Aijaz Ahmad - The National Question in Balochistan

The National Question in BaluchistanAuthor(s): Aijaz AhmadSource: Pakistan Forum, Vol. 3, No. 8/9, Focus on Baluchistan (May - Jun., 1973), pp. 4-18+37Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2569087 .

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Pakistan Forum May-June 1973

AIJAZ AHMAD

THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN BALUCHISTAN

Introductory

Baluchistan?economically stagnant, sparse- ly populated, arid and mostly lion-coloured?is Pakistan1s largest, youngest, internally the most varied province.

It covers a territory of approximately 134,000 square miles, larger that is than Pun? jab and Sindh put together. However, this almost half of Pakistan represents, according to the 1961 census, about 7? of Pakistan*s total population even after the separation of Bangla? desh, with a population density of less than eight persons per square mile. Thanks to a

stagnating economy, net population outflow is considerable and is likely to help maintain the present level of density for some time to come.

Baluchistan province as we know it today came into being on July 1, 1970, with the abolition of One Unit in West Pakistan, when the administrative divisions of Quetta and Kalat were merged to form this province. Nonetheless, the province remained under the bureaucratic rule of the Central Government until after the elections of December 1970 and the restoration of civilian rule in December 1971; power was returned to the province only with the conven- ing of the Provincial Assembly in April 1972. As a province, Baluchistan is thus a year old. Of course, the creation of just such a province had been in the cards ever since the creation of Pakistan itself. Pakistan had inherited the former British Baluchistan, the vast tribal areas of the region as well as the states of Makran, Kharan, Las Bela and Kalat; the states had been merged into a single Baluchistan States union as early as 1952. In 1955, these became part of West Pakistan as Kalat Division. Simi- larly, the former British Baluchistan along with the tribal agencies also became part of West Pakistan as its Quetta Division. Now, dissolution of One Unit automatically meant that these two Divisions, Quetta and Kalat, would form a new province?that of Baluchistan.

Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

Of all the four provinces, Baluchistan is the most diverse socially, economically, ethno- linguistically. Speakers of Baluchi command a majority only in Kharan, Makran, Sibi and Chaghai districts. Pashtuns constitute a major? ity in Quetta-Pishin, Zhob and Loralai districts, vast tracts of which were amalgamated into British Baluchistan for conveniences of the

empire only; the second largest linguistic group in Quetta-Pishin and Loralai districts is Punjabi-speaking?approximately 30$ of the total population in the two districts. More- over, Baluchistan also has a large Sindhi- speaking population. Las Bela was of course a Sindhi majority state and continues to be so as a district now within Kalat Division. In addition, the census of 1951 showed the Sindhis as constituting 29$ of the total population of what was then Kalat State. Kachchi, for example, was annexed to the Kalat State as a consequence of wars between the Sardars of Sarawan-Jhalawan area and the ruling dynasty of Sindh; the latter had to surrender Kachchi as retribution but the Sindhi-speaking population of course remained.

Kalat district itself is, on the other hand, almost altogether Brahui-speaking. And although Baluchi nationalism has been very aggressive about assimilating the half a million Brahuis into its own ranks and some good work has been done (see, for example, Gul Khan Nasirfs two- volume history of the Baluchi people; also his Azmana-e-Baluch) to establish credible ethnic links between the Baluchi and the Brahui, there is no linguistic link at ali. Brahui is clearly a Dravidian language, the only one in Balu? chistan, or in ali Pakistan for that matter; Baluchi has antecedants in forms of early dialects of Southeast Iran. Interestingly enough, there is now mounting evidence of something like a Brahui cultural nationalism. Whereas almost ali Brahuis registered themselves as be? ing bi-lingual in 1951 census, the numbers had declined appreciably in 1961; whereas there was no evidence of literacy among the Brahuis in 1951* almost 4,000 registered as being liter- ates in 1961; meanwhile, written literature has appeared in Brahui for the first time during this period.

We have no reason to believe that the cult? ural nationalism of the Brahuis will be necessarily counterposed against the political Baluchi nationalism; we can be fairly certain nonetheless that the Brahui aspiration to maintain and strengthen their distinct status as a linguist? ic entity shall only grow. But we can assume antagonism between Pashtun and Baluchi nation- alisms. They are politically competitive and both have their conflicting aspirations for territorial adjustment and administrative autonomy. In so far as they objectively encroach upon each other1s territorial aims, they are likely to conflict in the future.

The majority of Baluchi people live outside



May-June 1973 Pakistan Forum Page 5

Baluchistan, most conspicuously in Karachi and Western districts of Sindh. In Karachi, their status as migrant workers and lumpenproletariat in industrial and servicing sectors subjects them to the cruellest kinds of class and nat? ional oppressions at the hands of more affluent sectors of the dominant nationalities. We shall go into that later. The fact remains nonetheless that Baluchi-speaking people constitute a minority in their own province at the present stage. Short of mandatory and violent eviction of other nationalities, there is little reason to believe that this acute demographic imbalance can be resolved favour-

ably for the Baluchis. As it is, we get only a picture of a low density population area of vast proportions where every linguistic-nation? al grouping is distinctly a minority and, un- less we are speaking of further divisions and re-divisions resulting in a much smaller Baluchistan, we cannot obtain a geographical map of the province which is consonant with

any one nationality.

