by Umer A. Chaudhry
The brutal murder of three nationalist leaders of Balochistan and the ensuing crisis has brought the issue of the Baloch national struggle to the forefront once again, only to be met with feigned surprises and arrogant dismissals by a major part of the rest of Pakistan. We in Pakistan — and particularly those of us in Punjab — love to externalize the roots of problems that irritate our sensibility.
Therefore, fingers were immediately pointed at foreign involvements, scarcely any thought given to our own attitude towards one of the largest provinces of our country. The deliberate lack of introspection combined with the respect that wild conspiracy theories continue to enjoy renders it very much necessary to take a dip into the history of Balochistan, for that is where the roots of the question lie.
The roots of Baloch nationalism can be roughly traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century when the region became a victim of foreign aggression from both eastern and western sides during the decline of the Khanate of Kalat. For the expansionist British colonizers, Balochistan was a strategically important region to manage the buffer state of Afghanistan against Russia and maintain communication links with Central Asia and Persia. Starting from 1839, after the assassination of Mir Mehrab Khan in a British regiment’s attack on Kalat leading to the installation of an unpopular Khan, the British made several inroads in the Kalat State. British power was consolidated in Balochistan through a number of treaties, culminating in the treaty of 1876 through which the sovereignty of the Khan of Kalat over the region was brought under the administrative control of the British.
In the same period, the Baloch region suffered intrusion from Iran on the western side under the leadership of Qajar King Nasir-al Din Shah, with a major war fought in Kerman in 1849. With Iranian expansionism in Balochistan on the rise, the British decided to adopt the policy of appeasement towards the Iranians to dissuade them from the Russian influence. In 1871, the British agreed to the Iranian proposal for the division of Balochistan and appointed a Perso-Baloch Boundary Commission with Maj. General Goldsmith as its Chief Commissioner.
The ‘Goldsmith Line’ thus arbitrarily divided the cultural, social, and economic unity of Baloch people while excluding the concerns of the people and government of Balochistan. The sovereignty of the Khanate of Kalat, which was not a part of British India, was seriously compromised, leaving behind a deep sense of injustice, discrimination, and alienation among the Baloch people. Later in 1893, the areas of Outer Seistan and Registan were handed over to Afghanistan by the’Durand Line’, further aggravating the Baloch anger.
The Baloch people have never been passive in accepting the foreign domination, interference, and arbitrary partitions. The end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of resistance through a number of violent revolts and rebellions as well as peaceful protests against the injustice meted out to the Baloch people by the British colonizer and the Iranian kingdom. The concerns of the Baloch were not given any due consideration and, as was typical of the colonial rule, the Baloch resistance was suppressed with a heavy hand.
The next major incident that catalyzed the Baloch national struggle was the forced annexation of British Balochistan and the Khanate of Kalat to Pakistan after the independence and partition of India. The Baloch concerns arose when the referendum in British Balochistan, which was leased to the British by the Kalat State through a treaty, was carried out despite the objections raised by the Khan of Kalat.
Umer A. Chaudhry is a lawyer based in Lahore, Pakistan and a member of the Communist Workers and Peasants Party (CMKP) of Pakistan.