Balochistan, a colonized land, suffers not only from the extrajudicial abduction, assassination, torture, and maltreatment of its native people but also from the systematic suppression of the book-reading culture. Books are seized as if they were contraband, and knowledge is restricted as if it were a crime. In a region beset by marginalization and oppression, where people already live under the constant shadow of threat, even literature is now deemed a danger to the state. What could be a more striking example of neo-colonialism, or better term it colonialism, than a land where both minds and bodies are held captive?
From Turbat to Gowadar, Barkhan to Kharan, and Naseerabad, all of Balochistan is experiencing blatant censorship of books, knowledge, and ideas. The Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC), a prominent student organization based in Balochistan, has been consistently setting up book stalls for the past seven years under the banner of “Balochistan Kitab Karwan” at the onset of each year. Like in previous years, the organization has conducted multiple book fairs this year, too, in every nook and corner of Balochistan.
Unsurprisingly, yet regretfully, the members of BSAC have confronted severe crackdowns, harassment, and threats at their book stalls at the hands of the police and district administration—from Makoran to the Koh-e-Suleiman and from the Naseerabad region to Kalat. Isn’t this an open war on knowledge in Balochistan—a form of non-kinetic warfare aimed at controlling the flow of knowledge—an orchestrated strategy to censor the culture of reading, stifle the atmosphere of critical thought, and dampen the fragrance of literature? I feel pity for anyone who thinks otherwise.
This is what political thinkers call a war of ideas and a battle of narratives—an information warfare in which the colonizer filters the literature of the indigenous population, deciding what the colonized should read and what they should not, what to think and what not to think. Every idea, thought, or perspective that doesn’t align with the colonizer is destined to be labelled as seditious. If you don’t toe the line of the state’s propaganda machinery, you are branded as anti-state. You either play by the rules or don’t play at all.
In his book “Discipline and Punish,” French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault brilliantly explains the concept of the power-knowledge nexus. According to him, knowledge is not neutral; it is shaped by the ruling regime to maintain control. Regulating knowledge is equivalent to sustaining power, as power and knowledge are deeply interconnected. It serves as a subtle form of rule over the colonized people. Colonizers have always sought to control the flow of knowledge to entrench their dominance. This is exactly what is happening in Balochistan today.
The foremost reason the state fears books is that when people read, they begin to question—question subjugation, exploitation, and colonization. Knowledge is always seen by the state as a form of resistance, with the potential to decolonize minds by dismantling colonial narratives and discourses that uphold the colonial framework. Colonizers always thrive on control—controlling land, resources, and, above all, minds. Thus, books are banned, and literature is censored because a literate, conscious, and enlightened society cannot be enslaved.
The possible response to the rising crackdowns on book stalls is to organize even more such events. The greater the crackdown, the stronger the book-reading campaign should be. Books that are banned should be read by everyone. Ideologies that are suppressed should be widely discussed. The personalities who are censored should be studied thoroughly. Only through this act of defiance can one fully grasp the ulterior intent behind these censorship policies.
