Pakistan- the Balochistan Conundrum

by Tilak Devasher

  There have been earlier efforts, too, to change the script from Arabic to Roman. In the 1970s, an influential group of Baloch writers, led by nationalist poet Gul Khan Nasir, then Balochistan’s education minister, tried to change to Roman. However, the effort came to naught in the face of opposition, led by religious and literary figures that supported the Arabic script for religious reasons. Again, during the insurgency of the 1970s, some nationalists led by guerilla commander Abdul Nabi Bangulzai also tried to introduce the Roman script for Balochi in his guerilla camps. His intention was more nationalistic than linguistic since the Arabic script was seen as a tool of the occupying Pakistani state to keep the Baloch land with Pakistan in the name of Islam.32

  What has changed since then is the access to the Internet that has provided the people with a virtual platform.

  II

  TIMES GONE BY

  5

  History till Partition

  Early History: Jalal Khan/Mir Chakar Rind/Mir Nasir Khan

  THE EARLY SIGNS OF BALOCH consolidation can be traced to the confederacy of forty-four tribes under Mir Jalal Khan in the twelfth century. Baloch writers have paid great tributes to Jalal Khan, who is regarded as the ‘founding father of the Baloch nation’ for forming the first Baloch confederacy in Balochistan.1 In the fifteenth century, Mir Chakar Rind (1487–1511) established another confederacy of the Baloch tribes referred to by historians as the ‘Rind–Lashari Union.2 It was one of the largest Baloch tribal confederacies stretching from Kirman in the west to the Indus in the east, thus uniting for the first time large parts of the Baloch areas. Mir Chakar is best remembered for his successful invasion of Punjab, annexing Multan and other southern areas in the early part of the sixteenth century. Baloch nationalists describe Mir Chakar’s rule as the Golden Age of the Baloch and regard him as the ‘Great Baloch’.3 He is seen as giving the scattered Baloch tribes a common identity and is considered ‘like a pillar of strength for the Baloch race and author of Baloch code of honour and Balochi traditions’.4

  Political unity was, however, ephemeral and dissipated after his death. In 1666, the Baloch tribes elected Mir Ahmad Khan as the Khan of Kalat establishing the first Kalat confederacy. Stretching from Kandahar in Afghanistan in the north to Bandar Abbas in Iran in the west and to Dera Ghazi Khan and Karachi in the east and south-east, this was bigger than Chakar Khan’s confederation. It brought most of the Baloch areas under one rule.

  Under Ahmad Khan’s grandson, Mir Nasir Khan (ruled 1749–94), governance structures took shape. He set up a loose bureaucratic arrangement embracing most of Balochistan for the first time. He established a unified Baloch army of 25,000 men and 1,000 camels and organized the major Baloch tribes under an agreed military and administrative system.5

  Kalat was divided into two units: a directly administered one consisting of the territory of Kalat plus annexed territory and conquered lands, and a second one consisting of two provinces, Sarawan lying to the north of Kalat under their hereditary chief, the Raisani Sardar, and Jhalawan lying to the south of Kalat under the Zehri Sardar. These were administered independently by sardars appointed by the Khan. Nasir Khan ruled through a council of sardars and the tribes adopted an agreed system of military organization and recruitment.

  In 1765, Mir Nasir Khan had a narrow escape in a battle with the Sikhs. He had fallen off his horse and in the process, the turban he was wearing got loose. As a result, his long hair popped out from beneath his headwear. One Sikh soldier rushed towards him with his sword raised. However, another Sikh soldier halted his comrade’s blow in the nick of time saying that the fallen man was a Khalsa (Sikh). The soldier had mistaken the turban-less Nasir Khan as a Sikh. By the time the soldiers became aware of their mistake, Nasir Khan was on his feet and was surrounded by Baloch soldiers and so escaped.

  Mir Ahmed Yar Khan Baluch, Inside Baluchistan: A Political Autobiography of His Highness Baiglar Baigi: Khan-E-Azam-XIII, Karachi: Royal Book Company, 1975, pp. 86–87.

