The Untold Story of Pashtoons in Balochistan

Jawad Ahmed Khan

Dis­par­i­ty is a norm among var­i­ous regions of Pak­istan. A great num­ber of peo­ple are mar­gin­al­ized and neglect­ed at the hands of the gov­ern­ment, the so-called inde­pen­dent media, judi­cia­ry and oth­er pow­er­ful instru­ments of the state. Pash­toons resid­ing in Balochis­tan are one such promi­nent exam­ple. Around 7.5 mil­lion Pash­toons have been liv­ing for cen­turies on a vast area of 45,000 square miles span­ning from Sibi to Zhob, con­sti­tut­ing 12 dis­tricts. Decades-long polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing has force­ful­ly annexed them with Balochis­tan.

Against the gen­er­al mind­set that Balochis­tan is a one-nation province com­prised only of Baloch peo­ple, it needs to be brought to light that ground real­i­ties are stark­ly dif­fer­ent. It can be argued that around half the pop­u­la­tion of Balochis­tan is eth­ni­cal­ly Pash­toon. Some 8% are Pun­jabis, Haz­aras and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties, con­sid­ered invaders and set­tlers by the Baloch and guests by Pash­toons. The rest, some­what more than 40% , are Baloch. These are just esti­ma­tions pend­ing con­fir­ma­tion as the cen­sus results will be announced lat­er this year.

His­tor­i­cal­ly Balochis­tan was com­prised of two parts; the chief com­mis­sion­er province and the four states includ­ing Qalat, Las­bela, Kha­ran and Makran. The chief com­mis­sion­er province, whose actu­al sta­tus was less than that of a province, was con­fus­ing­ly giv­en the deceiv­ing name of British Balochis­tan. In Jinnah’s 14 points of 1929, the 10^th point asked for com­plete provin­cial sta­tus for Balochis­tan. In the Indi­an Act of 1935 and till the par­ti­tion of the Sub­con­ti­nent, both the states and British Balochis­tan were rec­og­nized and giv­en sep­a­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

After Inde­pen­dence, the crip­pling efforts of con­sti­tu­tion build­ing land­ed Balochis­tan the curse of One Unit which was actu­al­ly a ploy by the estab­lish­ment of West Pak­istan to counter the major­i­ty pop­u­la­tion of East Pak­istan (cur­rent­ly Bangladesh). Under One Unit, the Baloch major­i­ty states were giv­en the name of Qalat divi­sion while the Pash­toon belt was named Quet­ta divi­sion. In 1969 when Yahya Khan announced the demo­li­tion of One Unit, the two parts of cur­rent Balochis­tan were unthink­ing­ly com­bined into one province against the will of the Pash­toons. Since then this out­ra­geous annex­ure of Pash­toon and Baloch areas has been strong­ly opposed and reject­ed by the Pash­toons.

The most pop­u­lar and revered Pash­toon nation­al­ist leader, also an icon of the inde­pen­dence move­ment, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai Sha­heed had led the move­ment against the forced join­ing of these his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­parate nation­al­i­ties. He has also been sup­port­ed by oth­er promi­nent Pash­toon and Baloch lead­ers such as Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizen­jo and oth­ers, in his demand for the restora­tion of provin­cial sta­tus for the Baloch belt, and the join­ing of Pash­toon belt with NWFP (Cur­rent­ly Khy­ber Pakhtoonkhwa).

With this his­tor­i­cal back­ground, the Pash­toons of Balochis­tan have been demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment con­duct a fair cen­sus. The cen­sus will not only set­tle the ques­tion of major­i­ty pop­u­la­tion in the province but will also help geo­graph­i­cal­ly locate respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. This would be a first step towards the pos­si­ble restruc­tur­ing of the province. So far, in all gov­ern­ment poli­cies, includ­ing bud­get, edu­ca­tion, pub­lic  jobs etc. ref­er­ence is tak­en from the cen­sus of 1997 which can­not be con­sid­ered cred­i­ble as the Pash­toon belt was not prop­er­ly sur­veyed by the author­i­ties. For this rea­son, the largest polit­i­cal par­ty of the Pash­toon belt, Pash­toonkhwa Mil­li Awa­mi Par­ty (PMAP), does not accept the same cen­sus. More­over the mas­sive infil­tra­tion of Pash­toon refugees from Afghanistan over the past decade has also changed demo­graph­ics a great deal.

Despite their great num­bers, dis­tinct his­tor­i­cal back­ground and mul­ti­tude of tal­ents, Pash­toons have not received due recog­ni­tion and are sub­ject­ed to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies in the polit­i­cal and social domain. The most impor­tant offi­cial posi­tions such as gov­er­nor, chief min­is­ter, chief sec­re­tary, com­mis­sion­er of the cap­i­tal and oth­ers have always been giv­en to the Baloch peo­ple. How­ev­er, the out­stand­ing suc­cess of the Pash­toonkhwa Mil­li Awa­mi Par­ty in the cur­rent elec­tions is expect­ed to change the equa­tion. While Pash­toons also deserve them equal­ly, most of the pub­lic posts are reserved for the Baloch only. The quo­ta sys­tem for admis­sions in pub­lic sec­tor edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions and gov­ern­ment jobs is one such exam­ple of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies. Recent­ly 41 posts of grade 17 were announced and dis­trib­uted in such a way that 36 seats were giv­en to Baloch areas and only 6 seats were giv­en to Pash­toons.

Unde­ni­ably Baloch peo­ple have been bru­tal­ly sup­pressed and mar­gin­al­ized by the state and are deserv­ing of pos­i­tive action from the author­i­ties to com­pen­sate for ills against them. But com­pen­sa­tion for the Baloch should not come at the price of deny­ing Pash­toons their due rights. Pash­toons believe in non-vio­lent and demo­c­ra­t­ic strug­gle for their rights. Tak­ing that into account and learn­ing from oth­er sup­pressed nations like the Baloch, the state should not push any com­mu­ni­ty to the point where armed strug­gle is the only option left.