The national question of the Baluchis is further complicated by the fact of inner divis? ions and exclusivities. In all, the Baluchi people are divided into eighteen major and numerous minor tribes and clans, Mari and Bugti being the largest two. These clan and tribal differentiations are predicated upon a host of objective and subjective characteristics of the situation, a few of which we shall describe here. First, the whole history of economic development in Baluchistan as being predominately a conglomerate of self-sufficient agrarian communities with neither administrative ties to each other nor economic surpluses to exchange has meant that even in the latter phase of transition from strictly clan organization of productive labour to a semi-feudal pattern of land ownership there has not developed effective social organizations to super- cede clan exclusivities altogether. Tribal differentiations were thus a specific historical consequence of the mode and relations of production, reinforced of course by the avail- ability of large tracts of land which made it

possible to obtain a geographical equivalent for what was economic reality already. Sec- ondly, cultural development itself has been predicated upon this fundamental geography and relations of production, and suffers from an inner fragmentation. Precisely because tribal groupings have not altogether succeed? ed in integrating themselves into a national whole, language itself remains specific to each tribal experience, so that what is roughly known as the Baluchi language is in fact a con-

glomeration of very many vocabulary and syn- tactical patterns, with distinct features of

pronunication specific to different locales, and a standard national language on the scale

of Sindhi or Urdu has not emerged. Another aspect of the same cultural fragmentation re- lates to the consciousness of history itself, even ethnic history. While loud proclamations- of an ethnic identity are common to the Baluch? istan! elite, it is far from certain as to where the Baluchi-Brahui peoples come from and what the basis of this ethnic identity really is; for example, while Mari and Bugti tribes are said to be of Arab origin and often describe themselves as descendants of the Kureish, the Mengals (Mongols?) are said to be of Tatar origin. There are a host of such unanswered questions: for example, how is it that the Brahuis who speak a distinctly different langu? age even in its origins and affinities are yet said to be of an ethnic stock identical with that of the Baluchis?

Finally, a certain perpetuation of tribal exclusivities and rivalries is inherent in the interests of the Sardari system itself. In order to safeguard his status as chief of a definable social group, in order to organize and maintain the unity of his tribe under his own leadership, in order to isolate these subjects from others of their status elsewhere who might then get together to make a common resistant front against ali the elite of ali tribes, the Sardar who could have otherwise been an agent of modernization is condemned to preserve and reinforce the tribal feeling of rivalry and exclusion.

Crux of the National Question

We have seen that the national question is beset by three basic contradictions. First, Baluchi-speaking people are a minority even inside the territory that Baluchi nationalism in Pakistan claims to be its own. Secondly, more Baluchis live outside of this territory than inside it. Thirdly, historically specific features of Baluchi society has inhibited nat? ional integration of tribal groupings within Baluchi society itself, with consequent inner fragmentation of culture and historical con? sciousness of themselves as a single people. Parenthetically, we should note also that lin? guistic divergence between Baluchi and Brahui peoples makes it somewhat difficult for us to consider them a -priori a single nation.

We should note here that existence of these factors makes the national situation in Baluchi? stan fundamentally different from that of Bangladesh where, ever since the creation of Pakistan, Bengalis enjoyed more than absolute majority. Only a small minority of them lived elsewhere in Pakistan; the Bengali nation did not suffer from internal linguistic, cultural or tribal exclusivities; and their territory was distinct from the territories of ali other




national groupings in Pakistan. They could be defined as a nation in the strictest sense of that term.

Recognizing that the national question has come to the fore in Baluchistan today, recognizing also that this question is itself beset there with contradictions of a basic character, let us be clear as to its premises. In trying to distinguish between genuine questions of nationality from mere nationalist obfuscations so rampant among the petit-bourg? eoisie everywhere, we shall have to arrive at some clear definition of the *nation1 itself. Then, applying this criterion to the Baluchi situation, we shall have to ask fundamental questions regarding historical development, relations of production, mode of social organization, ethnicity and culture. Finally, we shall have to locate the national question of Baluchistan today within the matrix of class and other conflicts as they are presently obtained there.

What, then, is a nation? To recapitu- late, let us quote the relevant passages from Stalin on the question. First, "...a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people." More specifically, Ma nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up mani- fested in a community of culture." Stalin stresses that "...none of the above characteristics is by itself sufficient to define a nation. On the other hand, it is sufficient for a single of these characteristics to be absent and the nation ceases to be a nation... It is only when all these characteristics are present that we have a nation." (Emphasis in the original). Finally, "a nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism." As we consider the Baluchi situation with reference to the national question, we should keep all these factors in mind.

We have already touched upon some of the aspects crucial to the national question in light of the definition cited above. Let us turn now to the very first distinction that Stalin makes in his definition, namely the distinction between mere racial or tribal con- siderations and the more fundamental question of historical evolution. Let us emphasize, moreover, that the history most relevant to the national question is the history of social organization for purposes of economic produc? tion and stabilization of polity into state.