  Situated at the tri-junction of Persia, Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, the state of Kalat was inevitably vulnerable to the influence of the more powerful kingdoms in the neighbourhood.6 In the initial years of Nasir Khan’s rule (1749–94), Kalat was a tributary of Afghanistan. This has prompted some Afghan nationalists to claim the inclusion of Balochistan in a ‘Greater Afghanistan’. However, by 1758, Nasir Khan threw off subservience to the Afghans, fighting Ahmad Shah Durrani’s forces to a standstill. Thereafter, Kalat continued to be a military ally of Afghanistan and was sovereign until the arrival of the British.7

  Nasir Khan’s predecessors had paid tribute to Persia and Nasir Khan himself was installed in power due to the backing of Emperor Nadir Shah of Persia.8 When Nadir Shah invaded India, Nasir Khan helped him with men and money. In return, Nadir Shah gave him the title of ‘Baigler Baigi’—Prince of Princes—of all Balochistan.9 After the assassination of Nadir Shah and the resultant confusion in Iran, Nasir Khan discarded the tributary status.

  Since Balochistan was not a fertile area, the revenue that could be extracted was limited. Resultantly, both the Persian and Afghan empires were not involved in the day-to-day administration of the region. As Paul Titus puts it, ‘Balochistan’s distance from centres of power, its harsh, arid climate and its limited productivity have meant that the Baloch have generally been marginal to major events in the seats of imperial power.’10 He adds that while Balochistan’s historical marginality enabled the Baloch to preserve their autonomy, in the post-colonial era, they were incrementally assimilated into Pakistan. Such assimilation would paradoxically bring about an increased sense of marginalization because they were a small minority in the larger state.

  Nasir Khan’s empire and Baloch unity did not survive his death primarily because it was based on his personality rather than on an institutionalized structure.11 Baloch nationalists nostalgically remember Nasir Khan’s era as a glorious period in their history. It was his reign that brought the whole of Balochistan (including those regions which are now part of Iran and Afghanistan) under one state authority. This historical precedent for the concept of a unified Baloch political identity is still harked back till today.

  From 1805 until the British intervention in 1839, the successors of Nasir Khan were nominally independent, largely due to the disinterest of the neighbouring rulers in the inhospitable terrain. However, soon thereafter, Balochistan would be transformed into an essential cog in the Great Game between Russia and Great Britain.

  Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, former governor of Balochistan and a leading nationalist, argued in a 1978 interview with Selig Harrison that ‘Just as it served the interests of the British to foster a unified Afghanistan as a buffer state so it was necessary, conversely, to divide the Baloch in order to make the frontiers of the Raj contiguous with Afghanistan and to assure unimpeded military dominance in the frontier region.’ He contended that ‘Nasir Khan’s Kalat Confederacy might have emerged in a buffer state role instead if the Russians had swallowed up Afghanistan before Britain embarked on its “forward policy”.’12

  British Rule

  The advance of Tsarist Russia into Central Asia led to British involvement in Balochistan to safeguard the Indian Empire. What concerned the British was that Afghan ruler Dost Mohammad Khan had refused to turn away Russian emissaries from Kabul. Thus, the British felt it necessary to intervene militarily in Afghanistan to ensure that Kabul kept the Russians out. The northern route to Kabul via Peshawar and the Khyber Pass was in Sikh hands. Though by then the Sikhs were allied with the British, Maharaja Ranjit Singh decided not to allow a large invading force to march through his territory. Hence, a southern route to Kabul had to be discovered. For this, a safe passage through the Bolan Pass to southern Afghanistan was imperative. This required control over the areas of Balochistan bordering Afghanistan. Thus began the process of British intervention that would adversely impact the destiny of Balochistan.

  In 1838 the British signed a safe passage agreement wi
th Mehrab Khan, the Khan of Kalat, who guaranteed the safety of the British army—the Army of the Indus—through his territory. However, the Baloch tribes did not honour this and harassed and plundered the British forces along the line of the march. This made the movement of the army through the Bolan Pass hazardous.

