Tough to do in Balochistan
The ruling party certainly makes all the right noises about Balochistan. They just don’t translate into much on the ground. Much after the incumbent government’s Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan program, the situation on the ground remains almost unchanged. There is much resentment amongst the people of the province against the state. The lives of Baloch nationalists and activists are under serious threat. The lives of the settler community in the urban areas of Balochistan are also under serious threat. Add to this the sectarian dimension that endangers, amongst others, the Hazara community of the province. A farrago of violence.
At a high-level meeting held recently in the capital, the president has asked his government in Balochistan to reach out to all political parties and engage them in dialogue. It’d take more than merely giving an order to the provincial chapter of the party. Because, as opposed to tangible developments, like the investment in infrastructure and local economy, which were also reviewed at the meeting, political engagement is much tougher to map out or quantify.
In a dangerous trajectory, there exists now in Balochistan a significantly large demographic that feels it cannot be represented by the political parties that operate within the positive framework of the state. That makes political engagement a far tougher endeavour than pacifying wily coalition or even opposition members. To get that lot back to the table is going to be a struggle for the long haul. Preceding that, of course, has to be a clear and discernable change in the institutions of the state: it is the violent miscreants that have to be dealt with force, not the political activists, regardless how unsavoury the views that the latter espouse might sound. There is no easy fix to the Baloch problem. This one’s going to be spread over several tenures of national and provincial governments.