Historical Background: The pre-British Era

Little can be said with certainty about

the original inhabitants of Baluchistan area. It is reasonable to believe, nonetheless, that prior to the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the area, i.e., prior to the middle of the second millenium, B.C., the territory was occupied by peoples speaking Dravidian languages of which the pres? ent -day Brahui is a survival. Anthropological researches suggest also that the present Pak- Iranian border was not the border of the Dravidians at the time; there is evidence of Dravidian culture as far away as South Turk- mania and related regions, and part of the population in Seistan spoke a Dravidian langu? age not unlike Brahui until just a few centuries ago. Similarly, inside of what is today Baluchistan, there is later evidence ranging ali the way from the inscriptions of Darius I to Herodotus and the Book of Marco Polo of a iMaka* people in the province of 'Macoran1 which Marco Polo described as the "last kingdom of India in the west and in the northwest" who spoke a "peculiar language," perhaps a form of Dravidian.

Be ali that as it may. The point is that before the advent of the Indo-Aryans who came into the area through Bolan and Gomal passes there was yet another civilization in the area which we know today only through remnants, which possibly took a very long time to die out and which might have been more organized and prosperous than we suspect today. For example, anthropological researches lead us to believe that the area was perhaps more fertile than it is now, the aridity of Baluchistan being quite possibly a consequence of wanton deforestation and destruction of irrigation systems which occurred through countless centuries of invas- ions from the north and the northwest. How? ever, we know little as to the details of the Indo-Aryan supercession over the Dravidians.

Even apart from systematic migrations which transformed the ethno-linguistic community of the area, Baluchistan was exposed to the viciss- itudes of the Persian and Greek empires. Her? odotus, for example, speaks not only of Pishin as being part of the Persian empire but also of there being a Makrani constabulary in the forces of Darius in 6th century B.C. Similar? ly, there is evidence of Alexanderfs armies having passed through Las Bela and Makran. Buddhism seems to have flourished in Baluchistan during the Second Century B.C, which signifies that although overrun by the Indo-Aryans and although at times paying tribute to the Persian empire, Baluchistan had developed deep cultural affinities with the main culture of India, particularly through Sindh which also had singifi- cant Buddhist population during the period.

More historical data is available for sub- sequent centuries and we can say with reasonable certainty that Gankovsky is right in concluding




that Min the closing centuries B.C. and the first half of the first millenium A.D. the population of Baluchistan belonged to three major ethnic groups: the Indo-Aryan in the Southeastern part of the country, the Iranian in the eastern and northern areas and the Dravidian, whose members seem to have inhabited mainly Central Baluchistan, while still occurring in other areas as well as in East? ern and Southern Kirman." Then, in the 5th century A.D., Bahram Gor led an expedition to India and annexed Makran which remained part of the Persian empire during the latter half of that century and the whole of the next.

The ethno-linguistic genesis of the present Baluchi people is traced back to Iranian tribes migrating into Kirman and Makran. Pre- cisely when they came is not clear. One can reasonably speculate that these migrations occurred not at once but in waves and that Persian rule over Makran during the latter half of the 5th, the whole of the 6th and most of the 7th centuries constitute a period when conditions were especially favourable for such migrations. These tribes are said to be originally from areas surrounding the Caspian Sea but seem to have sojourned in Northern (iranian) Baluchistan long enough before com- ing to the Southern (Pakistani) region to have left traces which are identifiable in linguistic affinities between Baluchi and the Iranian dialects Farvi and Khuri (See The Baloch Race by M.L. Dames, a seminal work, as well as Remarks on Baluchi History by R.N. Frye).

Arab expansionism in the 7th century put an effective end to Persian rule over territories now included in Pakistani Baluchistan. Some towns of Makran were occupied as early as 664 A.D. Much of Makran fell to Muhammad Bin Qasim in the opening years of the eighth cent? ury. Then, until the 10 century, Arabs ruled most of Baluchistan from Khuzdar in Jhalawan. This rule was strongest in the coastal areas, reasonably secure in fortified cities and adjacent areas, nominal in the outlying territories. Baluchi migration into the area con? tinued on a nomadic basis, spreading over far- flung mountainous regions, creating not a parallel state but simply keeping out of the way of organized state polity as much as poss? ible. They tried to retain their status as migratory tribes with a semi-nomadic below- subsistence level of economy based largely on nomadic cattle breeding.

With reference to this particular stage of history, we cannot yet speak of a Baluchi nation in the sense that they did not yet possess a definable polity, or even rudinents of a state; nor had they engaged much in agricul? ture even on the basis of a primitive clan organization; the territory they inhabited was

theirs neither in terms of historical origin nor in terms of political or economic control. They were a people but not a nation. The ethno-linguistic process which led gradually to the tribal formations which are characteristic of the present-day Baluchi society did not even begin until after the Ghaznavi, the Ghauri, the Turkeman Seljuki and even Mongol forrays into Eastern Iran during and after the 11th century made it mandatory for the Baluchs to migrate on a large scale and to gradually bring a degree of organization to these migratory groups. Two things occurred as a result. First, they came, perforce, in contact with Dravidian, Indo-European and other ethno-cult? ural groups, and the contact began to transform the Baluchi social organization itself. Second- ly, they spread over greater territory than they had ever tried before. Except Central Baluchi? stan where they were repulsed by the Brahuis, they spread over most of what is today Baluchi? stan. In the East and Southeast, they reached borders of Sindh and West Punjab. Towards the West, their expansion was stopped only by the Afghans who were themselves migrating under pressure from assaults in Afghanistan similar to the ones that the Baluchis had faced in Iran.

