punjabis run the show and everything serves them’ is widespread (Alavi 1990: 34). There has been little adherence to the ideal of a just state which would protect all Pakistani citizens and treat them equally and fairly, as promised in Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah’s famous speech in which he argued that Islam was not just a religion, but represented a separate social order, culture and a civilisation that gave the Muslims a distinctive character as a political community (Ahmad 1960: 160). Jinnah’s address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, on 11 August 1947, sends a clear message to the extremists and fundamentalists: ‘You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state’ (Jinnah n.d.: 65). Unfortunately, Jinnah’s true ideology which would have pro-moted nation-building immensely has been hijacked by the political-authoritarian state, religious extremists and ignorant ulema (clergy).

The ethnic groups that have not been integrated into the national power struc-ture nor been granted any measure of cultural and political autonomy have now turned against the Pakistani state. Of these, the Baluch are the most prominent (Harrison 1978). In fact, in Sindh and Baluchistan, waves of migration have altered the demographic balance; first with the inflow of refugees from other parts of India in 1947, and then from Afghanistan in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded the country. The issues of language, territory and unequal distribution of economic resources were rapidly politicised and found expression as grievances by both the Central Government and the Baluch leadership. As in the case of East Pakistan, this has led to migration and then separatist movements in Baluchistan.

Identity and language are closely related. Hindu and Muslim parties in pre-Partition India employed language and history to authenticate separateness (Rehman 1996). Language therefore played an important role in Pakistan’s crea-tion. Yet the ideology of Muslim and Pakistani identity collapsed in the quarrel between East and West Pakistan. As language and religion divided Hindus from Muslims in pre-Independence India, today ethnicity, language and sectarian iden-tities within Islam divide Pakistan within itself and separate the Baluch from other Pakistanis. The target killings in Baluchistan since 2008 have alarmed Punjabis that they are not safe in the Baluchi state (Daily Times 2010).

The British Raj had supported Punjabi Muslims and Sikhs and Pashtuns over other ethnic groups. As a part of their divide-and-rule strategy, they termed ethnic groups who supported the British during the uprising of 1857, such as the Sikhs and Gurkhas, as ‘martial races’ while groups that had been instrumental in the upris-ing such as Brahmins were dubbed ‘non martial races’ (Baxter et al. 1998: 8–9). The most important colonial legacy of the British has been the highly centralised





and authoritarian state apparatus that over time came under the domination of Punjabis and Pashtuns in Pakistan. Consequently, the state elites of Pakistan have tried to create a single nation-state by using the card of religion and language (Islam and Urdu) as a smokescreen for their policies of building an unequal nation state, with the Punjabi and Pashtun in a position of hegemony.

The Baluchistan Province in its current form came into being on 1 July 1970 with the abolition of One Unit in West Pakistan, when the administrative divisions of Quetta and Kalat were merged to form this Province. It remained under the bureaucratic rule of the Central government until after the elections of December 1970 and the restoration of civilian rule in December 1971; power was returned to the Province only with the convening of the provincial Assembly in April 1972 (Aijaz Ahmad 1973: 4).

Baluchistan’s physical features are strategically sensitive and significant not only for Pakistan. Baluchistan is becoming a ‘hub’ for the regional and major powers of China, USA, Iran, Afghanistan and India. Baluchistan’s area includes Iranian Baluchistan to its west and parts of Afghanistan located to its north where it touches the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Baluchistan is bound on the west by 520 miles long border with Iran and on the north by 720 miles border with Afghanistan. In the East are the Pakistani provinces of Sind, Punjab and a part of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Its extended seaboard runs along the Seistan region of Iran ending at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. With a 470 mile Arabian Sea coastline, the province occupies almost three-fourth of Pakistan’s entire coast, which makes it a channel for accessing the Straits of Hormuz, one of the key strategic points in the Indian Ocean (PIPS 2008: 20–21). Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan, covering 347,190 square kilometres, yet it contains only 6 per cent of the country’s population, recorded in 2008 at seven million; many believe that this is really between eight and ten million. The Baluchistan coast provides Pakistan with an exclusive economic zone potentially rich in oil, gas and minerals spread over approximately 180,000 square kilometres. The coast also gives Baluchistan considerable strategic importance, for two of Pakistan’s three naval bases, Ormara and Gwadar, are situated on the Baluchistan coast (Niazi 2005). The new Gwadar Port was commissioned in 2008 with Chinese financial and technical assistance. On that occasion, the Chief Minister of Baluchistan declared, ‘Gwadar belongs to the Baluch people and no one would be allowed to sell it to anti-Baluch forces’ (Akbar 2008). This port has been a cause of constant political turmoil in Baluchistan since 2004, long before it became operational. Baluch nationalists fear the local population would be turned into a minority for strategic reasons arising from the importance of the port to Pakistan.

