Volume 7, No. 4, April 2025
Editor: Rashed Rahman
Nationalists who demands rights that they are denied and against whom the state commits injustices with impunity are condemned out of hand even by the liberals who do not really care for the people’s rights. Baloch nationalism is demonised and the discourse against it weaponised by terming Baloch nationalism as fascism. I have a few words to say about Nationalism and the attitudes to it by different mindsets and interests. More often than not those who struggle for national liberation are labelled by liberal intellectuals as fascists. This is an incendiary claim, and one that demands a response. This attitude of the liberals is in direct support to the State narrative, repression and brutality, which rejects and represses diversity even in thought, leave alone the concept of physical diversity and separation.
First, what exactly is fascism? It is a way of organising a society in which a government, ruled by a dictator, controls the lives of its people and forbids any questioning or dissent. The word comes from the Latin fascio, meaning ‘bundle’, and goes back to the Roman Empire when it was used to refer to the forceful inclusion of different people or nations into one imperial entity. Today, fascism appears in covert ways in countries like Iran, Turkey and yes, Pakistan – although not in the way liberals might think.
The Pakistani state uses tactics to create disunity, dismay and distraction among populations that might otherwise rise up. People face humiliation at the hands of the Army, Rangers, Frontier Corps (FC), intelligence agencies and the police. These governmental bodies also use obscurantist and delusory tactics to divert attention away from their injustices. In Sindh, they point to the problems of historic Talpur rule. When people are divided, deluded and in disarray, they can easily be denied rights and repressed and exploited at will. Aristotle says tyrants employ means that help them govern with ease. Tyrants cannot be overthrown if people do not have confidence in one another or faith in themselves. This, my friends, is fascism.
And yet, liberals promote the state agenda over nationalism. The effect of this is deadly; state violence against nationalists becomes moral, legal and justified. This is exactly what is happening in Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit Baltistan. The state claims that it knows how to care for people. However, it never actually aims to fulfil people’s needs. It just wants to trick you and me and others into obedience; it delivers blows with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Often it uses brazen, blatant, brute force to remind people of the extent that it is willing to go to suppress dissent and all struggles for rights. Those who say that nationalism is fascism are helping to deliver these blows and in this way, are complicit in crimes against humanity. If this is their liberalism, then what will their fascism be? Certainly, nationalism should not be limited to hurling abuses at the oppressor, but then neither should liberalism support state violence in the name of democracy and amity. You cannot support the state’s fascism just because the nationalist parties are not what you desire them to be.
Sheikh Saadi says:
Agar az jahaan huma shawad madoom
Kas na rawad zair-e-sayyta-e-boom.
(If the legendary Huma out here is extinct and dead
It is foolish to seek the shadow of the owls instead).
The excuse that nationalist parties, parties that struggle for national rights without compromising with the state or seeking concessions from it, are not good enough, does not justify the support of a fascist state because, let me assure you, the Pakistani state will never be for the people. The violence against Bengali nationalists in erstwhile East Pakistan remains overlooked and forgotten. Then too there were intellectuals who supported the army and other perpetrators of violence with the same argument that nationalism is fascism and Pakistan’s ‘integrity’ should be maintained. Were Bengalis the fascists when they were demanding their national rights, dignity and freedom, or was it the Pakistani establishment that was fascist? Is the demand for the right of self-determination in Balochistan and Sindh fascism? Nationalism also prompts the Palestinians and the Kurds in Turkey to demand their rights and homeland. Are they too fascists, or is this argument of nationalism being fascism limited just to the demands of the Baloch and Sindhi people? I don’t think that demanding the right to be free is fascism, but I do think that the suppression of the right of national self-determination is certainly fascism.
The Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin exposes the state and its intent and role. He says: “In public life…from the standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and virtue. This explains why the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all countries – statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors – if judged from the standpoint of simple morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard labour or to the gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: ‘for reasons of state’.” So, are the nationalists fascists or the establishment and its apologists?
