Balochistan Blunder

The Congress-led UPA government not so long ago was basking in the glory of scoring major foreign policy goals against Pakistan. Pakistan, following India’s hard hitting dossier on Mumbai attack, indicting Pakistani national’s role in it, and the resultant intense international pressure, had for the first time accepted that its soil was used in launching attacks on India.

The UPA government was so euphoric on its diplomatic victory that it made it one of the planks on which it would fight the general elections in May 2009. “It is only the Indian National Congress that can deal with the scourge of terrorism squarely and decisively but without weakening the delicate strands that have, together, bound our society for centuries,” the Congress said in its election manifesto. “After the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, the Congress-led UPA government mounted a forceful diplomatic campaign. It was this campaign that led to Pakistan admitting, for the first time, that Pakistani citizens were responsible for the attacks. That admission was a notable victory for our well thought out foreign policy,” the document stated. At this time Opposition parties led by BJP’s allegations of the ruling party being soft on terror, sounded hollow and specious.

Four months after that self-congratulatory claim of a “forceful diplomatic campaign” against Pakistan, the same dispensation is fighting hard to defend its leader’s ‘self goal’ conceded in yet another foreign policy slugfest against Pakistan.

Meeting on the sidelines of the non-aligned movement (NAM) summit held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh in mid June the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers agreed on a joint statement that de-bracketed composite dialogue with terrorism and included a reference to Balochistan.

“Both prime ministers recognised that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues,” said the statement. “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Baluchistan and elsewhere,” read another part of the statement

While the jury is still out on the part dealing with de-bracketing of terrorism with composite dialogue, with some foreign policy analyst calling it a bold initiative while others trashing it, it’s the reference to Balochistan that has invited unequivocal criticism.

G Parthasarathy, foreign policy expert and former ambassador to Pakistan, was unsparing in his criticism. According to him Pakistan has for long been accusing India of interference in Balochistan. However this is the first time the issue gets inked on record. “The reference to Balochistan in the joint statement is a signal to the whole world that Mr Gilani told Mr Singh that India was meddling in Balochistan and the NWFP,” he says. “Pakistan will use the fact that India did not deny Mr Gilani’s assertion in the joint statement as Indian acceptance of baseless Pakistani allegations. This is the most disastrous feature of the fiasco at Sharm el-Sheikh.”

And Pakistan has indeed lost no time in exploiting the issue. Its Interior Minister Rehman Malik has been quoted saying India is supplying weapons to militants in Balochistan. The issue was also raised in a meeting between US officials and the Pakistani military. Though the US has refuted Pakistan’s charges and categorically denied having any evidence from Pakistan in support of the charge, foreign policy analyst say Pakistan will raise the issue time and again given an opportunity.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meanwhile has staunchly defended the joint statement in Parliament saying despite the de-bracketing of terror from the dialogues, talks with Pakistan cannot proceed if terrorists from its soil continue to attack India. He also defended the reference to Balochistan in the joint statement. “We are willing to look at Balochistan because we have nothing to hide.

I told Gilani we have no interest in de-stabilising Pakistan. We don’t want to harm Pakistan. So, we are not scared of discussing any issue,” the Prime Minister said during his intervention in the Lok Sabha debate on his recent foreign trips. He also categorically said that Pakistan had not given any dossier on Balochistan so far.

The Opposition along with foreign policy experts has taken the Prime Minister’s explanation with a pinch of salt. ‘With the Balochistan reference in black and white, Pakistan will level charges of terrorism against India with added ferocity and vindictiveness,’ is the unanimous opinion.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of Centre for Policy Research, expressed his skepticism: “India-Pakistan relations are steeped in symbolism; and the fact that this was the first reference made to Balochistan in any joint statement was, not implausibly, taken as a mark of something.”

Vikram Sood, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) aptly sums up India’s Himalayan blunder: “Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani must have gone home chuckling, for never in his wildest imagination would he have assumed that the Indians would score so many own goals in less than an hour especially after the drubbing his President Asif Ali Zardari received at Yekaterinburg, barely two months ago.

The score at the end of play was Pakistan four, India zero.”

Tribal Land

Spread across an area of 3.5 lakh square km, Balochistan is a mountainous desert area with a population of 7.5 million. It shares its borders with Iran and Afghanistan. One of the four provinces of Pakistan, Balochistan through most of its history has been administered as a loose tribal confederacy. According one of the several stories of their origins, Balochis originally came from Aleppo in Syria and there is much linguistic evidence to suggest that they belong to the same Indo-European sub-group as the Persians and Kurds. Muhammed bin Qasim’s conquering Arab army brought them under the influence of Islam in 711 AD. By the 18th century Kalat was the dominant power in Balochistan and the Khan of Kalat was the ruler of the entire region. When the British arrived in mid 1800, they reached a security agreement with the Khan of Kalat wherein the kingdom retained its sovereignty in all respects.

In 1947, when Pakistan became independent, it signed a standstill agreement with the state of Kalat (covering the territory of the current province of Balochistan) which recognised its autonomy and sovereignty, subject to future negotiation of the relationship, but the following year the princely state of Kalat was forcibly annexed to Pakistan. However, both houses of the Kalat parliament had asserted independence in 1947 and the Khan subsequently acknowledged that he had no right to accede to Pakistan’s demand for annexation which he said he had only done under the threat of military force. Since then began a separatist struggle to free Balochistan and make it an independent sovereign country.

The separatists have kept the secession fire burning and have been launching attack against the Pakistan government from time to time. Prince Karim Khan and Nawab Nowroz Khan were some of the early secessionists. The 1970 rebellion was led by Mir Hazar Khan Marri’s Baloch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF). Marri and the BPLF were forced to move to Afghanistan, along with thousands of his supporters. Baloch fighters often fight today under related nicknames such as BLA, BLM, BLO, etc.

In recent times Nawab Akbar Bugti led the struggle until he was killed by Pakistani forces in 2006. Since then his son Jamil Akbar Bugti has taken on the mantle of struggle against the Pakistani state.