The Death
of Nawab Akbar Bugti
By Mohammad Ashraf
Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
Perhaps
it was about such men as Nawab Bugti that Lord
Curzon, a great admirer of Princes, Maharajahs
and Tribal War-lords, once said, “They embodied
the noblest ideals of chivalry, good manners and
honor”. He also, however, warned those who
held different views about them, by saying, ‘Should
the institution ever disappear, Indian society
will go to pieces like a dismasted vessel in a
storm”. India dispensed with them in early
fifties and thrived; Pakistan followed Lord Curzon’s
advice and is in a hole.
Nawab Bugti’s death had been tragic, though
not unexpected. Could it have been avoided? Perhaps
not. It could only have been delayed. Playing
with fire entails risk of getting burnt. Hussain
Haqqani calls it an assassination with monumental
consequences. Nawa-i-Waqt in its editorial calls
this incident ‘an eye-opener’ for
the government; Mashriq draws attention to a map
published in America about ‘a Greater Balochistan’,
and the death of Bugti a step in that direction.
Khabrain views it tragic but warns, “Now
that riots and demonstration are taking place
in Balochistan…. and the opposition parties
are also supporting this turmoil….the opposition
has a right to oppose the government, but it should
examine whether this right is not being used against
Pakistan”.
Mian Nawaz Sharif whose own party leader, Makhdoom
Hashmi, is rotting in jail on the charges of treason
for just circulating a letter in the House of
Parliament against the army, has read a new definition
of patriotism in the death of Nawab Bugti, when
he says, “Pakistan is sinking, and Musharraf
now must leave Pakistan alone; what Musharraf
has done is not forgivable”. For him Hashmi’s
and Bugti’s crimes are identical. In Bugti’s
death he reads a new hope of retrieving power.
Sardar Mengal equates the government of Musharraf
to a “must elephant” who tramples
everything that comes in his way. The mild Sher
Baz Mazari, a relative of Nawab Bugti, repents
for not being there where Bugti was, though he
mentions the late Nawab in 57 pages of his book,
“A Journey to Disillusionment”, in
not so glorious terms. Ex-Prime Minister, Mir
Jamaali, a Balochi himself, demurely opines, “I
will not be with the murderers”, meaning
Musharraf and the military are murderers.
Our noble Prophet, Muhammad spoke of human dignity
and sanctity of human life endlessly, always emphasizing
the need to end tribal savagery, “The blood
revenges of pre-Islamic days are over; homicide
henceforth is waived”, The Prophet forgave
one such claim of his own clan. How would the
leaders of the religious parties in Pakistan whose
tongues have gone dry in praising the late Nawab,
and in condemning Musharraf, reconcile with the
lifestyle of the deceased who extolled ruthless
revenge as a great tribal virtue. Could there
be any vagueness about the hypocrites about whom
the Holy Qur’an so eloquently speaks in
second Sura!
In an interview to BBC, Nawab Khair Bux Murri
has openly said, ‘Pakistan is a big invective
(gaali) as shameful as someone insulting your
own mother”. “Which Pakistan…
the question of seceding from it does not arise
because we never were a part of it”, he
further elaborated his point of view. Differences
with government, and fighting for the rights of
ones own province and people are noble missions;
but crossing the very ‘Lote Tree’
of Pakistan is entirely a different domain. Nobody
appreciates a military regime and its aggressiveness;
but at the same time nobody should be vague about
the fine borderline that defines what is permissible
and what is not. Pakistan and its integrity must
supersede all considerations.
Could someone explain why for these nationalist
leaders, large projects such as the highways and
Gwadar port scheme could be another form of subjugation?
They say it just serves the central government
and offers little to Balochistan. What actually
they mean is that the government should do the
construction job, and they would do the dispensation
job. President Musharraf contends that these tribal
chiefs are anti-development because they think
that education and prosperity to the area will
end the archaic tribal system that preserves their
power. The Punjabis feed Pakistan, but they get
the bashing because they are greater in number;
because they have five rivers flowing in their
province; because they have the ability to turn
the deserts of Sindh into flowing fields; because
they are naïve and un-ethnic as they allow
all to do business in their midst, and because
they have leaders who excel only in the art of
sycophancy and betrayal.
