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IF the social media attacks on Balochistan National Party President Sardar Akhtar Mengal from accounts and handles usually seen as close to one or more elements of the hybrid set-up are a reflection of the thinking in the corridors of power, one can only despair.
The language, tone and tenor of these attacks display very poor judgement because they ignore what Akhtar Mengal’s protest march and activism can deliver. Over the past several months, he has been despondent over the state’s continued denial of Baloch economic and political rights that has deepened the sense of alienation among the youth in Balochistan.
He has often warned that in the absence of course correction, matters would go out of the hands of politicians such as himself whose struggle for Baloch rights to this day remains peaceful and through constitutional means. In fact, of late he has taken the stance that things may have gone too far already for him to play a role.
When Baloch Yakjehti Committee leaders including Dr Mahrang Baloch and Sammi Deen Baloch were arrested from Quetta and Karachi respectively, while protesting peacefully, the BNP leader announced his protest march. One can understand that the Baloch nationalist leader sees an opportunity to come back into the game and this can only be a positive development.
The state should be grateful for Akhtar Mengal’s activism as it can facilitate a process which can result in peace.
The provincial and federal governments, and more significantly, the establishment see BYC as an entity sympathetic to the armed separatists such as those in the BLA that has embarked on attacks not just on the security forces but also on unarmed civilians.
There is method to the BLA’s madness. By attacking and killing innocent workers and travellers from the Punjab, it is seeking an escalation by inviting an ever-harsher state response as it believes each crackdown creates more disaffected youth who will flock to its ranks. To me, the blowback in the media from anchors and analysts to these killings in Punjab is playing right into the terror group’s hands as it widens the cleavage into an unbridgeable gulf.
The BLA’s Jaffar Express takeover and hostage-taking seemed part of the same strategy. All terror groups are known to attach great significance to what are called ‘spectacular’ attacks as these help build their image and help them attract more recruits. The state is left with no other option but to harden its stance and say it will respond to acts of terror and militancy with an iron hand. No state worth its salt can afford to be seen as soft on those who pick up arms against it.
However, as is evident from, for example, the Good Friday Agreement (the details are easily accessible on the internet) between the IRA and the UK government, that for decades remained locked in an armed conflict directly and/ or through proxies, tough military action has to eventually lead to a dialogue, peace agreements and the decommissioning of the militants’ weapons.
Once weapons are decommissioned as a result of a credible peace process, those who opted for militancy swap arms for mainstream politics. The UK and Northern Ireland are not the only examples. In Spain, the Basque separatist group ETA, too, abandoned its armed struggle; politicians advocating Basque economic rights now do so forcefully and effectively in the country’s parliament.
Tough security measures, which inevitably lead to human rights violations and can cause passions to spike, have to be accompanied by some sort of effort to cool tempers by letting the steam out. And for such an eventual exercise, interlocutors are needed.
Marginalised Baloch nationalist politicians such as Akhtar Mengal and Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, to name just two who have been in mainstream politics and have struggled within the confines of the Constitution peacefully, could play such a role. But only if they are seen as credible and trustworthy interlocutors by all sides.
Seen against this backdrop, the state and its proxies should be grateful for Akhtar Mengal’s activism as it can only help and facilitate an eventual process which can result in peace. I advocate peace as I feel Pakistan is surrounded by grave challenges and we need to minimise those we can.
The blood of each of our citizens, of our soldiers is precious, priceless. Anything that stops the bloodletting has to be in Pakistan’s interest. It is up to the state to decide what direction it wishes to take. The use of force has only led to a spiral in the bloodshed. If it believes it would taper off, before stopping altogether by the continued use of force, it can take that path.
Or it can explore other options side by side with the use of force. Wouldn’t it be prudent to win over the ‘reconcilable’ as some of us call them in order to isolate those who wish to solely rely on militancy and terror tactics? But for any reconciliation to happen there are three prerequisites.
First is the issue of the ‘missing’, second the redressal of some of the most glaringly obvious grievances, and side by side with these two, a genuine attempt to return the mandate of the people to their elected representatives. Rule by proxies when the people are feeling disenfranchised will not deliver anything positive.
Of late, I have been alarmed by talk of replicating the model China used in Xinjiang to tackle the Uighurs or how the Sri Lankans dealt with the Tamil separatists. I say alarmed because even a student of geopolitics like me, let alone an expert, can see that our geopolitical reality can’t be more different, and is far more challenging, than the two quoted examples. One look at the map will tell you that.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2025