The period between the eleventh century and the end of the fourteenth is the most significant in the development of Baluchi ethno- linguistic community. Migrations were now occurring in numbers much larger than just the clan unit. Furthermore, they were travelling through settled territories. Consequently, they could not survive simply as wandering clans. They had to fight and hold what they won, which itself necessitated enlargements of social units. Forced long marches ruined much of their cattle breeding, and new forms of productive labour, such as settled agriculture, had to be adopted. This, plus the need to fight constantly and to invent better weaponry, led to a more complex division of labour than Baluchi life had known thus far. Warfare on this scale also meant that there was new need for clear and definite forms of leadership which was based not simply on age and clan relation but on com- petence and need for continuity; a clear system of chieftaincies began to emerge, which is the predecessor of the present Sardari system in Baluchistan. Contact with feudal and monarch- ical social organizations of the territories they now entered began to influence the ideas of the clan aristocracies among the Baluchs and these aristocrats now began to think of becoming feudals and monarchs themselves. Lacking state organization of their own, these emerging tribes often survived through hostile and new territor? ies by aligning themselves with one ruler or the other among the warring feudal aristocracies of other nationalities. In the process, they had to organize themselves into regular troops and, in case of victory, their chieftain received




awards and lands in the name of the whole tribe; many a chieftain reserved the best jewelry, the most gold, the finest grazing pastures for themselves and their immediate clans.

History of the Baluchi people during these centuries is a history of fundamental social transformation. Clans gave way to larger tri? bal groupings. Relations of marriage became less important than associations in a territory. Mode of production changed from mere nomadic cattle breeding to a complex economy wherein substantial sectors consisted of settled agrarian relations of production. Division of labour was introduced. Permanent chieftancy was instituted and the chiefs began gradually to accumulate at least a primitive kind of capital not only through acquisi- tion from outside the resources of the tribe but also in form of expropriation of labour as well as commodities from members of the tribe itself. Baluchi society entered the historical stage of class conflict,

With respect to ethno-linguistic identity, the process was just as complex and fundamental. Internally, Baluchi society moved from the smaller unit of clan to the larger one of tribe and territorial differentiation. Externally, it began to assimilate vast segments of other ethnic groups: Iran? ian, Indo-Aryans of Punjab and Sindh, the Dravidian Brahuis, Arabs, Pashtuns, what have you. The fact of this vast and continuing assimilation is dramatized most by the instance of the Brahuis who retained their language entirely but got so thoroughly assimilated into Baluch ethnicity that the Baluchi people of today rightly claim these Brahuis as their own. Among the Baluchi- speaking tribes of today, Marris, for ex? ample, are Arabs and Pashtuns assimilated into the Baluchi tribal structure.

Thus, through the crucial centuries in the formative period pf the Baluchi ethno- linguistic community we see a process where- by ethnicity and language ceased to be synony- mous or even parallel. With the growth of class differentiation among the Baluchi people themselves and with the growing need for poli? tical and other alignments externally, this consonance of ethnicity with language has been constantly eroded. Baluchi nationalism today will have to define itself more carefully. Is it a nationalism of language or of ethnic? ity? If ethnicity, what is this ethnicity based on? The 'community of language1 (to use Stalin1s phrase) which is today called the Baluchi nationality is in fact an amalgam of many ethnic strains; conversely, many members of this fnationality1 are not members of fthe community of language,t e.g. the Sindhi-speaking ethnic Baluchs of Sindh.

The modes of production and social organi? zation that the British saw and began to exploit on their first arrival in Baluchistan in the 19th century had taken substantial basic shape by the end of the 15th century. The succeeding four centuries were a period of relative maturation for tendencies which had al? ready taken root during the preceding period.

Two tendencies were predominant in the evolution of the Baluchi people at this historical stage. One, clan aristocracies worked hard toward coalescing their peoples into a feudal state or confederacy of such states. Secondly, class conflict began to take shape within the context of this increasingly feudal national evolution, absolutely the first time in Baluchi history. The mutual relation of these two tendencies, the coalescing of a people and the sharpening of the class conflict, should not be assumed as being contradictory. Rather, the relation between the two tendencies is dia- lectical. The transition from clan organiza? tion based on family ties to a tribal organiza? tion based on ties of territory had already transformed the society in that division of labour had been introduced, production was dir? ect ed at not only a guarantee of subsistence but also the creation of a surplus, and the office of the Chief had ceased to be elective so as to be centered within specific clans. Now, organization of this looser polity into something of a state was predicated upon crea? tion of much larger surpluses. This could of course be accomplished over long periods of time. Nevertheless, the kind of capital accumulation which made it possible for Nasir Khan Baloch to have established by 1730 his reign over most of what is today Baluchistan could not have occurred without a tremendous matura? tion of the feudalist tendency in Baluchistani society which used most of the Baluchi people ruthlessly for the production of the wealth upon which the rise of such a formidable feudal state is always predicated.