Military-Civil Regimes and Baluch Nationalists

The Baluch tribes have distinct territorial domains governed by tribal Sardars. Ethnically and politically, Baluchistan is much more fragmented than it has been




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generally realised. A policy of offering cosmetic and insubstantial authority to the Baluch people while denying real power has evoked considerable unhappiness. Baluch nationalists agitated to draw attention to their concerns under both the military and democratic regimes. The causes of the direct confrontation with the central governments have been the same, whichever the regime, and Baluchistan has seen four major clashes with the central government over the past sixty years.

The first wave of conflict started in 1958–59 when the most extreme resistance to Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s One Unit took place in Baluchistan. The army moved into Kalat and arrested the Khan and other political leaders. Tensions grew when the army demanded that weapons be handed over and tribesmen refused to comply. Nouraiz Khan, the chief of the Zehri tribe, organised a guerrilla force demanding the return of the Khan to power and the withdrawal of the One Unit, but was arrested and later died in prison.

After a decade, insurgency erupted again in 1963–69, when the Central gov-ernment sent the Army to build new garrisons in Baluchistan. Baluch leaders organised guerrilla warfare: Sher Muhammad established 22 camps in the Marri-Bugti and Mengal areas. Ayub Khan’s government succeeded in breaking the power of the Sardars (tribal chiefs): three Sardars, Akbar Bugti, Attaullah Khan Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri were deposed from their chieftainships. The new appointees were assassinated by the Farraries. The army undertook further repris-als; only after Ayub Khan’s government offered a general amnesty was there a temporary calm. But in 1968, lands were allotted to Punjabi settlers in the areas bordering Sindh, to be irrigated by a new canal called the Pat Feeder, dug from the Guddu barrage in upper Sindh. Peace was secured by allotting lands to the Baluch.

When Baluch nationalism re-emerged under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Premiership, he dismissed the provincial government of the National Awami Party (NAP) on the trumped up charges that it was raising Baluch armies to secede from Pakistan. The central government accused the NAP-JUI (Jameet-e-Ulma-e-Islam) (Party of Islamic Scholars) governments of organising their own police force, allowing or encouraging the lawless behaviour of the Baluch Students Organization (BSO) and Marri tribesmen (Sher Muhammad) and obstructing the work of the Coast Guard so that their supporters could smuggle food and arms (Titus and Swidler 2000). When Bhutto dismissed the NAP-JUI government, Punjabi bureaucrats were forced to quit Quetta, their houses were destroyed and some were killed by Baluch nationalists who launched a guerrilla war which went on for four years until Bhutto was thrown out of power by the military (Marri 2010).

Bhutto’s decision to send the army into Baluchistan strengthened the army at the expense of the central government and led to his being overthrown (Hassan 2002: 186). His usurper General Zia granted amnesty to the Baluch guerrillas in 1978, allocated funds for their resettlement and released thousands of remaining prisoners.5 The Baluch coalition forged a close political alliance with Pashtun nationalists from the NWFP (North-West Frontier Province, now Khyber





Pakhtunkhwa province) that helped them to win political support of the Pashtuns in Baluchistan. The demand for provincial autonomy persists today.

The revival of democracy in the 1980s in Pakistan brought about fundamental change in the politics of the Baluchistan National Party (BNP), the Baluchistan National Movement and the Jamhori Watan Party. Benazir Bhutto’s government decreased the resentment of Baluch nationalists and rehabilitated 300 Baluch Marri tribals trapped in Afghanistan by their Sardars (Marri 2010). But the Baluch elite continue to voice their concerns about the distribution of financial resources between the central government and their province. They want a greater share of royalties from the sale of natural gas, a better deal in the allocation of finance for development, and greater provincial autonomy.