The horrors perpetrated ‘for reasons of state’ in Bangladesh, Balochistan, Sindh and KP should be enough to make the liberal intellectuals understand the essence of the state and the fact that the people, rather than state or material interests, have to have priority.
Nationalists are furthermore often condemned for their violence, but what is conveniently forgotten is that this violence is an answer to the greater violence perpetrated by the state. Intifadas do not emerge out of the blue. And yet, the violence of the state gets blanket approval, while condemnation is reserved for the nationalists. If liberals ever do condemn state violence, it is in the most flowery, mild and timid form. Frequently, the huge sacrifices of nationalists for their cause are made an object of opprobrium by the liberals. They say it is pointless since there is very little chance of success. However, the sacrifices of the Vietnamese people under Ho Chi Minh against the US were not pointless, nor were the sacrifices of Libyans under Omar Mukhtar against Italy, or the intifadas of the Palestinians against Israeli occupation. There are countless examples of national struggles that achieved success after huge sacrifices. Friedrich Nietzsche says: “No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” Indeed, the struggle for national liberation is the struggle for the privilege of self-ownership.
People who denounce nationalism because nationalists are demanding their right to their land and resources also forget the words of Frantz Fanon: “For a colonised people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.” Without their homeland being free of exploitation and oppression, no one can live in dignity and peace. The other option is submission and slavery, regarding which Immanuel Kant says, “One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.”
I prefer to be a ‘fascist’ who stands up for national liberation rather than a submissive and docile liberal who supports state oppression of people fighting for their rights in the name of federalism and the unity of nations under it. It is always fascism that opposes national liberation under different subterfuges and alibis, which the liberals then promote as their own. If Khair Bakhsh Marri, Makhdum Bilawal, Sher Mohammad Marri, Majeed Langove, Ali Sher Kurd, Hameed Baloch, Sirai Qurban, Balaach Marri, Akbar Khan Bugti and all those who have lived and died for Balochistan and Sindh were fascists, then I would be honoured to be counted among them.
Conclusion
The state’s distrust of the people, their repression and the consequent internal displacement has not stopped the people from supporting the groups that they think are fighting for their salvation. It is because of this support that despite the oft repeated claims by the government and army that the Baloch insurgency has been crushed, the Baloch resistance refuses to buckle under to the might of the state. The social and political tapestry in Balochistan has seen changes over time in proportion to the Pakistani state’s indifference and atrocities unleashed in the name of the ‘national interest’. The Baloch people have given up on justice from the state and do not trust those inclined to further the Centre’s interests.
In the past, pro-establishment sardars defined and determined what and how people think and act but now it is the Baloch resistance that defines the social and political relations in Balochistan and people proudly identify themselves with the Sarmachars who struggle for their rights. A major change came about in December 2018 with the formation of the Baloch Raji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS). It is a loose but working arrangement between the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Republican Army (BRA), Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) and the Baloch Republican Guard to coordinate their work and cooperate wherever they possibly can. This is certainly a change for not very long ago there were accusations and insinuations by some groups against others. This process risked exposing and endangering not only the targeted group but the entire structure of organisations that were sustaining resistance to the injustices and acting as an obstacle to the free hand that was required to make exploitation of Baloch resources profitable and lucrative for not only Pakistan but China and others who were not venturing into Balochistan for fear of reprisals from the Baloch. This cooperation is viewed very unfavourably by Pakistan and China because their interest lies in antagonisms between and within groups resisting the exploitation.
The Baloch have resisted the injustices against them since March 27, 1948 in fits and starts, with each new phase of resistance being more sustained and potent then the preceding one. It is a credit to the Baloch that despite being outnumbered and outgunned they have survived and kept giving hope to people and acting as a deterrent to exploitation of every kind and hue. The state hasn’t spared either money or the use of force to dismantle and disperse not only groups that resist them physically but also to make people so hopeless about the success and effectiveness of those resisting that people succumb to their narrative completely that not only the last vestiges of physical resistance but also even the aspiration and hopes for rights are completely obliterated.
