Volume 7, No. 2, February 2025
Editor: Rashed Rahman
The response to violence here by people in general is selective too. The Ziarat Residency burning and the blast at Sardar Bahadur Khan University (SBKU) happened on June 15, 2013. At the SBKU, 14 students died when a bomb exploded in the bus they were about to return home in. The injured were shifted to the Bolan Medical Complex, where half an hour later sounds of explosions and gunfire spread panic and chaos among the patients and doctors. This was the work of the Taliban. Fourteen female students died in the bus while some other persons including a Deputy Commissioner Quetta died at the Complex. Earlier during the night some people who claimed to be members of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) burnt the Ziarat Residency down and hoisted the flag of BLA on it. They also made a video clip of the entire attack and put it on the social media.
The response by the public at large to these two incidents is an indicator of the public perception of how they see events when Baloch people are killed and maimed and when something of the colonial past, which somehow is dearer to them, is attacked by the Baloch. Some equated it with 9/11 in the US. Columnists like Ejaz Haider said the Baloch had crossed the line, asking for a befitting response as if before this incident the Baloch were being pampered and looked after. Another columnist, Muhammad Ali Siddiqi, writing about his shock and horror at the burning had enough honesty to admit that, “Noreen Khalid, Professor at Karachi University’s Economics Department, was sorry to see the building’s condition on her visit to Ziarat on a study tour a fortnight earlier. The trees that had lent beauty to the building had been felled on the provincial government’s orders, the crockery inside the building had gathered dust, and the furniture was in a shambles. Yet it was a national heritage, and had a place in the people’s heart.” Their national heritage in shambles is still more important than Baloch lives. This is the mindset that the Baloch are up against.
Noteworthily, after the burning down of the Residency a lot of persons were arrested and many named as accused. Those who were arrested were tried by an Anti-Terrorism Court. On October 14, 2019, the arrested 15 were acquitted as not guilty. These 15 Baloch had to undergo torture and humiliation just because the police and agencies wanted to show their efficiency in nabbing those whom they termed as the culprits responsible. Four years of their lives were destroyed and their families traumatised just so the police could show ‘results’. Most of the arrests after incidents like these are simply random. Interestingly, Akram Shah, the general secretary of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) in a statement said, “The wooden house at Ziarat was a symbol of slavery as it was built for the colonial British officer Sir Robert Groves Sandeman who ruled Balochistan until his death in 1892.”
The SBKU incident simply got swamped in the hatred that the Residency burning generated against the Baloch in general. These two incidents conclude the argument that I started earlier about violence, including violence by the state, violence by its non-state actors nourished by the state, and the violence by the Baloch in response to the violence against them. Violence against the Baloch is swept under the rug even if so-called commissions are formed, as has been the case regarding the ‘Tutak Mass Graves’, which were the handiwork of Shafiq Mengal and those whom the Pakistani army General had called ‘patriotic elements’. The graves were discovered on January 17, 2014. The judicial commission headed by Justice Noor Miskanzai of the Balochistan High Court gave its report in August 2014 and exonerated one and all as if the 17 bodies that they admitted were there had rained from the sky, riddled with bullet wounds. This was a blatant cover up and the number of bodies according to Baloch sources were 80 or more. So, when 80, even say 17 Baloch are killed, not a ripple arises in the consciences but if a single person dies at the hands of the Baloch the sky falls and all come down on the Baloch like a ton of bricks.
Stefan Molyneux, a Canadian far-right, white nationalist, white supremacist in his essay “Why People Resist Liberty” in his unique and unconventional way explains: “We have a natural aversion to that which is highly likely to bring about danger. Natural selection has done a wonderful job of picking those out of the gene pool who do things that get them killed. The brutal power structures that dominated almost all of human history used endless violence to maintain their rule, but always had to at least provide the appearance that the violence was caused by the ‘immorality of the disobedience’ of the ruled. Throughout history, mock trials have been the norm, which drape the veneer of justice over what is, essentially, a Mafia hit.” Molyneux then adds, “The lies required to sustain the illusion that murder is virtue are virtually without number. The obvious irrationalities of the rulers are recast as the rationalities of gods. The obvious hypocritical double standards of power are justified according to the divine right of kings. Any citizens who attempt to break the chains that bind them are slaughtered wholesale, and then labelled dangerous to the other citizens, a mind-bending reversal of what is actually true! Societies wrecked by dictatorships, wars, plagues and famines are called ordered, while even the thought of a voluntary society not run by ‘genocidal criminals’ is called chaotic and anarchic. Since the dawn of our species, people have been endlessly slaughtered for speaking the simple truth about the violence of those in power. In addition, anyone who listened to such speeches or was even in the same family or in the same house was also tortured and butchered.”
