Forgotten' Balochistan has reinserted itself lately into public consciousness in Pakistan with a vengeance. The rape incident in Sui and its attempted cover-up by the authorities inflamed opinion amongst the Baloch tribes to the extent that an informal 'coalition' of the tribes in and around Sui joined hands in attacking the Defence Security Group (DSG) personnel at the plant, damaging the facility and forcing a closure of gas supply for repairs. Another clash between the Frontier Constabulary (FC) and Bugti tribesmen followed in and around Dera Bugti.

After a tense standoff between military and paramilitary forces on the one hand and armed Bugti tribesmen on the other, a talks process between the government and the Bugti tribal chief, Nawab Akbar Bugti was set in motion. A parliamentary delegation that included opposition MPs was sent to the scene of the confrontation in and around Dera Bugti and to talk to Akbar Bugti. This visit paved the way for Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and the party's secretary general, Senator Mushahid Hussain, to visit Akbar Bugti and try to hammer out some compromise that would help defuse the situation.

Chaudhry Shujaat, during his brief tenure as the interim Prime Minister in 2003, at the height of a spate of guerrilla attacks on infrastructure in Balochistan and other parts of the country, had taken the initiative to set up a parliamentary committee to examine the crisis in Balochistan and frame recommendations to meet those of the province's demands considered acceptable by the government. Balochistan's plethora of complaints, including lack or violations of provincial autonomy, economic and social neglect and the extraction of its gas, oil and mineral wealth for the benefit of others while leaving the people of Balochistan deprived of any share in this wealth, is of very long standing. The violent incidents in Sui and Dera Bugti, seen against the backdrop of a guerrilla war being waged by alienated Baloch nationalists, has persuaded the government to talk to the Bugti tribal chief to defuse the confrontation in his area and discuss the package of constitutional, economic and other concessions to assuage the anger and frustration of the people of Balochistan.

The explosion of anger in Pakistan's poorest province is the tip of the iceberg of Baloch nationalist resentment at the state's attitude of aggressive, forced modernisation of a tribal society without reference to its peculiarities, sensitivities derived from the past conflicts between the Baloch and central state authority, or even a nod in the direction of local participation or a share in the claimed benefits of such modernisation.

The simmering guerrilla warfare being waged by alienated nationalist elements like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the explosion of anger at the perceived violation of the Baloch tribal honour code in the rape incident need to be contextualised within the history of the conflict between successive Central governments espousing an overarching Pakistani nationalism and the Baloch nationalists demanding their rights within an autonomous federation or, in the event of that not being conceded, complete independence. Further, this past cannot be fully understood without reference to the land, the people, and their view of the larger picture of their embattled earlier history. It requires an exploration of the deeply ingrained historical memories that underlie Baloch nationalism, memories of a struggle for survival stretching back over a known history of 2,000 years.

The Land
To comprehend the culture and character of the Baloch, it is necessary to familiarise oneself with the natural environment inhabited by the Baloch, which has helped determine their way of life. The Baloch homeland stretches over some 207,000 square miles, divided amongst three states -- Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Of these, Pakistan is, by far, the largest Baloch territory in terms of area and population, comprising 42 per cent of the total territory of post-1971 Pakistan and inhabited by about five per cent of Pakistan's total population. Current estimates put the population at around seven million, including other ethnic groups such as the Pushtuns, Punjabis and other ethnic groups.

Balochistan has one of the bleakest, most desolate and forbidding topographies. Were it not for its strategic location, long coastline at the mouth of the Gulf, and potential for discoveries of oil, gas and other minerals, Balochistan may not have assumed the importance it currently enjoys.

For the most part, the landscape alternates abruptly between stark, bare mountains and arid expanses of semi-desert. Date groves struggle to survive in scattered oases. The exception to this bleak natural landscape are the relatively rich cultivated agricultural pockets of Las Bela and Kachhi. The precipitous peaks are punctuated by sharp ridges that overlook tight little valleys. Travelling from one valley to another can be a dangerous enterprise. There are few passes, many of them only precariously negotiable. The Baloch have, as a result, been historically isolated from the mainstream and had the barren ranges exclusively to themselves, sharing them only with wildlife such as mountain goats, ibex and panthers. A 16th Century Baloch war ballad expresses this phenomenon thus: ‘The lofty heights are our comrades, the pathless gorges our friends’1.