However, being able to survive is something positive and keeps the hopes alive among the kindred, those who sympathise and those on the fence. It also demoralises those who seek to see the end of the resistance because however sporadic, it requires them to be on alert all the time, incurring very heavy expenses. The persistence of resistance also means a loss of face for them because they tire not of announcing sham ‘rent-a-crowd’ surrenders and declarations of having ended what they term as a ‘menace’. The persistence of the resistance and the brutal attempts to subdue it also raises eyebrows in foreign capitals though they do not publicly comment on the matter.
In all these years of resistance the garnered support has not been large enough to make a qualitative change and reach ‘critical mass’, which then enables and initiates a mass reaction. This is because the state has coopted politicians into its system who are satisfied with the semblance of authority that they enjoy, even though all decisions are made by the military establishment. A lot of politicians are on record as stating that the FC runs a parallel government but they do not have the moral courage or the spine to make a break with the system that keeps them powerless. Such politicians serve their own interests rather than those of the people. This is what encourages the state to continue with the repression and exploitation for it knows Baloch unity is well-nigh an impossibility.
This vindictive repression and systematic disenfranchisement of the Baloch is being helped and spurred on by disunity among the Baloch. The parable of the trees and axe is apt here. The trees complained that the axe was committing atrocities against them and something must be done to stop axe-perpetrated excesses. They were told if it were not for those of them that became the axe’s handle, the axe would be pretty much harmless. The festering and malignant disunity among the Baloch on every level is certainly not helping the Baloch in any way and is on the contrary spurring the establishment on. The latter realises how this destructive and noxious disunity weakens all the Baloch. This encourages it towards more harsh and unjust measures in order to weaken the Baloch beyond recovery point. The responsibility for salvaging and protecting Baloch rights lies squarely on the shoulders of those who claim to be leaders. Without unity there is a danger that the Baloch struggle for rights will become a forgotten chapter. Unity is crucial if the much needed and desired ‘critical mass’ is to be achieved for none of the various strands resisting the injustices on their own are in any way strong enough to prompt a change in the state’s attitude and traditional response of use of force against the people.
A political and social mobilisation movement is needed to awaken and unite the people against the injustices of repression and exploitation. The killing of Malik Naz and serious injuring of her four-year old daughter Bramsh in Dan’nuk area in the outskirts of Turbat city in south-west Balochistan on May 26, 2020 resulted from armed men storming their house. A culprit belonging to a well-known ‘death squad’ was captured, proving that the responsibility lay with the state. On the night of June 14, 2020, Kulsoom, a working class woman, was murdered in front of her children during a robbery in Tump area of Kech district. This was topped by the killing on August 22, 2020 of Hayat Baloch, a student of Karachi University helping his parents on a date farm who was killed by the FC in the Absar area of Kech district. If these killings too do not create a political and social movement independent of the compromising and concession seeking ‘nationalist parties’, then the hopes will keep fading. Unless political and social actions challenge the state’s injustices, oppression and exploitation, those fighting for their rights will remain isolated and in the sights of the state. A movement encompassing people from all walks of life has to come into being to support the already existing movement in support of ‘missing persons’ to complement each other.
Another important issue is the unity and solidarity with brotherly movements like the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, some Sindh-based nationalist political movements and with those elements of the Left who truly understand the National Question and support us. There already is support and solidarity between them on the humanitarian aspects, but this solidarity has to extend to support of political goals for without this the aim of cooperation isn’t really fulfilled and doesn’t prove a deterrent to state injustices, which extend beyond the humanitarian aspects alone. The Baloch struggle for rights has to expand its vision and scope if it is to survive the persistent onslaught of the state and not only survive but gain enough support from the masses and sympathetic organisations to produce the critically needed ‘critical mass’ that will usher in the qualitative changes essential for the achievement of the cherished goal.
(Concluded)