The rise to power and great prominence of some Baluch dynasties is thus the obverse of a coin the reverse of which is the increasing and permanent impoverishment of large masses of the Baluch people. The centuries from the 15th to the lo^h saw a transformation of Baluch society wherein the institution of large-scale personal property was introduced for the first time, clan aristocracies transformed themselves into the first feudal lords of Baluch history, and great masses of Baluchis saw themselves move from a stage when they used to be members of semi-voluntary, self-sufficient agrarian communities to a point where they became by and large rural labour producing surpluses for the greater glory of their chiefs with whose per- sonalities the new states were altogether identified. Sardari (chieftaincy) was still not




altogether hereditary but there came to be such a thing as Sardarkhel (the chieftainfs clan) which almost always provided the chief. Other members of the clan played secondary roles in collecting exorbitant revenues for the Sardar in the form of various sorts of tributes and wageless labour, thus monopolizing the administrative superstructure which began to supervise this slow, imperceptible but also unmis- takable transition from a predominantly tribal to a predominantly feudal mode of production.

What we are describing here is a very common process in the history of peoples, and by no means altogether peculiar to the Baluchi

people except in some specific features. Transition from one social stage to another? be it from tribalism to feudalism, from feudalism to capitalism, or the current transition from capitalism to socialism which is the single most important facet of our own epoch? has always occurred in the context of great upheavals and dislocations. The transition from clan organization to feudal relations of

production has everywhere been extremely miserable for the majorities of people because it is in this epoch that the dastardly institution of private property is first introduced and that too in the context of extreme capital scarcity.

Some forms of nationalist obfuscation often confuse the glory and power of a few dynasties with the glory and prosperity of large numbers of the common people. In Baluchi history, the reign of Nasir Khan Baloch, which represents a sort of feudal revolution of the Baluch people against other feudal states of the region and time, has been much celebrated

by nationalistic historians as a very glorious period of this history. Glorious it perhaps was, but wholly in a feudal sort of way, and it stands at the apex of a heirarchical organi? zation of Baluchi society wherein serfdom and chattel slavery were already the norm.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the interests of the Baluchi state?more precisely, the states governed by certain Baluchi dynasties?had ceased to be the interests of the Baluchi people in general. The great wealth, power and conspicuous consumption of the ruling elite found, at the bottom of the society, its exact equivalent in unspeakable poverty and powerlessness of the great mass of serfs, slaves and labouring peasants. This acute class contradiction was veiled over by myths of tribal solidarity, brotherhood etc. The more acute feudalism became, the more vehement were assertions of this tribal classnessness, which remained nevertheless a mere myth, a gloss, a contentless ideology which worked as an opiate on the masses. It was in the midst of this

general situation that the British first arriv- ed in Baluchistan.

Historical Background: The British Era

The outstanding characteristic of Baluchi society is that the transition from tribalism to full-scale feudalism, although long-drawn, was not really completed. That is as true of the political evolution as of the economic. The result is that quite different patterns of landholdings have emerged in various parts of Baluchistan and on various levels of society; this semi-feudalism is structurally quite different from the full-scale and well integrated feudalism of Punjab and Sindh. In the political sphere, the arrested transition from tribalism to feudalism proper meant a corres- ponding failure to develop a matured form of state superstructure. Internally, Baluchi soc? iety never organized itself into a clearly defined state; as the largest of the many khanates, Baluchi and Brahui, Kalat came close to being such a state during the reign of Nasir Khan Baloch, but even then it was propped up by five semi-independent Brahui Chieftains of Sarawan-Jhalawan area and owed allegiance to the Durrani dynasty of Afghanistan. In fact, dependence on an external force was typical of the Baluchi khanates?dependence, that is, on the Iranians, or the Mughals or the Afghan kings, in accordance with the rise and fall of these powers in the area. This external depen? dence was predicated upon inner lack of cohesion in the polity. With Nasir Khanfs death in 1795, the khanate of Kalat disintegrated again into various de_ facto sovereign principalities. The latter dependence of Kalat and other principalities on the British thus represents a pattern which was in no sense new.

The British imperialist interest in Balu? chistan was not primarily economic. Rather, it was of a military and geopolitical nature. Basically, they wanted to define the Western frontiers of their Indian empire; to station garrisons so as to defend these frontiers and make forrays into the neighbouring countries of Iran and Afghanistan which they tried to convert into an area of special interest and indirect rule if possible; to create a sort of buffer zone between themselves and other expan- sionisms, i.e. French, Russian, German at vari? ous stages; and to find safe passage through the area in case of military eventualities. The tendency therefore was to increase depend? ence but basically freeze the system. Unlike Bengal or Punjab, they did not use Baluchistan for creation of surpluses; they did not even collect revenues in most areas of what came to be called British Baluchistan and, instead, paid salaries to the Khans and the numerous Sardars. Unlike Sindh or Gujrat regions, Bal-




uchistan was never used for export facilities so that no ports of any size were developed here despite a very long coastline. Even fisheries were not developed to any appreciable extent.