The climate is one of extremes. In winter, the temperature can drop as low as -40 degrees Centigrade. In summer it can soar to 55 degrees Centigrade in the shade. Rainfall seldom exceeds five inches per annum. Water conservation infrastructure is insignificant, making it a scarce resource. This winter, because of the unusually heavy rains and floods, many faultily designed and constructed dams broke, bringing death and destruction to the hapless inhabitants of the remote, affected areas. There are few perennial rivers with fixed courses. Thunderstorms and dust storms can strike violently without warning, especially in the summer monsoon months, often followed by torrential rains and flash floods.

The People
The scarcity of water resources has determined the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Baloch tribes. Most tribes rely on a mixture of nomadic pastoralism and settled agriculture to survive. The latter is characterised by widely dispersed clusters of small agricultural land-holdings, located wherever nature's precipitation allows. The pattern of land ownership in the tribal areas is largely collective, with families, clans, tribal sections and tribes per se sharing the scratchy agricultural holdings.

The necessity of survival imposes frequent migrations, which may be seasonal or sporadic, in order to escape the extremes of climate, move to wherever water is available, and find fresh grazing lands for livestock. The abiding need for mobility also is reflected in the dwellings of the tribes, largely consisting of tents that can be pulled up and transported very quickly.

The Baloch are largely Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi persuasion, although far from fanatically religious. The Mullahs traditionally play a relatively marginal role in Baloch society confined to necessary religious rites and observances. In recent years, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) of Maulana Fazalur Rehman has made certain inroads in terms of political influence in the Baloch hinterland, but Baloch nationalists are wont to ascribe this more to help from the intelligence agencies rather than any fundamentalist religiosity creeping into Baloch society.

What matters in this society is the historically evolved tribal structure of social organisation. Each of the major 17 tribal groups is headed by a Sardar (tribal chief), chosen from a traditional Sardar Khel branch of the tribe by the will of the tribe, which has been known to tilt against primogeniture where the eldest son of the Sardar proves unacceptable. There are also about 400 tribal subgroups headed by Waderas (sectional or clan chiefs).

A Brief History
The most commonly accepted account of the origin of the Baloch is that they migrated eastward with their kindred Kurd tribes in waves from around Aleppo (Haleb) in Syria over some 1500 years starting from before the Christian era. Whereas the Kurd majority settled in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, the Baloch moved to the southern reaches of the Caspian Sea, later migrating into Iranian and Pakistani Balochistan from the sixth to fourteenth centuries2.

Having settled in what is now their homeland, the Baloch have successfully preserved a distinctive identity in the face of the stronger cultures surrounding them. Despite the isolation of their scattered pastoral communities, the diverse Baloch tribes have found a strong common denominator in the Balochi language and a uniform folklore tradition and value system (Rivaj).

This vitality of their ancient cultural heritage explains the tenacity of the continuing demand for the political recognition of Baloch identity. Also, the strength of Baloch nationalism is rooted in historical memories of determined resistance against would-be conquerors who attempted again and again to annex all or part of Balochistan to adjoining powerful empires.
Three Baloch rulers are credited with efforts at unification of the Baloch between the 15th and 18th Centuries. The first, Mir Chakar Rind, established a short-lived tribal confederacy stretching from the Makran coast to the Marri tribal area3. He ruled from his capital Sibi from 1487 till his death in 1511 in Satygraha, Punjab, where he lies4. His tribal confederacy was destroyed from within by a civil war between two of the leading tribal federations, the Rinds and the Lasharis5.

After Mir Chakar's death, the Moghul Empire made several unsuccessful attempts to subdue and incorporate the Baloch, who were able to stave off co-option by military cooperation with Delhi in return for their independence. However, the shattered unity of the Baloch tribes because of the long running Rind-Lashari civil war could not be re-established until the Ahmadzais created the Kalat Confederacy in 1666. This new confederacy gradually expanded to encompass an area even larger than Mir Chakar's domain. By the early eighteenth century, the fourth Khan of Kalat, Abdullah Khan, claimed the allegiance of Baloch tribes from Kandahar (Afghanistan) across present-day Pakistani Balochistan to Bandar Abbas (Iran), and Dera Ghazi Khan (now in Punjab).

