Why Quaid-e-Azam Residency?

Rafi­ul­lah Kakar

“Quaid we are embar­rassed, those ter­ror­ists are alive,” young pro­test­ers in Lahore chant­ed at a protest demon­stra­tion against recent arson attack on Quaid-e-Azam Res­i­den­cy in Ziarat.  The slo­gan reflects the nation­wide shock over the Ziarat inci­dent, which was fol­lowed by two ter­ror­ist attacks in Quet­ta the same day. Con­fused about the dynam­ics of eth­nic and sec­tar­i­an vio­lence in Balochis­tan, many are ask­ing why, after all, a harm­less nation­al her­itage site was tar­get­ed.

Quaid-e-Azam Res­i­den­cy has per­haps been the most pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion in the restive province. For many Baloch, how­ev­er, the mon­u­ment was a sym­bol of the arbi­trary and unfair treat­ment to which they have been sub­ject­ed since Pakistan‘s incep­tion.  For the insur­gents, it was per­haps a rel­a­tive­ly con­ve­nient tar­get to hurt the mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment against whom their anger is pri­mar­i­ly aimed. Most impor­tant­ly, the attack sig­ni­fied Baloch crit­i­cism of Jinnah’s role in what they con­sid­er forced acces­sion of Kalat state to Pak­istan. Because of the con­flict­ing his­tor­i­cal accounts on the sub­ject, this claim mer­its spe­cial scruti­ny.

Quaid-e-Azam Moham­mad Ali Jin­nah knew Balochis­tan bet­ter than any oth­er nation­al leader of India. Through­out the con­sti­tu­tion­al strug­gle in the 1920s and 1930s, Jin­nah plead­ed for reforms in Balochis­tan. He had friend­ly rela­tions with the Khan of Kalat, who pro­vid­ed sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial help for the free­dom strug­gle. When in the 1940s the Khan of Kalat accel­er­at­ed his efforts for an inde­pen­dent Baloch state, Jin­nah, as his legal advis­er, pre­sent­ed a mem­o­ran­dum to the British to explain the unique con­sti­tu­tion­al posi­tion of Kalat. It was based on the argu­ment that unlike oth­er Indi­an prince­ly states, Kalat was nev­er a part of India. It was an inde­pen­dent state whose rela­tions with the British gov­ern­ment were gov­erned by the treaty of 1876 that rec­og­nized the sov­er­eign­ty of Kalat, argued the Khan. Jin­nah sup­port­ed Khan’s stance and Jawa­har­lal Nehru opposed it. Hav­ing had the option of retain­ing inde­pen­dence as per the 3^rd June plan, Kalat state opt­ed for inde­pen­dence – a sta­tus that was rec­og­nized in a com­mu­niqué signed by Jin­nah, Liaqat Ali Khan, Lord Mount­bat­ten and the Khan of Kalat on 11^th August, 1947 . Sub­se­quent­ly, Kalat’s bicam­er­al leg­is­la­ture passed a res­o­lu­tion in favour of inde­pen­dence, with Ghaus Bakhsh Bizen­jo, the leader of the pop­u­lar Kalat State Nation­al Par­ty (KSNP) in the Darul Awam (House of Com­mons), emerg­ing as the most ardent advo­cate of Baloch nation­al­ism and Kalat’s inde­pen­dence.

But in the days that fol­lowed, the Quaid – who had ear­li­er accept­ed Kalat as an inde­pen­dent non-Indi­an state – kept on advis­ing the Khan to merge Kalat with Pak­istan. Accord­ing to Malik Saeed Dehwar in ‘Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry of Balochis­tan’, Khan’s response was ini­tial­ly pos­i­tive but lat­er became “eva­sive” as he sought time for tak­ing his peo­ple into con­fi­dence. While Pak­istan want­ed an uncon­di­tion­al acces­sion of the Kalat state, the Khan and Baloch nation­al­ists rep­re­sent­ed by the KSNP desired a treaty-based rela­tion­ship with spe­cial coop­er­a­tion in the areas of for­eign affairs, defence, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. After hav­ing realised Khan’s reluc­tance to accede, the Pak­istani state – exploit­ing the inter­nal dis­uni­ty of Baloch sar­dars and rulers – obtained the sep­a­rate merg­er of the prin­ci­pal­i­ties of Kha­ran, Makran, and Las­bela, which until then were claimed as “vas­sal states” by Kalat. This move annoyed the Baloch nation­al­ists and left the Khan with lit­tle choice. He regard­ed it as the “polit­i­cal cas­tra­tion” of Baloch peo­ple. This devel­op­ment cou­pled with what the Khan called the “mis­chie­vous and mis­lead­ing but sug­ges­tive” announce­ment on All-India Radio on March 27, 1948 about his inten­tions to accede to India led the Khan to announce “uncon­di­tion­al” acces­sion of Kalat to Pak­istan. The Baloch nation­al­ist viewed it as a “forced merg­er” and crit­i­cized the Khan for bury­ing “all the glo­ry and van­i­ty of his line”. The Khan’s younger broth­er, Prince Abdul Karim Khan, launched what was to become the first of the many insur­gen­cies against Pak­istan, alleged­ly with the Khan’s tac­it bless­ing.

