Solution
to Balochistan Quagmire: Crush Feudalism By
Siddique Malik President
www.spreadfreedom.com US
If the disease
that has afflicted Pakistan's Balochistan province
is not treated urgently, it will turn into a cancer
that will devour the entire country. Not only
the people of Balochistan, but also those of the
country's other three provinces deserve freedom
from the brutal clutches of feudalism. The recent
developments in Balochistan indicate that the
situation is fast running out of control. Trains
are operating with a diminished schedule because
the insurgents have been attacking rain tracks
in the province.
The Sui Gas Line,
Pakistan's economic spinal cord was attacked,
as was the province's electric transmission facility.
Another installation of vital importance and sensitivity,
i.e., the Dhadak nuclear facility that is located
near the Balochistan-Punjab demarcation line has
been threatened. Clearly, these are the acts of
those who don't care for the well being of Pakistan
and its people. How dare these elements attack
Pakistan's economic lifelines and expect to get
away with it? These events constitute symptoms
of a disease that was born during the days of
British occupation of India. It is utterly wrong
to assume that this disease only afflicts Balochistan
while Pakistan's other three provinces are free
of it. Centuries ago, It was not in the nature
of foreign occupation to treat the occupied people
by the standards of absolute freedom and human
dignity; for one, no such standard, existed at
the time.
To ease the pains
of occupation, the non-British colonial powers
indulged in brutal killings, and ruled by instilling
a fear in the occupied people. The British had
a better approach, though. This approach generally
gave them a fake look of humanity and civility.
They killed, not as a first option, but second.
Their first option was to encourage and exploit
a system of feudalism based upon the existence
of greedy and megalomaniac regional lords. The
British allowed these hotbeds of suppression and
cruelty to continue to exist, as long as their
chiefs remained loyal to the British crown and
had no qualms about butchering their own people
if the situation so demanded. Where no such feudal
setup existed, the British invented one. Those
few tribal chiefs, who refused to toe the line,
were ruthlessly eliminated.
The germs of feudalism
left by the British colonialists survived in Pakistan.
While India, in the early days of its independence,
quashed feudalism with one stroke of its prime
ministerial pen, this curse exists even today
in Pakistan. Consequently, contrast in the state
of democracy in both these countries is phenomenal.
While India, a country in which the majority of
the people belong to the Hindu faith, has a Muslim
president and a Sikh prime minister, in Pakistan,
those not belonging to the religion of the majority,
i.e., Islam, are legally forbidden to seek such
top offices. The cancerous tyranny left behind
by the British colonialists soon became a convenient
conduit of America's dealings with Pakistan. One
phone call from the State Department, and governments
in Pakistan (who in turn depend upon feudalism)
would comply within minutes. American government
of the day did not need to wait for the rigors
of democracy to churn at their natural slow pace
in Pakistan.
This arrangement
helped America bleed the 'evil empire' in Afghanistan
to avenge its attempts, years earlier, to bleed
America in Vietnam. The same pro-suppression approach
has helped Washington control the entire Middle
East with its huge oil reserves. However, it was
an unfair and foolish approach with terrible consequences
that, ironically, could have been foreseen easily.
Had successive American governments not become
addicted to the convenience of this unholy alliance,
perhaps the forces of freedom would have succeeded
in establishing a sound democratic order in Pakistan
(or for that matter also in other Muslim majority
countries) by eradicating feudalism. America's
nation security would have been in a much better
shape then it is today as the problem of Muslim
terrorism would not have arisen. Washington's
changed perceptions about the Third World and
especially the Muslim world have triggered hopes
that freedom and democracy will finally break
out at the most unlikely places, and Pakistan's
feudal forces know it.
These forces possess
an uncanny ability to observe and analyze the
current events because on this ability, depends
their very survival. They must start to manipulate
these events even before they completely unfold.
For decades, they have been in bed either with
the religiously insecure elements (another source
of suppression), or the army, or both. The level
of the recent insurgency in Balochistan indicates
that the feudal elements are paranoid. They no
longer expect either the religious extremists
(who in the current context of the world affairs,
are fighting for their own survival) or the army
to be on their side. Therefore, they are willing
to raise the stakes. If they could somehow manage
to cause Pakistan to disintegrate, they will have
a chance to bargain with the world for their continued
survival. How can these icons of suppression talk
about the rights of their people? How about the
rights of those helpless people who are held in
private jails in these suppressors' estates? Children
in their areas are not allowed to go to school
(lest they develop an ability to realize their
God-given freedoms) while their own children go
to Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley and Harvard.
Women are gang-raped
as an act of instilling discipline under their
perverted and draconian mentality. On what basis
is Islamabad negotiating a solution with these
usurpers of freedom? It is absurd to think that
they will ever agree to a solution that will empower
the people. If the people are empowered, it will
mean an end to the tyranny of the feudal lords.
By negotiating with them, Islamabad is showing
a lack of sincerity on its part to get to the
root cause of the problem. The real question is
whether Islamabad wants to empower the people.
There is only one solution to the problem and
it should have been applied at the time India
applied it within its borders soon after the partition
of the sub-continent, but better late than never.
All feudal estates and lands, throughout Pakistan,
and not just in Balochistan, must at once be seized
by the government in the name of the people of
Pakistan. The seized lands and estates should
be distributed among the farm workers who, for
decades, have been exploited into working on these
properties as virtual slaves.
All natural resources
belong to the people of Pakistan, the feudal elements
do not deserve even a penny of royalty from these
resources. The matter of royalty should be resolved
in a way that benefits the masses, not these already
filthy rich lords. The existing wealth of these
thugs should be seized (as it has been derived
from their illegal estates) and used to initiate
the developmental and uplift projects that should
later be expanded to the other three provinces.
Any one resisting this operation should be crushed
with an iron hand. At the same time, urgent efforts
should be launched to give all provinces maximum
constitutional autonomy within the framework of
a federal setup. This will help purify Pakistani
politics because it is by the virtue of the power
that the feudal lords derive from their estates
that they subjugate their people and contaminate
the country's political dynamics. These estates
were given to the ancestors of their current wrongful
owners by the British at the expense of the masses.
Therefore, these transfers of ownership were illegal
and void to begin with, anyway. Again, in order,
is a comparison with how India handled the same
problem. While India saw the illegitimacy of these
estates on day one, Pakistan's establishments
have continued not only to tolerate these estates
but also cohabit with their unlawful owners, to
grind their own axe at the expense of the country
and its masses.
Time to continue
to beat around the bush has long passed. It is
time to face the problem head on, and solve it
for once and for all. Pakistan army has usurped
power many times. If it could dismantle feudalism,
it would have atoned for its sins against the
Constitution. Of course, in doing so, the army
would have destroyed one of the few anchors upon
which it has relied while overthrowing elected
governments but the situation has deteriorated
to this: either Pakistan will survive or these
feudal entities will. This is army's chance to
ensure the continued existence of Pakistan without
actually starting a war with India. Whether the
feudal lords realize 'what hit them' or not, a
remedy is badly needed. One hopes that the army
will finally deliver what the people have always
expected of it, i.e. to crush the 'enemy'. Long
live Pakistan.
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