Abdullah Khan was forced to pay tribute to the Iranian monarchs in order to forestall their incursions into the western border areas of his realm. However, Abdullah Khan failed to knit the areas under his control into a unified state. That task was accomplished by the sixth Khan of Kalat, Nasir Khan, who ruled for over 50 years from 1741. He created an army of 25,000 men and 1,000 camels, an impressive force by the standards of the time. Nasir Khan welded most of the major Baloch tribes into an agreed system of military organisation and relatively centralised administration6.

Despite his formidable success in forging a comparatively strongly unified state, Nasir Khan too had to pay tribute to the Iranian emperor Nadir Shah, who had conquered Afghanistan and helped Nasir Khan win paramount power in Kalat in the face of rival claimants. Nadir Shah's assassination in 1747 and the subsequent decline of Iranian power freed Nasir Khan from this tributary status, but when Ahmad Shah Durrani established a new kingdom in Afghanistan, Nasir Khan had to accept Afghan suzerainty. This lasted till 1758, when Nasir Khan fought Ahmad Shah Durrani's forces to a stalemate. Thereafter, Kalat remained a military ally of Afghanistan, but enjoyed sovereign status until the arrival of the British in the 19th Century.

The unity built by Nasir Khan collapsed after his death in 1805, succumbing to the centrifugal pulls of tribal strife, coinciding as this did with the beginnings of the ‘Great Game’ between Britain and Czarist Russia in Afghanistan7. To counter the Russian push south towards warm water ports, the British adopted the ‘Forward Policy’, designed to halt the Russian advance by subjugating Afghanistan. Having come to grief in the Afghan wars, the British concluded that difficult-to-conquer-and-hold Afghanistan should be converted into a buffer state to provide a shield for their Indian Empire against Russia. Balochistan, as a key access route to Afghanistan, now acquired a new strategic importance.

Seeking direct control over the access routes, the British fought a series of bloody wars with the Baloch for more than four decades. By the time of the Treaty of 1876, they had managed to obtain the right to station troops in Kalat and along the logistical route to Afghanistan through a combination of military might and handsome subsidies sweetened further by guarantees of internal tribal autonomy8. By the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the British had succeeded through their tried and tested method of divide and rule to carve up the original Baloch homeland into several pieces. Roughly one-fourth of this homeland went to Iran in 1871. A small strip was ceded to Afghanistan in 1894. In what is today Pakistani Balochistan, a centrally administered area dubbed British Balochistan which guarded the Bolan Pass was separated from a truncated Kalat Confederacy and three smaller principalities. This first experience of alien domination paved the way for the rise of modern Baloch nationalism.

Strategic Autonomy and Rise of Nationalism
So long as tribal leaders did not interfere with British military access to Afghanistan and strategic control of the frontier, the Sardars enjoyed virtually complete control of internal tribal affairs. They also enjoyed British subsidies. By reinforcing the power and autonomy of the tribal chiefs under what came to be dubbed the 'Sandeman System' after a British colonial administrator, the British laid the foundations of subsequent conflict between the Baloch and central authority in Pakistan.

With the departure of the British, Pakistani central governments have attempted to reverse the Sandeman policy of internal tribal autonomy to reach the goal of a strong, centralised state. In the process, the aim was to merge the fiercely guarded Baloch identity into an overarching Pakistani identity. Islamabad's continuing assault on the tribal social organisation and its rhetoric of a monolithic Pakistani nationalism have come to constitute a fundamental challenge to historically received Baloch value structures. Aggressive top-down modernisation as the Trojan Horse of assimilation has therefore been met with guerrilla resistance in 1948, 1958-60, 1962-69, 1973-77 and now from 2003 to date.

The Accession Issue
The forcible incorporation of Balochistan into the new state of Pakistan in 1948 invoked fierce nationalist anger. The Baloch parliament had met and declared Balochistan independent on August 11, 1947, three days before Pakistan came into existence. When the new state of Pakistan subsequently pressurised the Khan of Kalat to accede to it, Baloch nationalist opinion sought guarantees of sovereignty as a precondition for any political relationship with the successor state to the British Empire. They based their case on the argument that Kalat State had a Treaty relationship directly with the British Crown and therefore merited a different treatment from other princely states in British India9.

