Every nation in the world has a distinct way of life which gives that particular nation a recognition. Like the same the Baloch nation through the history has come across so many phases of peace and war which have been jotted down in the page of history with heroic words. Some historians sing the praises of Baloch history while few critics call it ignorant acts.
The Baloch society has always been under the influence of powers that ruled Baloch. When we look at the history, we will surely be cleared that the nature of Baloch society largely remained secular and liberal, but the circumstances and unwanted situations caused great damage to the cultural and social norms of the society.
There used to be times when ladies like Banadi played the role of commander in the wars, Shay Mureed and Hani set the examples of love stories in Baloch history. Only in secular societies love stories are given the chance to grow, otherwise the current situations suggest that love affairs are considered acts against family honour and reputation and in most of the cases the boys and girls both are sentenced to death for bringing bad names to the family and society.
However, Baloch history is full of love stories and at that time, falling in love with a girl was not considered a bad act rather there exist so many love stories that are the proud part of Baloch history. The love stories of Shireen-Farhad, Sassi-Punno, Shahdad -Mahnaz, Kiya-Sadu, Beebagr-Granaz, Dosteen-Shireen, Lallah-Granaz, Raees Darvesh-Begum, Feroz-Sharan, Mast Tawkali-Sammo and so many others.
Today we read and discuss about them with proud and call them important assets of our history, but with the passage of time, the Baloch society got rigid towards secularism due to the fact that Baloch always remained in situation of wars which did not let the actual nature of Baloch society to flourish which resulted in narrow-mindedness and religious extremism which changed the shape of Baloch way of life.
The Baloch women used to enjoy full freedom like men and they were never considered inferior to men, but now the situation has changed and women don’t enjoy any sort of freedom in our society.
Moreover, the minorities always enjoyed great freedom in Baloch society and we can still find that the Zikri and Hindu remained integral part of Baloch society and they never faced any sort of insecurity from Baloch population.
Throughout the history, we can only find Naseer Khan Noori who waged a war against against the Zikri community in Balochistan and killed thousands of Baloch who belonged to Zikri community and forced them to accept Islam. After that Baloch society did not come across such incidents.
The present situation of Balochistan has changed miserably and the religious extremism has reached its peak. Now the other minority communities find it very much difficult to live a peaceful life.
The question remains how the secular society of Baloch has been converted into an extremist one…!