Happy March 23
Rashed Rahman
March 23 rolled round this year in relatively muted fashion. This was not surprising, given the plethora of troubles afflicting the country. The day saw the usual fare on the media of commemorations of Pakistan Day, but the public mood seemed unenthusiastic.
Events in Balochistan cast a pall of gloom over the day. In the aftermath of the Balochistan Liberation Army’s (BLA’s) attack on the Jaffer Express and the events that followed, this was not unexpected. The BLA operation was of a scale and effectiveness that indicated the growing capability of the nationalist insurgency in the province. One consequence of the incident was the conflict over the dead bodies of BLA militants allegedly killed in the last stages of the counter-operation by the security forces against BLA ‘stragglers’ holding hostages taken from the train. It did seem strange that guerrillas would simply be sitting around with hostages, waiting for the security forces’ riposte, when the normal expectation would have been that they would have retreated along with their other colleagues once their day was done, as guerrillas normally are expected to do. Therefore this claim of slain guerrillas seemed suspicious to the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) that has been agitating since long on the issue of ‘missing’ persons. The BYC demanded access to the bodies of alleged BLA guerrillas killed by the security forces to determine whether any of them were ‘missing’ persons. Ostensibly an unobjectionable desire, the state’s response was the usual rebuff. No account was taken, nor leeway permitted, on an issue that is highly emotive for the families of the ‘missing’ seeking news of their loved ones since years. The result was a natural outburst of indignation by the BYC, which intruded into the hospital’s morgue where the dead bodies were kept and succeeded in retrieving five of them. Then all hell was let loose by the police and security forces on the BYC protestors, in which three people were reportedly killed by police firing on unarmed, peaceful people. The administration of course spun this incident the other way as the BYC protestors having attacked the police and injured some of their personnel, but no clear explanation was on offer how the three people were killed. Dr Mahrang Baloch, the leader of BYC, along with about 150 of her colleagues were arrested and charged with terrorism and such like offences. In response, the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) has announced a conference in Quetta to address the issue, while Baloch students in Lahore have taken out a protest rally against such over-the-top actions.
This has been the recurring pattern of how the state has reacted time and again to the peaceful sit-ins and protests, in Balochistan and even in Islamabad, by the BYC on the issue of their ‘missing’ loved ones. This response has deepened, if anything, the alienation and anger of the affected families of the ‘missing’, not to mention Baloch society as a whole. Moderate nationalist political parties such as the BNP-M and the National Party, entities wedded to parliamentary politics, were cut to size through manipulation of the February 2024 elections. Akhtar Mengal, despairing of being heard, let alone listened to, has quit the National Assembly. Dr Malik Baloch bravely continues to raise voice in the Balochistan Assembly, all to no avail. Emasculating the moderate, parliamentary political forces and dealing with peaceful protestors demanding answers to the vexed question of the fate of their ‘missing’ loved ones with by far excessive force (as even the Human Rights Commission has found) is guaranteed like nothing else to push more and more young Baloch into the arms of the nationalist insurgency when no other recourse seems to suggest itself or, in practice, be available. In this regard, the state and its security apparatus is proving the best recruiting agent for the Baloch guerrillas.
People in the media and generally of good intentions have been railing for a ‘balanced’ approach and a democratic strategy, not force alone, to tackle the situation in Balochistan that appears to be growing graver by the minute. But all these good intentions appear only to be the paving for the road to hell since their authors seem to be whistling in the wind. Meanwhile the Baloch insurgency has acquired increasingly enhanced capability and, in the process, reflects more and more the changes that have been taking place quietly in Baloch society since the last nationalist insurgency in the 1970s. A new middle class has arisen in this interregnum that is providing a very different, educated recruit to the guerrillas. Not only that, since this newly emerging middle class is drawn from virtually all over Balochistan, it has managed to expand the sweep of the guerrilla war to almost every nook and cranny of the vast, rugged province. Along with enhanced military and political capacity, the Baloch nationalist insurgency has now expanded the old demand for provincial autonomy, redressal of historic grievances and rights for its people to an unequivocal demand for independence on the basis of the right to self-determination. An added, tragic dimension is the tactic increasingly in use to kill outsiders, whether travellers or working in Balochistan, on the plea that this influx threatens to change the demographic of Balochistan against its native inhabitants. Such is the fruit of more than seven decades of oppression of the Baloch and exploitation and extraction of their resources without even a glance at the poverty and deprivation of their people. Such persistent injustice engenders nothing but growing hatred.
Is this how we wish to remember the pious hopes once associated with the memory of March 23?
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