In agrarian relations, the British tendency was to strengthen the system, to consolidate and freeze it basically at the stage where they found it. Consolidation of course meant that the system grew increasingly more pernici- ous. Stagnation of the economy inevitable resulted in political degeneration, increased power of the Sardars, increased exploitation of the semi-nomadic and peasant masses in a framework of total dependence upon the British who now actively financed the repressive Sar- dari system and received abject loyalty in return. The serfs, the slaves, the rural wage-workers, the semi-nomadic cattle-breeders thus began to face a double oppression?prac- tised directly by the Sardars but with the assistance of the new law-and-order apparatus paid for by the British.

By 185k, the Khan of Kalat had sold his loyalty to the British in lieu of an annual salary of Rs. 50,000; the British had already gained guarantees of free passage through the territory in the course of the First Afghan War. By 1676, the Khan and all the #Sardars accepted the British as the final arbiter of their internal disputes, and all parties signed a treaty to that effect. The Sandeman system of administration was introduced where- by the chiefs had complete autonomy with respect to their power over their subjects but were themselves subject to British supervision. Quetta and the surrounding territory were annexed to the British empire as part of the same over-all settlement which included granting of annual salaries to the Sardars. Pishin and Sibi were annexed in 16*79; Zhob valley was taken over in 16*91. In time, Las Bela and Kharan broke away from Kalat and were recogni? zed as separate states. Nevertheless, the Sandeman system of administration was found to be so satisfactory that following the ad- vice of the Simon Commission Baluchistan was left out of the new settlement which gave India its first constitution before World War II.

What came to be known as the Sandeman system of administration had the following salient features. First, it changed the status of the Khan of Kalat as well as all the Baluchi Sardars to that of paid agents of the British Crown. Secondly, it introduced a basic contradiction in the role of the Khan of Kalat: whereas he presided over the whole Brahui Confeder- acy and had nominal powers of appointment to chieftaincies, while actually paying salaries to the Sardars of Jhalawan and Kachchi, he had no direct power over the affairs of the Sardars

even to the extent of approving a particular construction, say a school or a hospital; that power was taken over by the British directly and was exercised by their Political Agent who also had to arbitrate ali disputes between the Khan and the Sardars as well as among the Sar? dars themselves. Thirdly, this new administration changed the character of the jirga (adju- dicating assembly) altogether: whereas the tjirgat used to be a communal court to dispense participatory justice in the past, a new shahi (royal) jirga was introduced instead on which only the Sardars and the aristocracies could sit. This gave the British a powerful weapon to control rebellions against themselves, broke the last remaining institution of a purely tribal character, reinforced class conflict and gave the Sardars immeasurable powers over the lives and belongings of the masses. The new jirga could impose taxes not only in property but also labour and could expropriate women; the decisions could be reviewed only by the Political Agent. Fourthly, the new system guaranteed the presence of British forces for military purposes and made the Sardars respons? ible for organizing the law-and-order apparatus; Levies Corps were organized by recruiting tribal personnel under the power of the Sar? dars who were paid ali the expenses and were empowered to pay whatever salaries they deemed appropriate, or none if they so wished. Typ- ically, the Sardars tended to appoint members of family to staff positions in the new Corps and pay subsistence salaries to the general personnel which was recruited under pressure of unappealable penalties; he got to pocket most of what the British granted for the pur- pose. Lastly, the Sandeman system extended the powers of the Sardar greatly as to his ability to impose whatever new sources of revenue he chose to find in his own area, which included the right to extract and sell contraband liquor, to impose wageless labour on whomsoever he wished within his estate, to keep or sell the women who were involved in disputes regarding marriage, divorce, abduction, seduction, rape etc.

The pull of this system was two-fold. One, the ability of the Sardar to extend himself outside his own fief was severely curtail- ed by the limits imposed and supervised by the British military and Political Agent. On the other hand, his stature was considerably raised within his own community, he was liberally financed and given rights he had never possessed before, and he was given, through the royal jirga and Levies Corps, instrumentalities to extract ali possible wealth. Thus, during the British period, we see a severe acceleration of the class contradiction within the Baluchi societies. Henceforth, the primary contradic? tion was no more between this evolving nation? ality and the external forces which arrested




this evolution; that contradiction now became increasingly less crucial. The primary contra? diction now developed between the Sardars who were allied mercenaries of British imperialism and the masses of Baluchistan who were directly exploited by these mercenaries. Further- more, in so far as the British interest in Baluchistan was not of an economic nature and in so far as they adopted a policy of indirect rule wherein all economic surpluses were usurp- ed by the semi-feudal aristocracies, the immediate contradiction of the Baluchi masses was with the usurpers of this surplus. They could not fight the Sardars by fighting the British, but they could fight both the Sar? dars and the British by fighting against the Sardar whose aggression was more immediate, who was more accessible and vulnerable, and on whose presence the imperial hold itself was predicated. An anti-imperialist struggle which was not simultaneously an anti-Sardari struggle as well could only strengthen the hands of the Sardars and could not possibly emancipate the Baluchi masses. Precisely such a one-sided struggle was actually waged, the dialectic of a struggle which was at once anti-imperialist and anti-Sardari was and perhaps could not have been developed at that stage, the anti-imperialist struggle thus became objectively a struggle for greater power of the Sardars, with the result that the Sardars are more powerful and more autonomous in Baluchistan today than they have ever been in modern history.

