• Excerpt from Jaffrelot, Christophe (2002), "Introduction" in Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation?, Zed Books, UK

Excerpt from Jaffrelot, Christophe (2002), "Introduction" in Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation?, Zed Books, UK

"Rise and Decline of the Baluch Movement for Self-determination"

The trajectory of the Baluch nationalist movement is rather similar to that of the Pathan movement. Like the Pakhtuns, the Baluchis are spread over several countries, not only Pakistan and Iran, but also Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Hence, irredentist dimension of Baluch nationalism. This ideology is a political construct which hardly relies on linguistic features since the Baluch speak two languages, Baluchi and Brahui, a Dravidian idiom that was the mother tongue of the Kalat dynasty. Now Baloch nationalism draws most of its inspiration from the kingdom of Kalat, a principality of the Afghan State whose frontiers almost coincided with the Baluch area in the eighteen century. During the colonial period, the part of the Kalat kingdom which belonged to the Raj became one of the princely states recognized by the British, who, in fact, did not impose their direct rule on most of Baluchistan. In 1947, the Khan of Kalat Abdul Karim tried to achieve independence for his kingdom but the Pakistan Army decided otherwise and it was integrated with the new state in March 1948. The former ruler eventually entered the political arena by forming the People's party.

Baluch nationalism really crystallized as a reaction to the overcentralization of the Pakistani State. In 1972 the Provincial elections, the first elections ever organized in Baluchistan on the basis of universal suffrage, were won by the alliance of two regional parties, the National Awami Party of Wali Khan whose stronghold was in NWFP with which the People Party had merged, and the Jamiat-i-Ulama-e-Islm, an Islamic party that was supported by the sardars of Baluchistan. The new government immediately attempted to indigenize the administration by replacing the non-Baluchi bureaucrats by "sons of the soil". Islamabad strongly reacted to this "spoils system" which was about to deprive the other provinces (especially Panjab) of traditional sinecures. The other bone of contention was related to the Government of Quetta, to the concentration of the investments in Panjab, at the expense of the other provinces, including Baluchistan.

Z. A. Bhutto accused the Baluch Government of separatism and dismissed it in February 1973, after the police had found arms with an Iraqi diplomat which were allegedly destined for the Baluch nationalists. Most of the Baluch leaders having been put behind bars, a second rank of Baluchi leadership, mostly students, took over the nationalist movement and launched a guerrilla war with Marxist overtones. The Baluch Peoples' Liberation Front (BLF) and the Baluch Students' Organisation (BSO) mobilized about 10,000 militants. The Pakistan Army, which received the support of the Shah of Iran who feared that "his" Baluch citizens too would be attracted towards a separatist movement, had to deploy 80,000 soldiers in the province. In 1973-7 about 5,300 Baluchis and 3,300 soldiers were killed. The scenario of this crisis is somewhat similar to that of East Pakistan, in the sense that the overreaction by the Centre transformed a movement for autonomy into proper separatist nationalism. To begin with, the Baluch

were not fighting for independence but rather for regional autonomy within a radically restructured, confederal Pakistani constitutional framework. [… ] By the time the shooting subsided in 1977, however, separatist feeling greatly intensified. The wanton use of superior fire-power by the Pakistani and Iranian forces, especially the indiscriminate air attacks on Baluch villages, had left a legacy of bitter and enduring hatred. Since nearly all Baluchis felt the impact of Pakistani repression, the Baluch populace has been politisized to a unprecedented degree.

Soon after when he took over from Bhutto, Gen. Zia appeased a section of the Baluch nationalists by liberating thousands of prisoners. Some of them took path of exile, like Attaullah Khan Mengal, who left for London. He founded there the Sindh Baluch and Pakhtun Front with the help of Mumtaz Bhutto. Mengal still did not want anything short of a confederal regime in which Baluchistan would have been an independent country. Similarly, Khair Bux Mari established himself in Afghanistan with about 3,000 armed activists. But most of the other Baluch leaders showed greater moderation, partly because of Ziz's ability to co-opt them. The former BSO president and guerrilla militant Khair Jan Baluch, of instance, gave up the fight and former Governor Bizenjo created the Pakistan National Party in order to put pressure on the regime from inside, for promoting a better functioning of the federal structure enshrined in the Constitution of 1973. Many of the Sardars preferred to collaborate with the Centre, which was most willing to co-opt them.