As things turned out however, the Khan of Kalat was forced to sign the document of accession in Karachi in March 1948, even though he had no mandate to do so from his people.

Guerrilla Resistance and Broken Treaties
The forcible accession led to the first rebellion in Balochistan, led by the Khan's younger brother, Agha Abdul Karim. In the first of what the Baloch have called a series of ‘broken treaties’, the rebels were promised safe conduct under an oath on the Koran if they came down from their mountain fastnesses to negotiate. When they did descend, Agha Abdul Karim and 102 of his comrades were ambushed and arrested on their way to Kalat. Agha Abdul Karim spent 16 of the next 22 years in various Pakistani jails. His companions-in-arms were also sentenced to long prison terms.

The creation of One Unit under the 1956 Constitution by merging the four provinces into one province of West Pakistan, ostensibly to offset the numerical majority of the Bengalis in East Pakistan, created great unrest amongst Baloch nationalist circles. By 1958, General Ayub Khan used the rhetorical threat of another Baloch rebellion led by the Khan of Kalat as one of the justifications for the imposition of the first Martial law. Kalat was assaulted and the Khan placed under house arrest in Lahore. Another 350 Baloch leaders and activists were rounded up all over Balochistan10.

The alleged rebellion did arise as a result of these events, led by 90-year old Nauroz Khan, chief of the Zehri tribe. Guerrilla actions continued for over a year before army representatives met Nauroz Khan and his men with a promise of safe conduct and amnesty on oath on the Koran. In another example of a ‘broken treaty’, Nauroz Khan and his followers were arrested. His son ands eight nephews and comrades were hanged in Hyderabad Jail in July 1960. Nauroz Khan died in Kohlu Jail in 1964, having been tortured severely.

The Parari Resistance
The next rebellion broke out in 1962, starting from the Marri tribal area. The guerrillas chose for themselves the honorific Pararis (rebels). This guerrilla resistance spread to the other areas of Balochistan. By July 1963, the Pararis had established a number of base camps of varying size spread over some 45,000 square miles, from the Mengal tribal areas of Jhalawan to the Marri and Bugti areas. Consciously, the guerrillas in classic fashion avoided large-scale fixed encounters with the army. They harassed the government forces by ambushing convoys, bombing trains, sniping and raids on military camps. In retaliation, the army staged a series of offensives, reprisals and air bombardments whose main brunt fell on the people. This had the unintended consequence, as elsewhere in irregular wars, of expanding and consolidating support for the guerrillas. Atrocities by the army were widespread, earning General Tikka Khan, commander of the Balochistan theater, the unflattering sobriquet of Butcher of Balochistan, long before he earned further such 'glory' in East Pakistan.

The fighting continued until 1969, when Ayub Khan was removed and his successor, General Yahya, sued for a cease-fire with the Pararis. One Unit was dissolved and Balochistan province once again re-established.

The Emergence of the BPLF
The Pararis maintained their guerrilla forces intact and continued to expand their reach, influence and numbers after the 1969 cease-fire. In certain areas, they were able to run a virtual parallel government. Despite their acceptance of a cease-fire, the Pararis were convinced a renewal of hostilities with Islamabad was only a matter of time.
The uneasy truce lasted until 1973, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after a series of Centrally-backed provocations, toppled the elected government of Sardar Ataullah Mengal in February 1973 and launched a major military operation against the Baloch people11. By August 1973, a full-scale guerrilla war was in progress when Bhutto jailed the Baloch leadership consisting of Khair Bux Marri, Attaullah Mengal and Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, along with thousands of political cadres and activists all over the country.

Four divisions of regular troops were deployed against the guerrillas, but failed to match their commitment, speed, mobility, familiarity with the terrain and support of the people. Bhutto then obtained military and financial aid from the Shah of Iran, including helicopter gunships which the Pakistan army did not possess at that time. Some of these helicopter gunships were piloted by Iranians, and their empty bullet casings captured in the fighting clearly showed Iranian markings.

