The Slogan of – Pakistan Quit Balochistan

By Archen Baloch

On 27th March 1948 Pakistan army invaded the sovereign state of Balochistan and forced the legitimate ruler, Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan to sign the merger agreement with Pakistan against the will of the Baloch nation. Baloch, under the leadership of Khan’s younger brother, Agha Abdul Kareem resisted this aggression but they were weak and the International community, especially the neighbouring countries, Afghanistan, Oman and India didn’t support them. The British Raj left Baloch at the mercy of religious Pakistan and in fact, British were instrumental in nudging and forcing Pakistan to occupy Balochistan.

Our weakness was that the British, under the divide and rule policy, had antagonized the heads of almost all tribes against the Khan of Kalat. This antagonism among Baloch tribes always rendered the federal character of Kalat extremely weak. The British Raj also never allowed Balochistan to have its own formal defence force, except a light levy force for collecting tax and serving as a police force for maintaining law and order. The control of British armed forces that were deployed in Balochistan was given to Pakistan instead of Balochistan at the time when the Raj departed theoretically from the region.

According to late Major Hayatan Shahmeer Mandesh’s historical accounts; “My elder brother, Hassan Shahmeer was working as a sepoy of levies force of Khan Kalat. He died at his earlier age and the levy force recruited me in place of him.

“I was underage at that time. After 18 days of my recruitment, the armed forces of British Raj from Soro Camp of Kalat, under the command of an English officer, came at our levy police station and told us that Balochistan had joined Pakistan, they burnt candlelight and lowered Balochistan’s Bairak (flag) of Khan Kalat and hoisted Pakistani flag. At that time we didn’t know what was going on, but later we learned that it was the invasion of Balochistan and the arrest of Khan Kalat. As we were of Khan of Kalat force, so the British forces were instructed to shoot to kill if the levy forces revolted against this order. Their fear was that we might revolt the capture of Kalat, so they were highly alert even to the level of shooting us dead.”

When Khan of Kalat was asked by M A Jinnah to Join Pakistan, he said he would ask the consent of bicameral parliament of Kalat federation, the overwhelming majority refused the idea of joining Pakistan just because of being Muslim state nation. At the joint session of the bicameral parliament, Mir Gaus Bakhsh Bezanjo, the leader of House of Common read out the resolution: “We are Muslim but it didn’t mean, necessarily, to lose our independent and merge in another nation just because of our Muslim faith. If our accession into Pakistan is necessary, being Muslim, then Muslim states of Afghanistan and Iran should also merge with Pakistan.”

The current national movement for the liberation of Balochistan is the succession of the past movements for independence, and it was launched in 1996 by patriotic Baloch national leader Hyrbyair Marri, the head of Free Balochistan Movement. The principle slogan of FBM party is to force Pakistan to quit Balochistan; it is to represent the popular demand of the sacrifices that Baloch nation offered and still offering over the years for the liberation movement of our motherland, Balochistan.

The overriding ideology for liberty from Pakistani and Iranian colonial rule is based on nationalistic patriotism believing in democratic values and universalism, However, the dynamics surrounding Baloch patriotism – that Pakistani military establishment feels could be the reasons of Pakistan’s disintegration – is the potential prospect of Indian and Afghan’s support to Balochistan’s liberation movement straddling across Durand line and Gold Smith line. Punjab’s national interests are at the heart of entire bloodbath in Afghanistan, Balochistan and Indian Kashmir.

So, as long as Balochistan is under Pakistani colonial rule, it continues to use religion as an ideological organ to dilute/blunt Baloch national patriotism, and of course, we must understand that Jihadi concept of Islam is at the core of their strategy to overshadow the force of Baloch national identity. Baloch nationalism is the antidote of the poisons of religious hatred and extremism.

Substantive problem on the agenda of major world powers now is to rid the world of Islamic religious terrorism. It is not the religious terrorism; the fact it is the existential fear of unnatural states like Pakistan Iran and Turkey who use the religion of Islam in order to save their colonial rules from the just struggle of oppressed nationalities.

At the confluence of two common interests -Baloch want to restore their lost sovereignty and western powers want to get rid of religious extremism- so they need to discuss the overriding need for a common strategy how to defeat the negative forces and put a new order with the strategic restoration of Baloch sovereignty in order to ward off future religious extremism in the region of South Asia.

http://balochwarna.com/2020/03/27/the-slogan-of-pakistan-quit-balochistan/ 

The Brief Story of 13th November, the Baloch National Martyrs’ Day.

By Archen Baloch

In 2010, almost all pro independent political parties agreed to commemorate the 13th November as the remembrance day of all Baloch Martyrs who sacrificed their lives for defending the motherland from foreign invasions. Since then Baloch nation mourns and commemorates this dark day of their national history every year across the world except in occupied Balochistan forced to live under the draconian colonial rules of both Pakistan and Iran.