  The British assumed bad faith on Mehrab Khan’s part and claimed that the tribal attacks were a breach of treaty. When the Khan refused to surrender, the British decided to undertake a punitive expedition to Kalat town to exact retribution. General Wilshire was accordingly detached from the Army of the Indus with 1,050 men to assault Kalat. A gate was knocked in by the field-pieces and the town and citadel were stormed in a few minutes. About 400 Baloch were killed, among them Mehrab Khan himself, and 2,000 were taken prisoners. His son, Mir Nasir Khan II was later raised to the masnad by the tribesmen.

  What was noteworthy about the British reaction to the rapid advance of the Tsarist Empire into Central Asia was that it led to the development of a unique concept of the definition of frontiers and the demarcation of borders. Sir Henry Rawlinson13 and Sir Alfred Lyall,14 in the face of the Russian advance, developed the notion of a ‘Frontier of Separation’ as opposed to a ‘Frontier of Contact’. In contrast to a ‘Frontier of Contact’ in which the British and Russian empires would have a common border and be in direct conflict, the ‘Frontier of Separation’ would provide a buffer between the two empires. For Rawlinson, due to the simultaneous expansion of the British and Russian empires, contact between them had to be avoided. This could be done ‘by narrow strip of territory, a few hundred miles across’ intervening between their political frontiers—in effect, the creation of some form of protectorates to act as buffers.15 For Sir Alfred Lyall, ‘… the true frontier was not coterminous with the limits of territory actually administered by the Government of India. Beyond this were areas that the Government of India insisted were vital to its security, but where it did not attempt to exercise any administrative control.’16

  The concept of the ‘Frontier of Separation’ required a distinction between the exercise of power within the boundaries of administration and within boundaries of influence. This led to a unique solution that was the threefold frontier. The first frontier was the outer limit of the directly administered territory of British India where full administrative control including British law and political systems were enforced. The second frontier was the area under ‘indirect control’ where British law and administration, including taxation, was not applied.17 Responsibility for day-to-day administration in these areas was left to the tribal chiefs. The British exercised a veneer of control through the army. These ‘un-administered areas’, like the Indian princely states, had a certain degree of political autonomy but unlike them were not assimilated into mainstream Indian life. On the contrary, they maintained their separateness.18 The third frontier was the outer limit of the British area of influence. It was beyond defined boundaries and formed the protectorate or buffer states against Russian influence. These independent states were tied to the Government of India through treaties.

  Balochistan became part of this peculiar frontier structure of the Indian empire as the second frontier, the un-administered territory between the boundary of administration that defined Sindh and eventually the Durand Line—the delimited and demarcated boundary with Afghanistan.19

  While the fear of Russian advance was real, it was yet distant. The more immediate threat was from the depredations of the mountain tribes. To deal with this, the British adopted two fundamentally conflicting approaches: ‘Forward Policy’ whose aim was to administer the area and its people, and a ‘Close Border Policy’ the objective of which was merely to monitor and manipulate the land and people.20 The latter was based on formal treaty relations between the British Empire and the ruler of an independent territory. Such borders were considered a state boundary. District officers were not supposed

  to either cross the border without a military escort nor to extend

  the border.21

  After the British military disaster during the First Afghan War (1838–42) and consequent upon their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the occupied districts were returned to the Khan of Kalat. The annexation of Sindh in 1842 and Punjab in 1849 enabled the British to consolidate the empire. For the next three decades, the British implemented the ‘Close Border System’ in which they increased their presence (especially military) in areas under their direct control and limited their actions in areas not yet pacified to punitive military expeditions against rebellious tribes.22 To protect Sindh, the policy was to maintain the power of the Khan of Kalat over the mountain territories to the west. In return, the Khan would restrain the tribes from invading Sindh. Since this was not very successful, in 1854 under the governor-generalship of the Marquis of Dalhousie, General John Jacob, the political superintendent and commandant on the Sindh frontier, was deputed to arrange and conclude a treaty with the Kalat state then under Nasir Khan II.