Largely unnoticed in the rest of Pakistan or the world at large because of a complete news blackout imposed by the Bhutto regime, the struggle grew in ferocity over the next four years. The fighting was more widespread and intense than it had been during the conflicts of the 1950s and 60s and impacted on most of the Baloch population at one time or another. By July 1974, the guerrillas had been able to cut off most of the main roads and disrupt the Sibi-Harnai railroad, blocking coal shipments to Punjab. Attacks on drilling and survey operations effectively halted exploration by Pakistani and American oil companies12. Army casualties began to mount as the effectiveness of ambushes and raids on military camps increased. At this stage, the air force and helicopters were brought into the battle.

An army ground and air offensive in the winter of 1974 on the Baloch tribes, largely Marris, along with their families, gathered in an annual pilgrimage to the Chamalang plains to graze their flocks, inflicted heavy human and livestock casualties, forcing people to flee to Afghanistan and other provinces in Pakistan along with their families. After this battle, Bhutto declared that the back of the insurgency had been broken. But contrary to Bhutto's claim, the Pararis evolved during the fighting over five years into the Balochistan People's Liberation Front (BPLF). This movement raised the level of scientific guerrilla warfare in the Baloch resistance to new heights, inflicting over 3,500 dead and 6,500 wounded on the military by 197713. In retaliation for the successful guerrilla resistance, the military cruelly bombed and killed the non-combatant population. Nevertheless, by 1977, when Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup by General Zia-ul-Haq, the military had virtually been fought to a standstill.

Another 'Truce'
General Zia sued for a cease-fire in return for promises of freeing all political prisoners, especially the Baloch leadership incarcerated and being tried for treason in the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case, and compensation and rehabilitation for the victims of the military's scorched earth campaigns. Although about 6,000 prisoners did walk free albeit bearing the scars of the cruel tortures inflicted on them during incarceration, and the Hyderabad Conspiracy case was withdrawn, the rest of Zia's promises constituted one more ‘broken treaty’. The victims of the military's cruelty were left to fend for themselves, including those who returned home to a ruined existence under the general amnesty declared by the Zia regime.
The Baloch nationalist movement was radicalised by five years of guerrilla warfare. The BPLF introduced revolutionary ideas into the movement that transcended family, clan, sectional and tribal loyalties and saw the Baloch nationalist struggle as part of national liberation struggles in the third world. The BPLF manifesto stressed that it was ‘not fighting a secessionist war for the Baluch alone, but a war of national liberation for all the nationalities of Pakistan’14. The BPLF stressed its commitment to a Pakistan-wide revolution by describing Balochistan as ‘a reliable base area for the liberation struggles of other oppressed nationalities, classes and democratic forces in Pakistan’15.

Post-1970s Scenario
Unfortunately, the accumulated problems of the people who had suffered the worst of the military's excesses and internal differences in the movement caused a political implosion after the cease-fire in the otherwise militarily undefeated movement. That has led, in the 27 years that have passed since, in a regression into pure nationalism, for which the major part of the blame must be put on the shoulders of successive Central governments who have neglected Balochistan's complaints, failed to redress past wrongdoings, and turned a blind eye to the province's real development needs.

During this interregnum, the tendency in the Baloch nationalist movement that criticised the armed struggle of 1973-77 and argued for engagement with the mainstream political process achieved ascendancy amongst Baloch public opinion. But this 'engagement' yielded only corruption by many of the erstwhile respected nationalist leaders and failed to bring about any change in the lives of the ordinary Baloch.

The disillusionment and alienation of Baloch youth from this false promise of mainstream politics can be directly traced as the foundation for the current armed struggle undertaken under the banner of the Baloch Liberation Army. This guerrilla force has been conducting operations since 2003, hitting infrastructure and paralyzing the ability of the central authorities to take advantage of Balochistan's rich mineral resources for the benefit not of the people of Balochistan, but outsiders. All the much touted mega-projects being launched in Balochistan by the Musharraf regime, including Gwadar, do not envisage any participation of or benefit for the local people. They are intended solely to serve the interests of the ruling elite and state institutions, pride of place in this exploitative pantheon belonging to the military establishment.

The incident of the rape of a lady doctor in Sui, allegedly by a military officer belonging to the Defence Security Guards (DSG) at the Sui gas plant evoked a violent reaction from local people when it became obvious that the authorities were attempting a cover-up and protecting the accused. While the alleged perpetrators walk free, the unfortunate lady doctor and her husband have reportedly been spirited away out of the country, presumably to spare the government further blushes at its shameful role of protector of the rapists.

The earlier clashes