ON the day that Justice Umar Ata Bandial was sworn in as chief justice, a plethora of voices in the long-suffering ethnic peripheries were screaming out, yet again, asking to be heard.

Sindhi intellectuals and political workers ran social media campaigns to call attention to the slow but steady destruction of arguably the world’s largest fresh water lake, Manchhar; families and loved ones demanded the production of yet another slew of Baloch missing persons; Gilgit-Baltistanis rejected their region being marketed as a tourist haven even as they are denied citizenship rights; and Pakhtuns decried yet more indiscriminate force against peaceful marchers in Qila Saifullah.

Seraikis, the Hazaras of Balochistan and even urban Sindh’s Urdu-speaking Mohajirs also ask why their lands, resources and labour are so coveted while their dignity, material well-being and political freedoms are so easily glossed over. Indeed, those without hereditary influence in the Punjabi heartland are also subject to the daily whims of power in the thana, katcheri and patwarkhana. Or asked to sacrifice their lands and livelihoods in the name of ‘development’, the most recent example being the outlandish Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project.

But it is in the ethnic peripheries that the crisis of the federation is most acute, where justice remains, for most, a pipe dream. Our memories are short, so let us be reminded that it was only a few short weeks ago that tens of thousands of people in Gwadar, mostly subsistence fisherfolk, were on the streets in an unprecedented demonstration of discontent. They were demanding not only that their livelihoods be protected from foreign trawlers but also to stop being treated like aliens by law-enforcement agencies in their own homeland.

Justice eludes the ethnic peripheries.

It has been said before, but it must be said again: Pakistani statecraft and legal regimes in most ethnic peripheries remain colonial in their essence. Violence is common and state functionaries are often more interested in pillaging natural resources than serving the proverbial citizenry. Even where exceptional legal regimes have been abolished — like when the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were merged with KP province in 2018 — the conduct of the state and those it patronises has hardly changed on the ground.

It is in the same ex-Fata districts that the TTP is regrouping, having been given a major fillip after the reconquest of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban. Voices of peace in the Pakhtun border districts — not least of all those who were targeted in Qila Saifullah — have been demanding the state stop indulging the TTP, but these pleas fall on deaf ears. This is perhaps because the establishment continues to perceive the religious right as a natural ally that can serve domestic and foreign policy objectives as it has done for decades.

In a different context, the complete absence of justice and the progressive militarisation of the state apparatus in the peripheries is stoking another wave of militancy, one that the Pakistani state has never indulged. Over the past few days attacks on military installations have been reported in Kech, Noshki and Panjgur, some at least being claimed by separatist organisations. Reporting on such matters is of course always coloured by how much official sources wish to disclose but it is in any case apparent that segments of the Baloch nationalist movement are once again being radicalised.

This is hardly surprising given the establishment-manipulated sham that is mainstream politics in Balochistan as well as the epidemic of Baloch missing persons. There is also evidence to suggest a renewed wave of racial profiling of Baloch (and Pakhtuns) in metropolitan Pakistan. There have been similar crackdowns on young Sindhis in recent times too — including members of entirely peaceful nationalist groups. It is axiomatic that state repression only breeds resentment and radicalisation, whether in Pakistan or any other part of the world. But it is just as axiomatic, unfortunately, that the Pakistani state still views and treats ethnic-national assertion, in even its most peaceful and democratic forms, as inconsistent with the ‘greater national interest’.

A wiser response would be to pay attention to the screams for justice that continue to emanate from the peripheries. And to acknowledge that the grabbing of water, minerals, forests and lands by state functionaries and MNCs is an imposition not only on the rights of local communities but also on future generations. Sadly, chances are that we will hear only sloganeering about the foreign hand and the imperative of crushing terrorism. Officialdom will assert that there cannot be peace without justice in Indian-occupied Kashmir. What of our own peripheries?

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2022