Without naming any country, President Musharraf
has also accused the armed Baloch militants of
playing into foreign hands. Senior officials in
the security forces say they grew alarmed when
intelligence agencies found more than one foreign
country involved in the province’s affairs.
The countries were said to be opposed to Gwadar
becoming a major trading port for central Asian
nations and China, says BBC.
Which country on earth would allow intransigents
and open rebels to operate against the country
they live in, and earn laudatory titles? India
crushed the Sikh revolt in 1984; has suppressed
the Kashmiris ever since; and is fighting in 170
out of 602 districts against the Naxalites; Sri
Lanka is fighting its war against the Tamils;
America fought its civil war and preserved its
unity once and for all. The Baloch Sardars cite
the example of the Nawab of Kalat who never wanted
to join Pakistan, but they forget what happened
to Hyderabad and Junagarh in India, and to the
monarchy in Nepal recently. Whatever the rationale,
countries do not redraw their borderlines on the
basis of grievances that can be redressed by remaining
within the drawn lines.
It is Pakistan alone that has lived up with the
relics of the past. Its politicians honor them
openly, but secretly stay scared of them. Hasan
Abbas in his book, “Pakistan’s Drift
Into Extremism”, on page 80 writes, “It
is a singular novelty of Baloch politics that
the tribal chiefs, who tax their people heavily
and rule them autocratically, are always in the
forefront of every ‘democratic’ movement
to restore the rights of their people”.
The clever politicians use them for tasks which
they themselves are not able to perform. Those
tasks are: oppose the government by blasting the
key installations, target railway tracks, blow
up power facilities, and create a living hell
so that the government in retaliation also begins
to use high-handed tactics, violates human rights,
and indulges in extra-judicial killings. And this
exactly has happened in Balochistan in the last
two years.
That the six million people of this biggest and
poorest province of Pakistan, which in population
is less than half the population of the port city
of Karachi, could not be made happy in the last
59 years of Pakistan’s existence, neither
by the military rulers who claim monopoly on efficiency
and planning, nor by the politicians who never
get tired of stating that they are the true representatives
of people, is a matter of utter shame. A Supreme
Court enquiry must look into the matter and inform
the people who benefited from the Sardari system
most: the Sardars, the politicians, the military
rulers, or all the three.
The sad death of Nawab Bugti is going to define
once and for all who a patriot of Pakistan is,
and who is not. The Supreme Court of Pakistan
has taken suo moto action against the sale of
Pakistan Steel Mill, but has not taken any notice
of the detention of Javed Hashmi on the frivolous
charges of treason for just circulating a letter
among the members of the Parliament. The court
must now define what patriotism means, and how
the people of Pakistan should view Nawab Akbar
Bugti, a traitor or a nationalist, or a patriot,
and who and what circumstances drove him to the
edge of the precipice.
And so should explain the religious leaders to
people who a martyr is, and where should people
place the military men and officers who laid down
their lives for defending the solidarity of Pakistan,
and the simple and poor Balochis who died defending
the savage tribal virtues of their Sardar? The
people of Pakistan need honest answers to these
issues.
Perhaps it was about people like Nawab Akbar Bugti
that William Blake in his famous poem,”
The Tiger”, wrote:
Tiger Tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Nobody should rejoice at the death of a person
like Nawab Bugti. He was a Caesar in courage and
would have made a great general; being the only
tribal chief trained professionally at the Service
Academy, he would have made a great head of the
state, had he not chosen the path he took. The
Noble Qur’an in Sura 27, verse 34 says,
“Lo! Kings, when they enter a township,
ruin it and make the honor of its people shame”.
Who are the “kings’ alluded to in
the verse… the sardars, politicians, or
the generals or all the three combined?
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