The various narratives intricately built around the problem we refer to as ‘Balochistan: Pakistan’s other war’ need to be understood in light of our colonial past and this region’s history and geography. Contextual analysis of the current scenario is of utmost importance. How the British treated various ethnicities, and helped build sharper divides because of the discrimination practiced in strategic law enforcement have seeped into our political, social and economic reality today. For the British smooth governance with maximum resource extraction was the fundamental motive. The long run repercussions of the strategies used were of little value.
“Rule the Punjabis, intimidate the Sindhis, buy the Pashtun and honor the Baloch”
The formula the British used to deal with our four provinces was precise. Current stereotypes held by Pakistani people has been in harmony with their pre-colonial markers, which was in fact reflective of structural relationships existing a posteriori , taken account of reinforced and to a great extent exploited.
The backdrop to these relationships is enmeshed in the daily interface and interweaves of far western India and reflected in the essentialism that formed the crux of British policy in India. Spread over an area of 222,000 sq miles Balochistan historically served as a sanctuary for peoples displaced by successive waves of Afghan, Mongol and Mughal conquerors seeking the riches of Delhi. The unremitting flow of conquerors and warriors through the region intermittently combined and recombined territorial spaces into neighboring Persian, Afghan and Indian empires. Provincial administrators stationed in outposts governed vast tracts via local leaders kept in check using the divide and conqueror stratagem. The 16th century saw the great ‘Pashtun Diaspora’ whose progeny lie in several Baloch tribes, a Baloch Diaspora around the same time saw mass migrations towards the south. While British law enforcement in this region was at best titular, circumstances and their policies’ exoskeletal essentialism contributed to the isolationism of the hamlets and minor chiefdoms in the region. Moreover recurrent relocation and westward movement added to regional instability and prevented the buttressing of local politics and spatial- temporal identities unifying the Baloch. Another policy that would later have far reaching corollaries would be the ethno-centric compartmentalization of the inhabitants of the frontier, allowing them to develop connections and affiliations across the border leading to networks reaching up to Central Asia.
An area suited to a pastoral semi-nomadic way of life with sporadic cultivation with irrigation. Thus polities were spread across a wide area of arid land, depending on one of the two or a little of the two means of livelihood, in a connected or more often than not, isolated space. Tribal structures incorporated a mix of highly factionalized elite who would extract tribute from their lesser in form of surplus agricultural produce. This relationship between the tribute takers and the peasants formed the basis of polity in the region and was fluid in allegiance as it depended not so much on political decisions as much as it did on territorial integration and disintegration.
The formation of tribes around the backdrop of pastoralism and scant agriculture made it more economically viable as it provided a measure of security and economic linkages that mere lineage and household units clearly cannot. Thus livelihood became dependant on the economic structure provided the tribe and cast loyalty and fealty into its fabric. Over lords who provided necessary security for irrigation systems and set ups evolved into an elite strong class who began ruling over the descent class who shared a constructed imagined genealogy and thus identity. This class formation formed a mesh of abstract classes of people with tributary affiliations situated at two antagonistic poles and yet providing the reason for each other’s existence.
Thus the seedling that the Baloch tribal nizaam rests on economic interlinkages and complex connections built around the concept of livelihood, security, tribute and a strong need to create a cohesive identity along the lines of lineage and kin relationships. Tribes with abstract class structures evolved into strong chiefdoms with greater need for security becoming more imperative than before when neighboring tribes hamlets would attack each other for access to irrigation canals and greater areas of pasture. This simple unit of tribe or hamlet forms the nucleus of Baloch identity and is an important area of study to understand the foundations of Baloch identity.
By Zoon Ahmad Khan
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