It happened in the summer of 2009 when I casually commented on a link shared by one of my friends on facebook. It was horrendous and alarming. It was an eye-opener for me and many others as well. It was about Baluchistan; an Independent Baluchistan.
Before proceeding any further let me take you to the past, to the winter of 1971. General Niazi is in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, He is the holding the position of the highest military commander in the Eastern Wing of the country. He has just talked to a reporter of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and has ruled out any likelihood of a ceasefire. The staff at Radio Pakistan, Dhaka is relying news about the victories of Pakistan Army on different fronts. Suddenly a mob gathers outside the building of Radio Pakistan chanting ”Amaar Desh, Tumhaar Desh Bangladesh Bangladesh!” (Our country, your country: Bangladesh! Bangladesh!) and “Amaar Neta, Tumhaar Neta Shiekh Mujeeb Shiekh Mujeeb!” (Our leader, your leader: Sheikh Mujeeb Shiekh Mujeeb!). Then within no time warriors of the Mukti Bahini militia arrived at the scene and removed the Pakistan flag from the building and hoisted the ‘Bangla Flag’ instead.
A few more moments and Gen. Niazi surrenders! A person like me who was born well after the Dhaka fall can only imagine the disgrace that this event brought to Pakistan. The pictures and footages that made their way through camera lenses, video tapes and hard drives to my laptop are very depressing. In one of the footages Gen.Niazi is signing a document, Gen. Arora Singh of the Indian Army sitting beside him. Yes indeed the Pakistan Army lost a war due to the blunders of the politicians. But this was no ordinary war, East Pakistan was torn off the West; Bangladesh gained independence and emerged as a new country on the world map. Yes indeed there was a humanitarian crisis in the eastern wing. Yes indeed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his stubborn attitude and the appetite for absolute power costed Pakistan its disintegration. Yes indeed the involvement of India can be counted as a factor of this great loss, but again the entire blame cannot be put on these factors alone.
Pakistan right from day one was majorly governed by the West Pakistanis, both from the bureaucracy and the military. Irreversible damage was done to the very basic fiber of the state. A state whose founder wanted it to be a Muslim Secular Democracy and a welfare state was converted into a Mullah Minded Dictatorship. The vast majority was deprived of its very fundamental rights.
The result came as a surprise to many. People who were told that the Pakistan Army had crushed the Indian Forces in 1965, and that now it has become invincibly supreme and unbeatable. People who believed that Pakistan was to exist forever, regardless of the atrocities and the injustices committed by the state.
Coming back to Facebook now, well the link posted was about Baluchistan. I commented on it and the next time I logged into my homepage I found many comments under my own. They were all of Baloch young men. They were arguing and protesting that Islamabad and Pakistan as a state has failed to deliver the very basic of their rights. Some of them said that Punjabis were exploiting the illiteracy of the Baloch people and the vast mineral resource reserves of Baluchistan. A few of them also reminded me about history, about how the Khan of Kallat annexed Baluchistan to Pakistan in 1947. There were comments against Pakistan; there were slogans of an independent Baluchistan. Some of them even had the images of the Baloch Flag set as their profile pictures. Yes, many of them stood for an Azaad Baluchistan.
We as a nation have to ponder over this issue now. We must learn our lesson from the Dhaka fall. We must stop listening to voices which bracket this genuine struggle of the Baloch people with Zionism and Indian involvement. By saying this I do not mean that India or other forces are not at work in Baluchistan, what I mean is that we have to address this matter in a sane manner. The state is indeed not functioning properly. There is a sense of deprivation in some of the provinces. There are internal and external forces who want to disintegrate Pakistan once again and for the last time.
Lastly, I would like to add that if we want to survive as a nation we have to have a country and a state that counts all its citizens equal. Now is the time to discard all the conspiracy theories that are floating in our media, because tomorrow historians will not blame RAW or MOSAD. They will blame the people of Pakistan, the people who never exhibited the qualities of a nation; the people who always reacted as mobs; the people who time and again blindly supported Military Dictators, Cunning Politicians, Dual-Standard Judges and Ignorant Mullahs!