This is exactly how it is in Balochistan today. All those attempting to break the chains that bind them and speaking the simple truth about the violence of those in power are slaughtered wholesale and then labelled dangerous to the other citizens. Those who acquiesce in the dictates of the elite and establishment are labelled as virtuous and rewarded to induce more people to emulate them. The establishment, along with brutal force, employs psychological and political pressures to assure conformity. To this end religion, national interest, democratic ideals and economic benefits are used to ensure compliance, but dissenters go missing and turn up as tortured and mutilated bodies.
Human beings generally tend to prefer safety over many other apparently intangible but otherwise absolutely essential things like liberty and dignity, and consequently, this makes them predisposed and vulnerable to slavery and bondage. The immediate and apparent advantages of safety cloud their sense of judgment and lull their sense of dignity, making bondage and slavery appear attractive enough to be accepted. The pull of safety blunts the sense of dignity and liberty enough for them to acquiesce to a life where their real worth will never be realised. Eventually they will be denied even that safety for those who conditionally offer this regulate it according to their requirements. This Benjamin Franklin quote, though originally said in a different context, fits to contextualise this situation: “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Civil Society’s response and Sabeen Mahmud
There are many people in civil society who continuously raise their voice for Baloch rights, for disappeared persons and all the issues that students and people in general face. As it is not possible to acknowledge all these brave souls, I will just mention respected Sabeen Mahmud who was struck down by the forces of darkness because they were afraid of the light that she spread around and the voice that she gave to the voiceless. Sabeen Mahmud stood up for all the marginalised and unheard people of society. She was the first non-Baloch to give the Baloch a chance to voice their concerns and introduce the Baloch question to society, which had remained unaware of the travails and history of the Baloch. She invited Kutti Sahib and myself at the T2F for a discussion on Balochistan on May 18, 2012. The talk, named ‘Compelling Conversations’, was moderated by Nazish Brohi (it is available on YouTube). Balochistan, Baloch issues and problems were discussed. Today it is as relevant or even more so than it was 12 years ago.
After the ‘Long March’, Professor Anne Christine-Habbard of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS arranged a talk, ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ at LUMS on April 9, 2015. The invitees were Mama Qadeer, Farzana Majeed, I A Rehman Sahib, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Sajjad Changezi and myself and it was to be moderated by Rashed Rahman Sahib. Suddenly on April 7 we received a call that the seminar had been called off as the Inter-Services Intelligence people visited the university and demanded that the talk be called off. The university’s administration succumbed to the pressure and as ‘reward’, refused to renew Anne Christine-Habbard’s teaching contract.
Sabeen, defiant and always ready to take up a challenge instinctively against the state narrative, decided to call Mama Qadeer, Farzana Majeed, Wusatullah Khan and myself for ‘Unsilencing Balochistan Take 2’ at her T2F on April 24, 2015. It was a packed house that day and a lot of meaningful discourse took place. Sabeen seemed so happy about it. As she was about to leave with her mother after the session ended, I went up to them and thanked her for being the voice of the voiceless. Her mother said that someone had to do it. Hardly five minutes had passed when Moneeza Ahmed came to me and said that Sabeen had been shot. It didn’t quite register with me, who had seen her minutes before. I again went to her and asked her what she had said and she repeated the same. That sank in and left me shattered. I told Mama, Farzana and others; all were in utter disbelief. Then my nephews and myself went and dropped Mama and Farzana in Lyari.
The next day the funeral at T2F was so deeply saddening. I, not given to showing my emotions publicly, couldn’t stop my tears. It was later said that someone named Saad had assassinated her. I believe that the trigger may have been pulled by anyone but the deed was planned and executed by the handlers who look after the proxies. Sabeen was made the target and not any of us the Baloch, which surely was not beyond them. The assassin was a trained one because her defiance encouraged a lot of people to speak up and they found a platform for their voice at the T2F. She was considered more dangerous than us because we as Baloch would naturally speak of Balochistan but Sabeen, who was not Baloch, speaking up for the Baloch mattered a lot more. They knew if a person like Sabeen was struck down, a lot of people from civil society would step back and not become involved in the sort of activism that Sabeen was committed to and promoted fearlessly. Her killing in my view is one of the most vile, evil and heinous crimes that any force of darkness has ever committed. She was such a valuable person for humanity in general. All she did at T2F was promote and project humanity. She was a ‘moral compass’ that helped people evaluate issues, see broader perspectives and keep the bar of defiance high so no fraudster could come and hoodwink people with empty rhetoric for she was a practical activist too. She will never ever be forgotten.
(To be continued)