In the above, we have described only the logic of the agrarian sector of Baluchistan! society during the British rule. A quite different imperative was functioning elsewhere in Baluchistan during the same period, and this imperative changed the political economy of the area in some irreversible ways. This other imperative was dictated by consid- eration of military needs.

Defence of frontiers and maintaining the ability to intervene in the affairs of Iran and Afghanistan meant that the British had to maintain not only sizeable garrisons in border areas but also develop extensive servicing facilities and lines of communication. This accounts for the development of cantonments such as Quetta, Fort Sandeman, Machh and a host of others; for the development of a rail-

way line going through that not only supplied the military towns but also connected Sindh with Zahidan before the World War I was over. How drastic the change was for Baluchistan as a whole can be gauged from the single example of the small principality of what was then called Shal, the scene where an entirely new city, called Quetta, grew within a few years. Vast tracts of land were summarily appropriated for construction of a sizeable cantonment which

could contain a garrison of 25,000. Then, a

parallel city grew rapidly to service the needs of such a vast garrison; thousands of more acres of land were again appropriated for the

development of this city. These sudden land evictions of course created an army of landless

peasants; it also spread a scare in adjoining areas from where settled communities began to flee fearing similar brutal evictions. Yet

again, an important segment of the Baluchi

population became nomadic; landless, jobless, fearful of what might come next, wandering in areas which had already been largely carved up by the various Sardars as their own Ttribal* territory. Many joined the lowest stratum of the new proletariat in servicing and construction sectors; others migrated to other parts of Baluchistan or Western districts of Sindh. Having neither skills nor experience they fail- ed utterly to join the rising entrepreneur class of the new cities.

The entrepreneur class was wholly imported. The shops that were catering to the needs of the British garrison with ali sorts of merchan- dise?fruit, cigars, women?were run by the merchants of Punjab and Sindh. The Sindhi impact was in fact more substantial at that stage. The Hindu entrepreneur class from Shikarpur etc. was influential enough in Baluchistan! affairs to have possessed some five hundred of the best houses in Kalat by the beginning of the 19th century. As modern cities began to

crop up on the very heels of garrison towns, this class moved up to dominate new marketing opportunities. The construction industry, marketing of consumer goods brought from else? where, regularizing and developing a market economy for food stuffs, maintenance jobs, construction of roads and railways, ali gave these external groups a dominant role in Bal? uchistan* s urban economy from the very outset. The landless Baluchi could at best be a serv- ant or a day labourer; the Sardar wallowed in his new found wealth in the agrarian sector. Non-Baluchis meanwhile became the first bourg? eoisie of Baluchistan. The Sardar sent his relatives to become petty officials in the levy corps, while the Sindhi and Punjabi merchant scooped up ali the military contracts. Since the Baluchi Sardar was still caught in his transition from the tribal to the feudal, he could not master the resources and the techniques of becoming a bourgeois.

This failure to develop an indigenous bourgeoisie has haunted the historical evolu? tion of the Baluchi people ever since. While Baluchistani agriculture stagnated under the pressures of the Sardari system, while the Baluchi masses, stripped to their last ragged garment, found incentives to produce less and less, the urban sector, the only dynamic sec? tor of Baluchi economy, came to be dominated




by the outsiders. True enough, increasing land appropriations by the British for their uses and by the Sardars for theirs, condemned increasingly larger numbers of Baluchi rural labour to come into the cities not only of Baluchistan but elsewhere too, but they could

only be absorbed on the lowest levels of em- ployment, if at all; most of them joined the swelling ranks of the lumpen-proletariat, a few graduated over a period of time which sometimes took generations to the level of city clerks or the petty merchant. The Sar?

dar, the consumer of surpluses, had, on the other hand, nothing at all in his background to help him make the transition from agrarian parasite to a city executive or even industri- alist. The pattern of predominance by non- Baluchis over the urban economy of Baluchistan which was first established during the British

period and has continued ever since in all its essential aspects should be seen not as an anti-Baluchi plot that was hatched up in the darker ante-rooms of Punjab or Sindh but as a

necessary consequence of the Sardari system which made the Baluchistan! economy stagnate as a whole. More specifically, it should be seen as a victory of the more developed feudal and entrepreneural economies of adjacent prov? inces over the underdeveloped feudalism of Baluchistan, the underdevelopment supervised by the Sardars themselves, which rendered un- tenable the urban economy where the Sardars were absent as well as the rural economy where they were present. Impoverishment of rural Baluchistan and the dominance of urban Baluchi? stan by non-Baluchis are parts of an indivis- ible whole.

