Voices unheard

Long – or short – ‘marches’ in Pakistan tend to usually be conducted in luxury vehicles, punctuated by the occasional leisurely stroll by ‘leaders’. Not so by the Baloch who have taken to the highways and streets of Pakistan time and again over the years, marching to get the centre to listen to their otherwise neglected voices. Media attention has traditionally been denied to most protests and marches by those we conveniently call ‘peripheral communities’.

There has been little sympathy from official circles, and the Baloch have hardly ever found any support in the centre partly because of the assumption that everyone campaigning for their rights must be a separatist. Whether through ignorance or malice, the government usually gets the order wrong. And yet these marches have gone on, the latest from Turbat to Islamabad.

Encouragingly, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has directed the Islamabad police to “let the Baloch demonstrators” protest and warned against any obstruction in the way of the marchers. IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq was hearing a plea against the arrest of Baloch protesters in the federal capital on Wednesday night. The long march led by Baloch women that began in Turbat – according to the protesters, against extrajudicial killings of the Baloch and for the release of missing persons – had entered Islamabad on Wednesday night to head towards the National Press Club in Islamabad, and was met with a violent state crackdown. The government used water to thwart the Baloch protesters, including women and children, while the protesters were also baton-charged and later arrested by the capital city police.

After statements of condemnation and outrage by human rights organizations and civil society members, the caretaker prime minister, who also happens to hail from Balochistan, formed a committee to address the grievances of the protesters. During a press conference on Thursday, caretaker cabinet ministers along with the IG of Islamabad announced that on the directives of PM Anwaarul Haq Kakar, all women and children protesters had been released and that the government was looking into the ‘grievances’ of the protesters. While that may be all well and good, the question is: why was the state so trigger-happy with arresting protesters in the first place? The caretaker government has said that it had evidence that ‘some elements’ had wanted to ‘exploit’ the march/protest to create a law-and-order situation, emphasizing that these elements were non-Baloch locals who had joined the protesters to create chaos. Security is no doubt paramount in a country reeling from the terror threat but surely that cannot justify arbitrary brutality against civilians?

Wednesday night’s incident has once again brought to light the longstanding grievances of the Baloch. The march, led by political activists and the families of missing persons, had aimed to draw attention to the injustices faced by the province, including the spectre of enforced disappearances that the Baloch say has haunted them for decades. Balochistan has been plagued by a history of neglect, economic disparity, and political marginalization. The province is rich in natural resources, and yet remains one of the most impoverished regions in Pakistan. There are no easy solutions to this issue but when the state takes on its citizens in such a brutal manner, peace will always remain elusive. The least they – and any civilian in the country – are owed is a hearing of their grievances and demands with dignity. The idea of Pakistan as a federation is not to dismiss the grievances of smaller provinces but to give equal rights and autonomy to all provinces. Only through genuine efforts to address the root causes of the issues in Balochistan can lasting peace and prosperity be achieved in the region.