From Autonomy to Independence

For decades, separatists in Baluchistan have been fighting a guerrilla war for con-trol of the province’s resources. Whenever the central government tried to explore the natural resources of Baluchistan, the Baluch Sardars opposed it, since they saw no local benefit to this. When General Pervez Musharraf’s government launched projects in Dera Bugti, Sui and Kohlu6 in Baluchistan, the Baluch nation-alist parties, the Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), Baluch Liberation Front and People Liberation Army, launched attacks on sensitive installations and institu-tions and killed Chinese engineers at Gwadar port. The Baluchi Sardars had long opposed the development of Gwadar Port and the establishment of an army can-tonment in Baluchistan. Baluch nationalists have feared demographic change. Former Senator Sanaullah Baloch has campaigned against land allotment to Punjabis since 1999: he claims that the Baluch are being converted to a minority, as land is sold to the Punjabi elite and community (Baloch 2008). In January 2003, Akbar Bugti (who was killed during Pervez Musharraf’s regime in 2006) said:

Baluchistan belongs to the Baluch people and not to outsiders. The tribes have special interests, and control of natural resources is our primary demand. We own the natural resources, but these are being exploited for the benefit of others. We will not allow oth-ers to steal our wealth. Your sensitive installations will remain insecure, because you have pilfered, what belongs to our people. (A.A. Khan 2003b)

In fact, the sense of insecurity forced nationalists to take up weapons against the non-Baluch and to reorganise militant groups. The central government blamed Akbar Bugti for unrest in Baluchistan when he articulated the widely held view that local royalties must be paid and increased for natural gas and other resources, and the Baluchi people must gain tangible benefits from this and other national projects such as the development of Gwadar port. But General Musharraf ignored all such demands (Marri 2010).




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General Musharraf decided to take harsh action when six rockets were fired when he was touring the eastern Baluchistan city of Kohlu in 2005. Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed in a military operation on 26 August 2006. The Musharraf regime outdid its predecessors. It not only expanded Gwadar port and its plans for a new cantonment, it put a seal on its implacability by dismissing the recommendations of a Senate Committee (Rehman 2008).7

Baluchistan Package

The Baluchistan Package is the first step towards addressing the alienation and dissatisfaction of the geographically largest and mineral rich province of Pakistan, in which a situation of insurgency has been growing since 2006. It is the first seri-ous attempt to deal with a pile of grievances of the province that have accumu-lated over the decades, but more so during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf. Neither sub-national sentiments nor insurgency is new to Baluchistan. At least twice before in the years since 1948, the province has been plunged into conflict between the security forces and Baluch nationalist guerrilla outfits. Today, it is not yet a full blown or widespread insurgency.

Although the Package appears to show a good understanding of the problems of Baluchistan and offers a political remedy, it is at best a good opening to rede-fine the relationship between the federation and the province of Baluchistan. The success of the Package would depend on how speedily it is implemented and how effectively the estranged Baluch nationalist leaders are brought back into the political process.

There are some signs of optimism pointing towards resolution of the Baluchistan issue, as all the major political parties seem to have evolved a consensus on greater provincial autonomy than the present structure of the Constitution permits. After more than two decades, the political parties have for the first time reached a con-sensus on the National Finance Commission Award, which divides the pool of nationally accumulated resources between the federation and the provinces and also amongst the provinces (Khokhar 2005). This provides a good background for flexibility and accommodation on the issue of provincial autonomy and transfer of the greater part of the concurrent list (subjects on which the federation and the provinces have dual jurisdiction, but the federation has the primacy) to the prov-inces, which is likely to be part of the proposed 18th Amendment to the 1973 Constitution that is currently being negotiated.

The Package is part of larger efforts to transition centre-tilted cooperative fed-eralism that Pakistan has practiced to a more balanced one that would address the grievances of the smaller provinces. In developing this line of argument, we will raise the following questions regarding the Baluchistan Package: Does it give a good political signal to the disaffected Baluch leaders about the willingness of the federation and the mainstream political parties to renegotiate the centre–province relationship? Has the process of formulating the Package been an inclusive one?





How is this package different from an earlier attempt of the Mushahid Hussain-Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain Report (2006), made during General Musharraf’s government? Why have nationalist parties rejected the Package? How likely is the federation to succeed in selling the Package as the beginning of recognition of the rights of Baluchistan and engage the Baluch leaders into a dialogue on resolving tricky issues of provincial autonomy, empowerment and rights of the provinces over their natural resources?

