Gwadar reflects Balochistan’s cruel deprivation
Rashed Rahman
Almost a month after the people of Gwadar have been protesting in the thousands in the streets, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has finally woken up to the “very legitimate” demands of the protestors. Imran Khan has vowed to take ‘strong’ action against the illegal fishing by trawlers that has deprived the poor fishermen of Gwadar of their already precarious livelihood. Promising to speak to Chief Minister (CM) Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo on the issue, the PM may or may not be aware that some (if not all) of the ‘illegal’ trawlers are Chinese, whose fishing activities in the sea off the Gwadar coast have been tacitly allowed by the authorities. This ‘bonanza’ is no doubt part of our grovelling gratitude to the Chinese for making Gwadar Port the flagship project of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The ‘strong’ action promised by Imran Khan may have unforeseen negative effects on the already strained relations between Pakistan and China over the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government’s perceived foot dragging over CPEC and its projects.
The list of 19 demands by the Gwadar protestors reflect not only their anger and disappointment over the much vaunted CPEC development of the port ignoring the people of the area and their basic rights. These 19 demands include stopping illegal fishing by foreign trawlers, removal of the Gwadar Development Authority Director General as well as Pasni’s Deputy Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner, restoration of cross-border trade with Iran (the sole means of earning for many in the region), provision of clean drinking water, closure of wine shops (a demand owed no doubt to Maulana Hidayatur Rehman, Balochistan general secretary of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the leader of the Gwadar protests), jobs, job quota for the disabled, free 300 units of electricity and boats and vehicles confiscated under the Customs Act to be returned to their owners.
Adviser to the CM on Home and Tribal Affairs Mir Ziaullah Langau resorted to the wearingly familiar tactic of throwing dust in the eyes of the protestors by claiming that the Balochistan government had already fulfilled most of the 19 demands! In other words, in Mir Ziaullah Langau’s eyes, the protestors are mad to continue their campaign. One report says the only demand that appears to have been fulfilled so far is the closure of wine shops. The track record of the most crucial demand, clean drinking water, without which life itself is impossible, indicates the seriousness of the authorities in redressing the genuine deprivations of the people of Gwadar. Balochistan is suffering from an acute drinking water crisis, in which 70 percent of the province has been hit, with Gwadar in the worst predicament. The Ankara Dam was built in 1994 to provide water to 35,000 people in the Gwadar area but dried up four times. Lack of maintenance has led to the loss of half of its storage capacity. In the last two years, three Chinese-funded dams have been completed, while two are under construction as part of CPEC. Unfortunately though, none of these is connected to Gwadar. In 2015-16, a desalination plant was provided to Gwadar to supply 1.1 million litres of water against a target of 7.5 million litres. Currently, no desalination plants are operational. Water tankers from Mirani Dam have to be relied upon, no doubt accompanied by the tender ministrations of the ‘tanker mafia’. The long standing issue has consistently fallen on deaf ears. The only reason Imran Khan has woken up to Gwadar’s misery, and that too after a month, is the size of the protests, which have broken through traditional tribal norms with the incredible number of Baloch women seen in the protests.
If the five-star hotel in Gwadar was not affront enough to the poor and deprived people of the area, we now hear that the cost of the new Gwadar airport has risen by 550 percent. In the face of the poverty and deprivation of rights of the people of Balochistan, nothing but the usual mish-mash of promises, promises (never fulfilled), is fed to them by the authorities. Empty gestures and promises remind the Baloch people of the history of broken promises (some bordering on the treacherous) to which they have been subjected since Pakistan’s independence. Is it any surprise then that Balochistan is in the grip of the fifth nationalist insurgency since Pakistan came into being?
Awami Workers Party and Baloch Muttahida Mahaz president Yousuf Mustikhan was invited to address the rally of the protestors. He delivered a speech that reminded the audience of the Baloch people’s long standing grievances, including the forcible annexation of Balochistan to Pakistan in 1947-48, the province’s gas being ‘stolen’ since 1953, etc. He ended with a rhetorical verbal flourish that the Baloch people are considered ‘slaves’ in Pakistan but they will not bow to this status. These are hardly new revelations. They have been in the public space for decades. Nevertheless, Yousuf Mustikhan was arrested a day after his speech on December 8, 2021 from his hotel and charged under numerous ‘anti-state’ provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code. The arrest of an elderly leader who is also a cancer sufferer provoked widespread condemnation, with a bevy of lawyers rushing to his aid and managing to have him released on bail on December 10, 2021. Maulana Hidayatur Rehman responded to this development by stating that they are not afraid of arrests, but the attitude of the authorities is pushing their peaceful protest towards violence. This last may not be mere rhetoric since reports say thousands of police are being sent to Gwadar from other districts to maintain ‘law and order’.
The Gwadar protest has no intention of being seduced and misled by the familiar refrain of the authorities’ promises of redress. In an astonishing turnaround, the JI, hitherto never considered a strong party in Balochistan, has to its credit tapped into the long standing life and death concerns of the people of Gwadar, including its women, and produced a sustained protest by thousands of people for a month, with no sign of fatigue or giving up until the promises of the authorities are translated into reality on the ground. The JI’s taking the lead on these issues (owed a great deal to the fact that Maulana Hidayatur Rehman comes from a poor fishing family background) has caused a great deal of heartburn and gnashing of teeth amongst the Baloch nationalist parties, who complacently perhaps regarded the area as their exclusive political preserve. Perhaps the shock of being displaced if not replaced by the JI in this unprecedented protest campaign is just the medicine they need to get off their hands and engage with the people of Balochistan, beset by a mountain of complaints, deprivations and injustices. History does not wait for anyone.
The 1905 unsuccessful revolutionary uprising in Tsarist Russia was inspired by a protest march for bread led by a Father Gapon, suspected of being a Tsarist spy. The protest procession was attacked by the Tsar’s troops, a massacre to be dubbed ‘Bloody Sunday’ followed, and fed directly into the revolutionary upsurge. Although it was eventually crushed by Tsarist absolutism, 1905 proved the ‘dress rehearsal’ for 1917, throwing up in the process the new form of political organisation called soviets (councils) of workers, peasants and soldiers. Maulana Hidayatur Rehman may be no Father Gapon, but he has certainly lit a torch that if not handled carefully, could produce unexpected results and fallouts.
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