Pakhtuns in Balochistan being thrown to the wolves

Courtesy The Frontier Post

Jan Assakkzai

The plight of Pakhtuns in Balochistan has become very important in the context of ongoing round of negotiations on the proposed constitutional package. Any act of commission or omission of constitutional committee will have great forbearance on the political, economic and social rights of Pakhtuns in Balochistan. Ignoring Pakhtuns in reform package, the committee will push them further into decades of political wilderness and economic deprivation. First and foremost is the identity crisis: Pakhtuns in Balochistan are facing acute sense of identity crisis. Though they are happy that at least people of NWFP will eventually get Pakhtunkhwa as their name and hope one day they will follow suit by getting their own name which they refer to as Southern Pakhtunkhwa. You may take it for granted wherever you meet someone from Balochistan who is even speaking Pakhto, that he is a “Baloch”. When I was a student in 1980s in Quetta, I was touring Punjab, Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa, and would have to explain every time that there was a considerable number of Pakhtuns in Districts: Quetta, Pishin, Chaman, Loralai, Zhob, Muslim Bagh, Kuchlak, Sibi, Hernai, Ziarat, Sharaq, and Barakhan, so on and so forth. and that I was a Pakhtun, not Baluch, they would be stunned. The population of the province is equally split between Pakhtuns in the north and east and Baluch in the south and west. According to census of 1998, Pakhtuns in Balochistan were nearly 30 per cent; whereas Baloch were about 52 per cent including their Brahvi cousins. However, substantial number of Pakhtuns boycotted the said census as the whole process was a botched up exercise under the administrative control of Baluch bureaucracy lacking transparency and legitimacy in the eyes of Pakhtuns. It was in the vested interest of Baluch to reduce the size of Pakhtuns as resources in Balochistan are divided on population basis so they did not want to reduce their majority. Today Pakhtuns are content that if fair and impartial census were held, their population would turn out to be at par with Baluch, if not more. Unfortunately it is not only the botched up head count, but also historically great injustice has been done to the Pakhtuns of Balochistan. Pakhtuns had their own Chief Commissioner’s Province in 1870s. Their geographical areas were not part of the then Balochistan State Union with Khan of Kalat being its head. Pakhtun areas were named as “British Balochistan” and administered as Chief Commissioners’ Province located in the northern parts of modern Balochistan province, as seen in this paragraph of Sir Robert Sandeman- the then British political and administrative Officer of Balochistan - :”The area of British and administered territory was 46,960 sq. miles, and the population (1911) 414,000. The head of the civil administration was the Chief Commissioner and Agent to the Governor-General. Next in authority was the Revenue Commissioner, who is also the Judicial Commissioner, and as such exercises the power of a High Court, except in cases of Europeans for whom the Chief Court of the Punjab is a High Court. The area under the direct administration of the Chief Commissioner and Agent to the Governor-General, was divided into six districts, each in charge of a Political Agent as follows: Quetta-Pishin, Sibi, Zhob, Loralai, Bolan Pass, Chagai.” (Tucker’s “Sir Robert G. Sandeman: Peaceful Conqueror of Balochistan” and Bruce’s “The Forward Policy and its Results”). However, when Pakistan came into being, it continued to be administered by a Chief Commissioner. It was dissolved in 1955 and merged in one unit. When one unit was dissolved in 1970, the former Chief Commissioners’ Province was combined with the former Balochistan States Union and the enclave of Gwadar to form a new larger Balochistan Province with a Governor, a Chief Minister and a Provincial Assembly, in 1973 Constitution instead of restoring its previous status. Hence they ended up in existing Balochistan province. Thus the status of Pakthuns in Balochistan is remarkably different from say Hindko speaking inhabitants of Pakhtunkhwa or, Seraikis of Punjab or Urdu-speaking community in Sindh in so much as Pakhtuns are residing in their own areas and had separate administrative unit up till the time of 1955 when a larger West Wing of Pakistan called One Unit was formed. Pakhtuns have neither political identity nor any authority for the development of their own areas. Frustration among them grew intense when the reconciliation process started. None of the actions or statements relating to reconciliation in Balochistan talks about Pakhtuns. The emphasis of this reconciliation is only on the issues, which excludes Pakhtuns as an ethnic group in the province. Same was witnessed in Musharraf regime, though none of the mega projects was started in Pakhtun districts. The present reconciliation process repeats the same mistakes of excluding Pakhtuns. The overall development scenario of Pakhtun districts presents a sad saga. About 70 per cent of them are deprived of the basic education and health facilities. There are no post-graduate colleges or universities in the areas. The higher educational institutions in Quetta are ubeyond the reach of the poor families. The religious extremism is getting its roots deeper here. The so-called Economic Opportunity Zone as purportedly established by the United States of America for the people on Pak-Afghan border along the Durand Line to economically and socially reward Pakhtuoons battered by war on terror policies of Pakistan and US, has yet to bear any fruit for Pakhtuns there. The quality communication sources among these areas and their links to other provinces are absent. There are no direct communication links, no direct train and there are no direct flights between Peshawar and Quetta. The only economic source, agriculture, is facing serious threat, because the underground water sources are becoming dry rapidly. Their agriculture produce has no access to markets in Middle East, Europe and North America. Punjabi/Urdue-speaking people are migrating from Baloch-dominated-areas to Pakhtun-dominated-areas in their bid to escape the current wave of targeted killings by Baloch hardliners and hence the property prices are rising in Pakhtun areas. This only gives credence to the fact that Pakhtuns are peace loving people who always tend to give shelter to others at the time of their need. Anyhow, isn’t it time that the present constitutional reform package redresses the dire situation of Pakhtuns in Balochistan as well? Yes, it is. The constitutional reforms committee has three options on the rights of Pakhtuns in Balochistan: Firstly, the ideal solution for Pakhtuns’ right will be: The merger of Southern Pakhtunkhwa with Pakhtunkhwa as this will go a long way in meeting the aspirations of Pakhtuns in Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Balochistan to be unified in a single administrative and political unit in Pakistan as a single ethnic and geographically contiguous entity. Secondly, it could not be more fairer, if the committee restored the old Chief Commissioners’ Province assuming the current census puts the number of Pakhtuns in Balochistan to nearly 30 per cent of the entire population - though being controversial as a result of boycott of significant number of Pakhtuns - hence meeting the demand of substantial minority. Restoration means not creating something afresh. Even if it is deemed afresh, Indian Government carved out two new states - Haryana and Himachal on the demand of a minority who wanted separation from Indian Punjab, and amended constitution accordingly. Thirdly, from minimalist viewpoint, Pakhtuns would prefer to live in existing Balochistan on parity principle which means Pakhtuns and Balochs will be equal in all walks of life. This solution would perhaps be more palatable politically. Even the then Mushahid Hussain committee under the rule of Gen Pervez Musharraf recognised this principle in its report, though it was later shelved in the cold storage. What is obvious, however, is that if the current proposed constitutional package did not reflect aspirations of Pakhtuns, and left them out completely, it will force their hands to get to the streets causing more unrest in already volatile province of the country and you never know it may even inadvertently lead Pakhtun youth on the path of gun totting Baluch counterparts which is in no body’s interest, given the scale of the crises Pakistan is facing. Janassakzai200@gmail.com