So far, the Baluchistan Package remains a mirage because it cannot be imple-mented in its true spirit. Baluch nationalists have rejected this package as ‘fraudu-lent’ and ‘peanuts’, which is not acceptable. The Package does not provide full autonomy. According to Javaid-ur-Rahman:

Senator Mir Hasil Bezenjo said there should be some practical steps for the welfare of the people of Balochistan, who were living with deep sense of deprivation. He rejected the package as a fraud and said that there was nothing in it for the people of Balochistan. Senator Abdul Malik said the package was only a game of words, as it would further increase hopelessness among the people of the area. (Javaid-ur-Rahman 2009)

Challenges and Problems

External intervention in Baluchistan is one among several grave challenges to the unity and integrity of the Pakistani state. India is supporting Baluch nationalists in Baluchistan (M.E. Khan 2009) and pumping money into covert operations there.8 India has drawn a line around Baluchistan and prepared a Baluchistan specific policy, according to a White Paper, to exploit the division within Pakistan and expose its weaknesses in Balochistan, FATA and Azad Kashmir. A sustained dip-lomatic campaign has been undertaken by India to build international pressure, especially from the US, with the message that should such efforts fail, India was ready for war (Daily Times 2009a).9 According to Asad Rahman, a prominent Baluch dissident:

The current US strategy is to achieve the balkanisation of Pakistan, leaving Punjab as a landlocked Pakistan whose nuclear capability could thus be neutralised. This is evidenced by the new map of the Middle East prepared by a US think tank which shows Sindh as part of Rajasthan, NWFP as part of Afghanistan and Balochistan as an independent ‘Greater Balochistan’ including Baloch areas in Iran and Afghanistan. In this weak economic military state of Balochistan, the US hopes to control its natural resources and seal its border with Iran. The US also plans to use the cantonments being built in Balochistan in their operations against Iran. (Mirza 2008)

Afghanistan is also supporting an insurgency in Baluchistan, trying to bolster the leadership of separatists fighting the government (Daily Times 2009c).10 Afghan President Hamid Karzai has claimed at various times that the top leadership of




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al-Qaeda and Taliban is in hiding in Baluchistan. The US has consequently focused on broadening its target area to include a major insurgent sanctuary in and around the city of Quetta (Sanger and Schmitt 2009).

Gwadar port is now important to both India and the United States, who may develop a joint strategy to contain the influence of China, the main beneficiary of Gwadar. China’s enormous expenditure on this deep sea port should give it a facil-ity which can be militarised and provide access to the Persian Gulf and the oil and gas resources of the Middle East.

Conclusion

With foreign support the Baluch nationalists could well prevail over a weak and divided central government. Should at least some of the genuinely felt demands of the Baluch people for local autonomy and control over their own resources not be met, there is danger of civil war. Baluch nationalism is a reality that cannot be ignored forever. External forces also play a major role in promoting separatist ethnic identity in multi-ethnic and multinational states: India has played and is playing its role in fomenting Baluch nationalism. Unless India and Afghanistan end their animosity towards Pakistan, attaining viable peace and security in the region will be even more elusive.

Notes 1. The Treaty of Gandamak officially ended the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan

War. Afghanistan ceded various frontier areas to Britain to prevent invasion of further areas of the country. It was signed by the emir of Afghanistan, Mohammad Yaqub Khan and Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, representing the British Government of India, on 26 May 1879 at a British army camp near the village of Gandamak, about seventy miles east of Kabul.

2. It is worth mentioning that the current Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a conflicted demarcation that is unacceptable to the Afghan government.

3. The transcript of the Instrument of Accession signed by the Ruler of Kalat State can be accessed from Balochvoice.com 2012.

4. Abdul Karim Khan, the younger brother of the Khan of Kalat, was the key figure in the Baluch nationalist movement early in the post-colonial period. Prior to partition, Abdul Karim Khan was commandant of Kalat state’s military, and during Kalat’s short lived independence he held the post of Governor. For details, see Titus and Swidler 2000.

5. This tragedy took the lives of about 5,300 Baluch guerrillas and 3,300 Pakistan army personnel. The economic and human cost of this conflict was horrendous. See Khan and Ahmad 2000.

6. Dera Bugti, Sui and Kohlu are the three major conflict zones in Baluchistan and the major camps of the Baluch Nationalists.

7. General Musharraf also ignored the Committee’s report on the clearance of gas royalty arrears, the revision of the concurrent list, national finance commission award,





provincial autonomy and the development of gas rich areas. For details, see Daily Times 2005.

8. RAND scholar Christine Fair reports:

Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issu-ing visas as the main activity. Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Kandahar along the border. (Daily Times 2009b)

9. Also see a statement of Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, implicating Afghanistan and India for their support to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) (Dawn 2009).

10. Pakistan also indicated Indian involvement in Baluchistan at the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting of the two prime ministers on 16 July 2009; see Indian Express 2009.

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Documents

Baluchistan Nationalist Movement and Unrest in Pakistan