 Like many other nations in the neighborhood, The Baloch too couldn’t defend their homeland from advancing expeditionary forces of British, called Army of Indus, towards Central Asia. The 13th November is the day when Baloch lost their sovereignty to British’s military aggression against the sovereign independent state of Balochistan in 1839. First martyrs were those who laid their lives while defending Meri Fort in capital Kalat of Balochistan federation. In that war our legitimate ruler Khan Mehrab Khan embraced martyrdom along with his Hindu cabinet minister, Dewan Bucha Mull Baloch.

In order to fulfill their colonial ambitions, Russia and England played the “The Great Game” in Central Asia in eighteenth century, and this game cost the weak nations like Baloch and Pashtun their sovereignty in the wake of their advancement to control the geostrategic countries like Balochistan and Afghanistan. The Russians wanted to have access to warm waters of Balochistan. According Baloch historian Dr Naseer Dashti, “The Russians, after having occupied the Central Asian steppes, had started sending diplomatic missions to Iran, Afghanistan, Sindh, and Punjab. This caused much alarm among the strategist of the British colonial administrators in India. The British perceived the Russian advances in Central Asia as a threat to their Indian possession—the backbone of the British financial prosperity and the base of their colonial power in Asia”.

So, in order to ward off Russian Advancement towards warm waters of Baloch Gulf, the British raj of East India Company devised its “Forward Policy” to move towards Afghanistan and raised a large military force called The Army of Indus, the route was Balochistan. They extracted a treaty with Khan of Kalat of Balochistan which allowed them a passage to Afghanistan.

Reluctantly, Mir Mehrab Khan, the legitimate ruler of Balochistan, entered into a treaty agreement with Britain on 28th March 1839 which allowed safe passage and supply line to the British expedition forces of Army of Indus through Balochistan on way to Kandahar through the strategic passages of Shekarpur, Jacobabad, Dhadar, Bolan, Quetta and Khojack pass. They conquered Afghanistan but couldn’t sustain their colonial rule over Kabul and Kandhar because of the tough resistance they faced from Afghan tribes of dethroned Amir Dost Mohammed Khan.

The frustrated British forces under the command of Gen Wilshire in Kandahar, seeing that their forward policy towards Central Asia to ward off the expected Russian move towards warm waters of Balochistan’s coast, turned into a debacle, decided to return and conquer Balochistan and turn it into a buffer zone under an afterthought policy - if we cannot move forwards, but we can stop them here - as result of their utter failure at the hands of Afghanistan.

The angry Gen Wilshare of British Army, while returning from Kandhar after being defeated at the hands of Afghan tribes, unexpectedly attacked the capital of Balochistan, Kalat, on a clumsy allegation that his armed forces and its supply lines were being attacked by Baloch tribes while passing through Bolan Pass. While the Khan of Kalat, Mir Mehrab Khan, scrambled to defend his country from foreign invasion was caught unarmed and embraced martyrdom alone with members of Shahi Jirga on 13th November 1839. The Baloch ruler was thinking that British would not attack his national sovereignty as he had treaty agreement with Britain.

According to historians the alleged attacks on British forces and supply lines were instigated by Akhund Mohammed Hassan, the son of an ousted minister of Shahi Court in Kalat. In order to avenge his father’s removal from Shahi Court, he secretly joined British’s forces in order to create mistrust. Later it was emerged that Akhund Mohammad Hasan was, in fact, a protégé of the British Raj.

According to Dr Dashti’s accounts, “Before reaching Kalat, the British demanded the surrender of the Khan in a humiliating letter, which was rejected by the Khan immediately (Dehwar, 2007; Naseer, 1979). The Khan tried to mobilize, but as the tribal chiefs were already antagonized, he could not assemble sufficient troops to defend the city. Instead, some of the tribal chiefs in Sarawan welcomed the invading army and supplied the British forces with provisions. Some of the tribes from Jhalawan and Kharan indeed mobilized in support of the Khan, but it was too late. On November 5, 1839, the British Army assaulted the Miri Fort in capital Kalat after intensive bombardment. Mir Mehrab Khan II and his limited force offered stubborn resistance against the invaders. The Khan embraced death with typical “Balochi Way” by walking in full view toward the enemy firing lines. Every member of his besieged force perished under heavy shelling and hand-to-hand fight with the British forces (Masson, 1974) defending his country and sacrificing his life in a heroic way and not surrendering to the enemy when death was inevitable, Mir Mehrab Khan II became one of the revered personalities in the Baloch history. The Baloch forgot all his mistakes and rallied around his son to revenge his death. However, with the martyrdom of Mir Mehrab Khan II and occupation of Kalat by the British, drastic changes occurred not only in the Baloch politics but the long colonial rule changed the fabrics of a tribal society beyond recognition”.

Ref. The Baloch and Balochistan by Dr Naseer Dashti