The French Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist and a key figure in the Algerian liberation movement, Frantz Fanon, in his book, Wretched of The Earth, stresses that “Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.” It is, in fact, the violence which shapes from resistance in the minds of a colonized people. As the colonized are always offered tyranny, including a distortion of a national culture, literature and politics. Such instances were observed in various countries including Algeria, Vietnam and other colonized regions of the world.
In Vietnam, the French forces arrested an Algerian rebel, who was brought in his village: all the villagers were gathered at the center there. The head of the battalion killed the rebel using a knife, taking out his heart and lungs. The rebel’s family members and villagers were looking at all this. The chief ordered his soldiers to cook the heart and make soup of his lungs, and give them to the parents of the rebel. This was one way to spread the narrative of fear among the Vietnamese masses. Anywhere under colonization, a colonizer uses differing tactics to further their occupation.
Coming to Balochistan, a region under oppression, one witnesses violence of various kinds. Students, journalists, teachers, lawyers, doctors, intellectuals and people from all other walks of life have been key targets. Anyone, who posses consciousness and is aware of state’s brutalities at its peak, is finalized to be a victim of the human rights violations.
The recent crackdowns on book stalls further expose the state attitude towards the intellect of the Baloch as a nation. While the recent targeted attacks on Baloch intellectuals, particularly in Makuran region, reflect the state’s outrageous policies towards the Baloch. However, the surge in enforced disappearances are further evidences of state’s unending tyranny on the Baloch national future. As only in the month of February, 2025, so far, 60 people were forcibly disappeared from Balochistan with half a month to go. It is only a collective and organized struggle which can ensure safety of the Baloch national struggle and its future.
During colonization, influential figures are the prime targets of the state institutions so as to keep their control on the region and suppress dissents. For them, such figures are a ‘state threat’ because they promote ideas and guide for rescuing the cultural identity. The colonizer tries to harass such people in various means including surveillance to monitor their activities, spreading propaganda to discredit them and acts like attacks on them to assassinate or disappear them forcefully so as to instill fear among the people.
On the other hand, the loss of such intellectuals and figures can also fuel a wider range of resistance as revenge or memory to further establish the dreams they dreamed of. The recent killing of Allah Dad Baloch, an MPhil Scholar and a resident of Singanisar Turbat, is one such attack of its nature, followed by the assassination attempt of Sir Shareef Zakir, a teacher and principal of Sachaan School, shows the tactic of systematic state agenda to target the Baloch intellect.
Enforced disappearances have been used as a powerful tool to suppress Baloch voices, particularly, the abduction of leaders, activists, intellectuals and others by state institutions who then deny having them arrested. Such tactics are only attempts to further the fear of the population, while the families of such disappeared persons suffer from immense psychological trauma, leading to a community-wide sense of loss and grief.
The other angle of forced abductions are creating political apathy. It is such a threat which hinders one from participating in civic acts, like protests and other political and social activities. A primary task of forced disappearances is suppressing the resistance, which also contributes in throwing lasting impacts on the social, cultural and political fabrics of the colonized nations. Same is practiced in Balochistan to control the pro-Baloch sentiments.
Another tool to cut from its root a resistance is curbing the modes of knowledge transfer, including the national consciousness-development. For the very purpose, book reading culture is proposed to face challenges by the colonizers. Worthy books are either censored or banned, while book stalls are raided and students and book suppliers arrested. What they stress more on is promoting the foreign language and literature to make it more dominant than that of the indigenous one.
Economic hurdles are yet another way to curb national growth as far as knowledge-transfer is concerned. Many people cannot afford to buy books owing to their unavailability and high price. This makes the people to have limited access to books worthy of reading. While the lack of libraries and reading materials further reduces opportunities of learning. Moreover, the education system set up by colonizers often teaches only their history and values, ignoring colonial nations’ knowledge.
Propaganda may also be spaced to degrade local literature, leading to self-censorship among the citizens. Moreover, the education system is often restructured to prioritize colonial texts, sidelining local authors and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives. In extreme cases, colonizers may even destroy books that promote dissents.
In the conclusion, as Fanon said, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon, it can only be finished through greater violence. Decolonization, in other words, is construction and deconstruction. We need to construct our national mind to be well-prepared to deconstruct what exists and has never been ours. It depends on Baloch leaders and intellectuals where they want to see Baloch nation. That is how we need to move on accordingly for our national ends.