Nev­er­the­less, there are sev­er­al instances that prove that the Quaid respect­ed the sen­si­tiv­i­ties of the Baloch peo­ple. The lead­ers that fol­lowed him, Khan says in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, “lacked the req­ui­site expe­ri­ence of han­dling sen­si­tive mat­ters like the eth­no­log­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal, and tra­di­tion­al back­ground of Baloch peo­ple”. They tried to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion arbi­trar­i­ly and failed to ful­fil the promis­es the Quaid had made to the peo­ple of Balochis­tan.

Baloch griev­ances could have been pla­cat­ed in the post-colo­nial Pak­istan, had it not been for the cen­tral­ized and inter­ven­tion­ist poli­cies of the suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments in the cen­tre. Hav­ing inher­it­ed a state com­pris­ing of mul­ti­ple eth­nic groups bound togeth­er loose­ly by the force of a com­mon reli­gion, Pakistan’s civ­il-mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment – which was aware of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of this set­up – regard­ed eth­nic or any form of iden­ti­ty asser­tion oth­er than Islam as anath­e­ma (espe­cial­ly in case of Baloch insur­gency, giv­en its pre­dom­i­nant­ly sec­u­lar and left­ist char­ac­ter) and declared it detri­men­tal to nation­al secu­ri­ty and integri­ty. Using a top-down approach, the state enforced an exclu­sive­ly-defined reli­gious nation­al­ism to counter var­i­ous eth­no-nation­al­ist, sec­u­lar and demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenges to its author­i­tar­i­an­ism. This approach sti­fled the reli­gious and eth­nic minori­ties. It was espe­cial­ly true in case of Pash­tun and Baloch nation­al­ists who, on account of their sec­u­lar approach, were nev­er enchant­ed with the Mus­lim League’s slo­gan of “Deen in dan­ger” and were, there­fore, allied with the Con­gress.

The recent attack is a shock­ing reminder of the increas­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment among the Baloch against Pak­istan. ‘Patri­ot­ic’ Pak­ista­nis must feel embar­rassed not because Quaid’s res­i­den­cy was demol­ished but because all post-Jin­nah Pak­istani lead­ers failed to ful­fil the lofty promis­es made by the Quaid to the peo­ple of Balochis­tan. The sad attack must evoke thought­ful revis­it­ing of our poli­cies rather than humil­i­a­tion. We need to pon­der over the ques­tion as to why Quaid’s res­i­den­cy was attacked in a province where he used to be accord­ed gra­cious wel­come and was once even weighed in gold and sil­ver.

The cur­rent nation­al­ists-led Balochis­tan gov­ern­ment faces a dou­ble-edged sword in the form of Baloch sep­a­ratists and the reli­gious and sec­tar­i­an extrem­ists. While the lat­er are bent upon destroy­ing Jin­nah’s Pak­istan, the for­mer are rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­er to nego­ti­ate with. While the fact that Pash­tun and Baloch nation­al­ists have formed gov­ern­ment in Balochis­tan augurs well for the long-term sta­bil­i­ty and progress of the province, though Baloch sep­a­ratists and the dis­ap­point­ed Balochis­tan Nation­al Par­ty (Men­gal) pose a seri­ous chal­lenge to the rep­re­sen­ta­tive char­ac­ter of the gov­ern­ment. Bring­ing the angry Baloch nation­al­ist lead­er­ship in the main­stream is a test for the new gov­ern­ment.

(The writer is an Oxford Rhodes Schol­ar for 2013. A grad­u­ate of G. C. Uni­ver­si­ty, he hails from Quet­ta, Balochis­tan)