From 1988 onwards, the democratization process gave even more room for manoeuvre to the Baluch notables in the political arena, and the more they took part competitive elections, the more they got divided. In November 1988 , Sardar Akhtar Mengal formed the Baluchistan National Movement which played a pivotal role in the new governmental coalition, the Baluchistan National Alliance of Nawab Akbar Bugti. However factional conflicts became more acute when the 1990 interim elections approached. Bugti broke away from the BNA and launched the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) which made an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif. That was a clear indication of an interesting change in the strategy of the Baluch politicians: their factional rivalries led them to make alliances with national parties which could help them in getting access to power. Similarly, in 1996 Zulfikar Ali Khan Magsi formed a government with the support of the PPP, of the PML (N) and the JUI !

In December 1991, the factions of Mengal and Bezanjo formed a new party, the Baluchistan National Party. But none of the contenders won a majority of the seats to the provincial assembly in the February 1997 elections. With 10 seats of 43, the BNP was the largest single party and Sardar Attaullah Khan Mengal therefore formed a coalition government with the support of the PPP. Simultaneously, the BNP supported the PML (N) in the National Assembly , another indication of the increasingly pragmatic relationship between the Baluch leaders and the national, mainstream parties.

Mengal resigned in 1998 in protest against the conduct of the nuclear tests in Baluchistan because, he claimed, they had been decided without consulting him and the honour of the Baluchis was at stake. After he resigned, Mengal reverted back to his traditional Baluch nationalist discourse. In an interview to The Muslim he declared, for instance: "We are forced to look for our identity". However, the main bones of contention between his government and Nawaz Sharif were not related to the identity question alone. Mengal resented the way the Centre kept for itself an unwarranted share of the royalties by gas of Baluchistan. He was also very critical of the decisions of the National Finance Commission which, according to him were highly detrimental to Baluchistan.

The trajectory of the Baluch nationalist movement comes as a reconfirmation of three key features of the ethnic issues in Pakistan. First, self-determination movements crystalize in reaction to the overcentralized and authoritarian methods of the State (as already noticed in the case of the movement for Bangladesh and Pakhtunistan, or Pakhtunkhwa). Second, the co-option of the ethnic leaders or the making of alliances between their parties and national parties tend to defuse the centrifugal tendencies: this process reflects the integrative capacity of power that we have already underlined in the case of rural Sindh and the NWFP. Third, the intensity of the nationalist feelings also depends upon the distribution f power and the socio-economic situation: this political economy of separatism, a notion which has obvious affinities with the theory that Ernest Gellner developed on the basis of other case studies, was already evident from the Pakistan movement before 1947 and from all the ethnic separatist movements we have studied so far.

To sum up, national integration has made significant progress in Pakistan, compared to the early 1970s when Bengalis, Sindhis, Baluchis and Pathans were attracted to separatist movements. At that time, the ideology of Pakistan remained identified with the 'minority Muslims' of British India who had searched for a state to govern and even more of the Punjabis who had gradually dislodged the Mohajirs from political power. While the Bengalis were further alienated by the over-centralization of the Pakistan State, and seceded in 1971, the Sindhis, the Baluchis and the Pathans, who had to suffer from the Punjabi domination too, eventually got more integrated when they secured some power or achieved upward mobility. The Punjabi domination is still very much resented, as evident from the protests against the second Sharif Government (1997-9) when not only the Prime Minister and 85 per cent of his ministers were from Punjab, but also the President, Tarar, and for some time the Chief of Army Staff, Jahangir Karamat. The domination of Punjab is almost inevitable during the democratization periods since more than half of the constituencies of the National Assembly (115 out of 207) are located in Punjab (against 46 in Sindh, 26 in the NWFP and 11 Baluchistan). But it is also inevitable as the Army which rules the country is Punjabi-dominated.

In October 1998, the opposition to the Punjabi 'hegemony' found a new expression in the establishment of the Pakistan Oppressed Nationalities Movement (PONM). This anti-Punjab front, which has been initiated by ANP leaders, has no separatist overtones and, furthermore, all its components, be they Pakhtun, Baluch or Sindhi, play the electoral game. It asks for a truly federal system, a proportional representation of all the provinces in the army as well as the administration and the creation of a Sraiki province. The Sraiki movement took shape in the 1970s when the speakers of Riatsi (in Bahawalpur), Multani (in Multan) and Derajati (in Der Ghazi Khan) came to consider that they spoke the same language, an idiom called Sraiki. This local identity came to undermine the regional, Punjabi identity.