Under subjugation, a people is deprived of all the fundamentals of life – as a rule. Human rights violations, eventually, become a norm in such a society. Anti-people policies form and reshape (reform) with time, ensuring that the rule of subjugation is obeyed. Narratives surface with efforts to turn them into major discourses, the most common of which is the narrative/discourse of fear. Committed vocals, within such circumstances, are prime targets to victimize in order to support the spread of narrative of the fear. Because if there is no fear, there is resistance. When there is resistance, there is a better tomorrow – a tomorrow with no subjugation.
Balochistan has been the hub of grave human rights violations for several decades. On one hand, they have been a result of continuous tyranny, on the very other hand, they are the outcomes of not understanding critically the actual strength of mass movement pushing a people towards a better dawn. With each shift in the upper military powers, we observe a change in military doctrine (for Baloch). From direct military targets to enforced disappearances, followed by tortured, dumped bodies; to forced evacuation of b-areas using military force; to conversion into soft policy as once adopted towards the Baloch by the Britishers of using the ‘development/welfare’ formula; to abductions followed by fake encounters; to enforced disappearances and acquittal followed by murders in the hands of local militias notorious as death squads; and so forth as such. Since the twenty first century, we have seen Balochistan going through critical times in the guise of the mentioned doctrines.
The martyrdom of Allah Dad Baloch, an M.Phil scholar, at the hands of a locally-hired killer – as has been the contemporary military doctrine – is a reminder that being Baloch is deemed as a ‘crime’ while being a conscious Baloch is even something harder than that.
Just as after the incident, a Baloch teacher, Sir Shareef Zakir, an SST teacher at Modal High School Turbat, was fired at on broad daylight in the Chahsar-cross area of Turbat. Luckily, he survived, but tensed even more of what would be his future fate. Before assassination attempt, a hand grenade was already lobbed at his house in the same week, followed by forced disappearance of his son, Kamil Shareef, and cousin, Ehsan Sarwar. He is concerned and is continuously questioning: “What is my sin?” Perhaps, the answer could be “being an educator”.
Besides this, like plenty incidents in the past as well, short-term enforced disappearances have become an increasingly practiced norm – though the other forms of mentioned war-crimes are at the peak. Under this formula, the law enforcement agencies themselves – or through their backed death squads – abduct the Baloch, detain them illegally in unknown locations, torture them for hours including various means of humiliations, and leave them free. This practice is observed to maintain the earlier mentioned narrative of fear among the people so that they lose the inside dare to challenge, question or resist the oppressions. The recent Parom incident where Azeem Jhado was forcefully detained, humiliated, tortured and released after a day is the actual face of such acts. However, many such cases go unreported because of fear of further harassment in case they highlight the incident.
Apart from disappearances, the actual war here is, apart from the physical war, is the war of narratives – or the war of ideas. Only in the very present, where military establishments have targeted the Baloch land in so many ways, the civil sectors, including the so-called parliament and the bureaucracy, have defended the war-crimes and provided a shield to them as a means of narrative-building tactic. As very recently, the “Chief Minister of Balochistan” and member of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Sarfraz Bugti took on the floor of the “Balochistan Assembly” where he justified state violence by terming it “legitimate”, while denouncing it for the public. “Only state is allowed to inflict violence, not the citizens” were his words on record. He kept condemning various incidents where security forces were attacked by Baloch militants, but ignored the Baloch plights and humiliations – of the civilians – by the hands of the law enforcement agencies and their backed groups. He justifies the enforced disappearances, considers military’s assault to the Baloch dignity as individual concerns, while hides the gross Baloch rights violations – condemnation is still afar.
Actually, with such malicious assembly-floor speeches, they have two common purposes: one, to show the world, and particularly the other regions of Pakistan, that they are legitimate in their acts, whether violence or enforced disappearances or the military-controlled encounters of the Baloch from the context of narrative development internally and externally. Two, it would help them (the parliamentarians) to make room for their further privileges and reserve seats for them in the upcoming elections – as it is a means to be in the ‘good book’ of their ‘assembly-fate-deciders’. In the middle, what they target is making narratives, supporting their bogus claims.
The Balochistan situations are transparent. The state and its machineries, including the Baloch (parliamentarians and the death squads), want their hegemony in both ways, physical and of narratives. While for the Baloch, their land and an end to gross Baloch rights violations are the primary targets – in whatsoever means.