  According to the terms of the treaty, British political agents were deputed to Kalat during the next twenty years; the Khan received a yearly subsidy of 50,000 rupees; British expeditions passed through the Bolan Pass on their way to Kandahar and Afghanistan, but up to 1876, the country was considered independent. The central point of the policy was, as the Governor of Bombay noted in his Minute of 10 February 1871, ‘The policy to be pursued [is] to acknowledge no authority but that of the Khan, to recognize the chiefs in no other capacity than his subjects, to abstain from interference …’23 Interestingly, the Punjab government had a contrary view and proposed a more aggressive British role and argued that direct contact with the tribes was essential.24

  The Close Border Policy, however, produced continual disorder. The sardars saw British policy as strengthening the power of the Khan at their expense since they did not have direct access to the British. The policy put the British in the position of supporting the Khan who was unable to keep the border raiders in check. Reports from agents and officials restated the familiar theme: the inability of the rulers to control their border people.25 This led the British to implement a policy of collective responsibility, punishing entire tribes for individual crimes to pressurize them to discipline the tribesmen.

  By the mid-1870s, the British had come to the conclusion that their Close Border Policy, and its notion that the ‘trans-border tribes’ could be controlled using ‘subsidies, blockade, occasional manipulation of tribal affairs and, when absolutely necessary, punitive expeditions’, had not produced the desired effect.26 Hence, they moved towards the ‘Forward Policy’. This task was entrusted to Captain Robert Sandeman, deputy commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan (Punjab) (later knighted) who came to Balochistan in 1875. He is credited with the establishment and consolidation of British rule in Balochistan.

  Sandeman was an assertive critic of the Close Border Policy, arguing that imperial interests were best served by dealing directly with the chiefs. In 1876, he negotiated a treaty with the Khan of Kalat that signalled the end of the Close Border Policy. The treaty supplemented the 1854 treaty. Under it, the British Government undertook to respect the independence of Kalat, but assumed responsibility for internal order.

  The key change that Sandeman wrought was to ensure that it was the British who would give out the allowances to the sardars rather than routing them through the Khan. This gave the British power over individual sardars. The British also kept the power to approve their appointment and removal. Without the subsidy carrot and the removal stick, the Khan’s power of control over the sardars was effectively blocked. Sandeman was very clear that, ‘It is unfair to expect tribes or tribal chiefs to do your work and carry out your policy unless you make it worth their while; but when you have made it worth their while, when you have given them the “quid” be careful to exact the “quo”.’27

  Following the 1876 treaty, British troops were to be deployed in the Khanate; there were further agreements in connection with the construction of the Indo-European Telegraph, the
cession of jurisdiction on the railways and in the Bolan Pass, and the permanent lease of Quetta, Nushki and Nasirabad. Thus, under the Forward Policy, the British presence in Balochistan steadily expanded. The success of Sandeman’s approach was manifest during the Second Afghan War (1878–80), when Kalat remained allied with the British.

  By the terms of the Treaty of Gandamak in 1879 with Amir Yaqub Khan of Afghanistan, Pishin, Sibi, Harani and Thal-Chotiali were ceded to the British Government. The Marri and Bugti tribal areas were also demarcated and set aside as ‘tribal areas’. The rest of the territory was left under the de jure control of the Khan of Kalat; this was the Kalat state that formed the bulk of Balochistan. In the 1880s and 1890s further territories were added: Loralai, the Khetran country, now known as the Barkhan tehsil and the Zhob valley where a headquarters was built at a place called Appozai, that came to be known as Fort Sandeman.28

  The Sandeman system, as it came to be called, rested on the occupation of central points in Kalat and tribal territory in considerable force, linking them together by fair-weather roads and leaving the tribes to manage their own affairs according to their own customs and working through their chiefs and maliks. The maliks were required to enlist levies paid by government and though regarded as tribal servants, they were controlled by the district officers. Such a system, of course, involved the upholding of the authority of chiefs and maliks, if necessary by force, should their authority be challenged.29

  Sandeman understood that the sardars were the best guarantors of peace in their area. So, he empowered the sardars with guns, money and horses and in return obtained their allegiance and their guarantee of maintaining local law and order. He found it easier and cheaper to control a handful of traditional chiefs rather than try to control the tribes directly. The sardari system was thus strengthened but made dependent on the British. Those who opposed British authority were labelled ruffians and scoundrels. Sandeman never hesitated in using brute physical force whenever he thought it was required.30