Balochistan the land of opportunity

By: ABID LATIF SINDHU
Source : Balochistan the land of opportunities

Strange optics is built around truths or sometimes half truths. Pakistan is a unique country; it has a highest level of resilience on one hand and the most fragile economy on the other, what a contrast.

It is also a country which has the highest ratio of philanthropist contributions by individuals towards the downtrodden. Why then every pocket has a hole? Despite all other plus or minuses, the biggest endowment is the geography, especially the diversity of it.

Balochistan is the 40% of the land mass and therefore is the most important factor in the new arithmetic of regional geo-economics. The emerging new Middle East is just at the doorsteps of Balochistan. It is also the El Dorado as far as the wealth of natural minerals and valuable deposits are concerned.

A recent image was quite promising in which General Ashfaq Kaayni inaugurated a marble mine in Balochistan. Is the military face really required in every economic activity of this province? Army is naturally a factor in this part of Pakistan, because almost 60% of Balochistan is the “B Area”, which is almost ungovernable by normal mechanics of the governmental dispensation.

Here with police and civil armed forces army itself figures out well. Before looking in to the problems of increasing ethnicity in Balochistan the wholesome view is to be taken. Recent trends in ethnic reverberations have historic and social currents. The Nawab of Kalat by his own sweat will, signed the documents of accession with Pakistan, the fillip was of course the immense popularity of idea of Pakistan in neighboring NWFP. Everything went well till late sixties when few tribal elders with extreme rightist tendencies stoked the fires of insurgency. The result was the obvious dying down of these flames, albeit with lot of price in terms of sowing the seeds of discontent and alienation.

This time there is no plausible reason for any unrest but still the same is being created with artificial reasons and dubious rhymes. Who is going to miss the beat – the flute player, the drumbeater or the pied piper? Keeping the present situation of the province in view a strange phenomenon is at work. The leftist tendencies are being provoked by the most rightist of the people, the feudal and tribal elders. They are not going to deliver to the poor people of Balochistan as they themselves are anti change. Rhetoric against the government is a mere political plank without any people friendly outlook.

Change in terms of improvement in social indicators is the real key to counter any centrifugal tendencies. Do we require Harvard qualified anthropologists or ethnographers to identify these problems? It is not only the ethnic counter which has to be reversed; rather it is the complete time clock which has to be reset.

Development initiatives are the best measures which can bring change. People of Balochistan are to be engaged with trust building efforts. As per all the modern writers trust is the mortar which binds the nation together. Francis Fukoyama’s world known thesis vindicates the same.

The Government of Pakistan should undertake the development projects on war footing as it is going to be the snowball to the winter of discontent. The army having boots on ground and fairly heavy footprint in the area can be tasked to undertake civil affairs’ operation under the auspices of federal government. The mineral exploration is one area which even after becoming controversial, is still going to be the major employment giving sector. New roads will have the same effect as that of historic trans European train or the eighteenth century English channel steamships. These will not only open up new vistas, but also will open up the Clauso tropic society.

One indicator of divided society is the lack of intermingling at trans-cultural level. In Pakistan the factor is minimum between Punjabis and Pathans due to inter marriages and of course the sharing of the Abaseen (Indus). Unfortunately this did not happen between Balochis or Brohis and other ethnic groups. Who is to be blamed – state, politician or the people? There is no time left for this blame game.

Balochistan requires immediate attention and response from all the players. Youth of the province is waiting for gestures of paternal magnanimity from the state. People in general are not in habit of queuing up for fulfillment of their basic needs being the tribal and feudal society. The dispensation of governance has to be improved if state is to be recovered in the hillocks of mystical Makran.

Responsibility also lies with the ruling political party of the province. Prudence demands active participation in political process. The ostrich like approach by anyone who matters is going to be the harbinger of a sandstorm which might change the landscape when the whistle blowing wind stops. So wake up or go for a long slumber, the ostrich way.