In a series of events, district administrations, and in some other places educational institutional administrations, raided on Baloch students-organized book stalls across various Baloch regions and inside campuses. The book stalls were scheduled under the banner of Balochistan Kitab Karwan of Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC), a Baloch student organization. In Gowadar, students, along with the books, were arrested with a First Information Report (FIR) stating that the students were “distorting the city’s peaceful atmosphere”. As per the police report, circulation of books was causing ill-situations in the city. But what we observed the very next month in the same Gowadar city was: Grand “Gowadar Book Festival” with guests coming from within and outside Balochistan – including the same Gowadar district administration – to emphasize and attract the youth towards book reading culture. What would one term it if not pure hypocrisy?
Around the same clock when the participants in Gowadar Book Festival ‘preached’ book reading culture, Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences (LUAWMS) inaugurated a sports week and food gala. The students, thirsty for sharing books, organized a book stall which was attacked by the varsity administration. In-between, a student and a high-profile university admin were arguing: the student was continuously saying it were books that they had, and the admin officer was rushing at him and others to confiscate books and disregard them and the books.
Universities are deemed as hub of knowledge. People are invited from outside Balochistan to preach the significance of books – perhaps, as a media tool (propaganda) to show that Baloch are uninterested towards the books and the state is doing its best to teach them the importance of books. But in the practical terms, it is opposite: students are teaching the country and the universities that books are important and they, the students, should be engaged more with books other than irrelevant activities, while the universities, colleges and, in fact, the district and law enforcement agencies reject the students’ proposal. What future are the state and its institutions dragging the Baloch students towards?
The debate was not over when today, February 20, under the same Balochistan Kitab Karwan, students had arranged a book stall in the Turbat University. When entering the gate, the admin ordered to close the gate, check identity cards and only allow those students who did not have any book. They announced at the gate that “students without books are allowed, while the rest with the books should stand out”. The students, in response, placed all the books before the gate and organized a protesting sit-in, asking the university administration that if not books, what could a student carry inside a university? Their question is valid, but who will answer?
A Balochistan without books is unimaginable. With state’s such reactions, we apprehend that they want to degrade education and knowledge in Balochistan’s educational institutions. Baloch students should be made more engrossed in books and knowledge, while such state practices will only contribute in furthering the Baloch sense of hatred.
