Balochistan Freedom Movement : Strategic & historical analysis and modern day repurcussions.

[GaudaNaresh]

Good day, fellow DRB-ites.

I have decided to create a Balochistan specific thread, which our forum lacks, to understand, analyze and track the independence movement in Balochistan ( we have a Balochistan news corner,but its not a analysis thread but news-tracker).

So lets understand Balochistan first :
Firstly, Balochistan, aka Kalat Khanate , was a treaty vassal of British Empire and not formally part of British India but treaty vassals - their status is same as that of the Rajputana states, Nizam of Hyderabad, Kashmir, Nepal and Bhutan : kingdoms who are treaty vassals of british and given option for independence or joining pakistan/India as they saw fit. Khan of Kalat chose independence and Pakistan FORCED him to sign accession document, which caused his own brother, to form the BLA and become its first leader.
This is clear-cut divergence from India asking King of Kashmir to fuck off and the king HIMSELF offering to sign instrument of accession to save his country. Hence why no Kashmiri royal or bigwig took up armed resistance against India, unlike Balochistan.

Secondly, the main cause of Balochistani independence struggle is not outside support, but the fact that Balochistan is the richest province of Pakistan by resource extraction but its poorest province by GDP per capita and Baloch who were promised jobs in CPEC were cut out and jobs done by Chinese + Punjabi contractors.
So root cause of Balochi independence struggle is native displacement and native disenfranchisement.

Now, lets look at the strategic picture - Balochistan is not only highly rich in mineral resources,its also exceptionally well situated by persian gulf and has several natural deep-water ports that has been in use since Indus Valley civilization days ( Ormara, Pasni, Gwadar and Jiwani). So Balochistan is strategically well placed to serve as main import-export corridor for Afghanistan, which is also an easier transit route from Kandahar to baloch coast via Quetta.
So there are regional players also who have clear-cut gain from Balochistan becoming independent, along with the Baloch people themselves.

I shall not make this a huge essay post, but just give a small synopsis to get the ball rolling for us to understand the Balochistan phenomenon and come up with a socio-political understanding of the region that will help our two populations connect and help each other better.

Regards.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

Now, let us understand who the baloch people are:

Baloch people are 'allegedly' a western Iranian group, since their language is western Iranic, who migrated to balochistan in historical times, sometimes in the last 1000-1500 years and intermingled with the local population. The biggest minority group in Balochistan are the Brahui people, a dravidian language group people ( but not ancient dravidian but classical dravidian and Brahui lacks loanwords from Old farsi of Achaemenid period, showing only middle farsi loan-words, meaning they migrated to there in last 2000 years, not before).

The balochistan region itself was ruled by an Indo-Aryan group that later got scythian-ized ( Indo-Shaka), named Parata-rajas ( Paradas in Persian records), who made a kingdom centered around Loralai in Balochistan.
They were eventually absorbed into the Sassanian empire and made the Sassanian province of 'Hind/Sindh'. Whats interesting, is that in the period Sassanian empire conquered Kabul-Balkh region ( the last remnant of Kushan empire and formed Kushan-shahs), is the same period they conquered Balochistan. But whereas Kushanshans were cadet line of the Sassanid shahs ( cadet line means not from main branch of royal line, but from cousin line of younger brothers), the Sassanian Balochistan was ruled by Shaka rulers - aka local vassals of Sassanians.

One thing that is also obvious in studying Baloch culture, in a way they stick out from Iranians and Pashtuns (their neighbouring Iranian peoples) is that Baloch culture is EXTREMELY xenophobic - they are like Japan, where they are curteous to foreigners but maintain xenophobic separation and even in Balochistan, pashtun north and Balochi south have not inter-mingled. Baloch villages stay separate from Pathan villages.

Practically the ONLY non-balochi group ( of which Brahui are a part now) that Baloch get along with are Sindhis - for reasons i do not know myself.

So its also clear from Balochistan history, that they are NOT going to accept foreign rule easily.

 

[Nishaanbaaz]

Nice to see someone finally made a thread on it, hopefully there's eventually a similar thread on the freedom/re-merger movement of Pashtuns whose land is currently occupied by Pakistan as well.

Regarding Baloch history, one very important point that I didn't see mentioned in original posts is that it was actually Jinnah himself - as a lawyer - who represented Kalat's case for staying independent at one point in time, and he was literally weighed in gold by the Khan for compensation. When Jinnah became the head of Pakistan, he signed a "Standstill Agreement" with them, just like the one he signed with J&K - only to violate the agreements by invading and occupying both regions. So even by the standards of Pakistan, Balochistan is a particularly blatant, cruel and illegal occupation & exploitation.