Summation of the National Question

The above is in no sense an adequate account of the essential historical forces in Baluchistan, past or present. Nonetheless, we can now return to the question of "histor? ical constitution" as well as other aspects of the definition of *a nation1 that Stalin1s classic work on the question considers requis- ite for an adequate answer as to whether or not a people are also a nation.

Our discussion of the present diversity of Baluchistan! society in the first portion of this analysis had sought to demonstrate that

?More Baluchis live outside the territ?

ory that current Baluchi nationalism in Paki? stan claims as its own, namely the present province of Baluchistan, than live inside of it?and that discounts persons of Baluchi origin domiciled outside Pakistan, be it in Iran or elsewhere. Furthermore, these Bal? uchis living in other provinces of Pakistan are well enough integrated into the economies

of those provinces and the present Baluchi economy is incapable of absorbing them back, so that there is no reasonable question of their returning to their province of origin in the near future. There is, thus, no coincidence of

*nationality* and territory.

?Inside Baluchistan, Baluchistan! people constitute a minority of the present popula? tion. A *true national Baluchistan* will not

only need fundamental re-demarcation of terri? torial lines, it will also necessitate large- scale, forced, unnecessary eviction of members of other linguistic groups. Again, we see a lack of identification of linguistic national?

ity and the present confines of the territory.

?Relations of production in Baluchistan, dominated as they are by the Sardari system, have inhibited rather than encouraged the

growth of integration within the Baluchi soci?

ety and have retarded the growth of even a feudal nationality with a national consciousness. Instead, the Sardari system has perpetu- ated tribal consciousness which may or may not have found?has, in fact, not found?an equivalent in the organization of economic forces but has surely created a tremendous inner fragmentation among the Baluchi people. This is the psychological and cultural aspect of Stalin*s definition.

Now, our historical account also demon- strates that

?The historical process has been such that there is no coincidence between ethnicity and language in Baluchistan. This process has been integrative rather than separative. There is no satisfactory answer to the simple ques? tion: Who are the Baluchis? Are they a linguis? tic group or an ethnic group? If Brahuis can be considered Baluchi despite their altogether different language and peoples of Afghan, Arab, Indo-Aryan origins can be considered Baluchi, then what precisely is the premise of this nationalism?

?Within what is today Baluchistan, there is no separation between the economies of Baluchis and non-Baluchis. If most of the food is grown by Pashtuns domiciled in parts of Bal? uchistan from time immemorial, it is marketed by a social class which includes practically ali ethnic groups of the country. If landless Baluchis have been integrated as cheap labour in the servicing sector, the mining sector im? ports even cheaper labour from Swat. Almost one third of ali Baluchi peasantry migrates in? to areas of Sindh during the winter and returns every summer. Which economy are they a part of?if marginal, marginal to what? These and numerous other factors go to show that what is known as the Baluch *nation* does not have a




separate economy either.

--With the growth of semi-feudal relations of production which began to take shape in the pre-British era and which the British helped consolidate into the most moribund system of Sardari exploitation, a wholly antagonistic contradiction has developed among the Baluchi people themselves which cannot be solved with? in the framework of rebellion against and eviction of the external forces alone. Given this contradiction, a movement which is not explicitly, militantly anti-Sardar will be objectively pro-Sardar. The imperialists allowed a contradiction, they did not by any means create it; they allowed the Sardars to dispense whatever justice they wished, but the imperialists did not actually precipitate the injustice which was in fact dispensed by the autonomous jirga of these Sardars.

--The elite of Baluchi society has been historically a dependent sub-class and knows only to change masters, from Iranian to Mughal, Mughal to Afghan, Afghan to British, and it has done so not because of any inherent depen? dence complex but because of its own weakness as a class. This elite is still very weak relative to external powers and if allowed to spearhead a nationalist movement, it will still emerge as being dependent on one of the current imperialisms--hard to tell which.

This analysis hopes to show that a genuine revolutionary movement in Baluchistan can? not be premised on aspirations of revising borders only. There is nothing sacrosanct about borders achieved at the end of direct imperial rule in our region. In some measure or other most of these borders will have to be revised anyway. This writer was wholly con- vinced of the national question in Bangladesh and was one of a minority of Pakistanis (West Pakistani at that time) who supported the Bengali right for national self-determination throughout the past few years. But mistaking all separatisms as being nationalistic and necessarily progressive amounts to a drastic confusion of realms. In the colonial period, the nationalist Issue was clear-cut: the poss- ession of one national group by the other. But the picture changes completely in the neo- colonial period where some areas of a country may be suffering from that most chronic of all injustices in feudal and capital societies, namely the law of unequal development in these phases of history, and may mistake or misrep- resent this fact as national oppression. In this phase we have to be quite careful about our definitions of a Nation.1 Of particular importance is the fact that a nationalism that defines itself in this era on racial or tribal terms and whose only ground is the

ethno-linguistic genesis, half imagined and half real, will necessarily detach itself from the working class movement as a whole and slide into a collision of two reactionary forces.

Here we have to be clear about our issues. The modern state as it is presently organized in Pakistan does not wish to emancipate the Baluchistani masses; rather, it wishes to help in their subjugation by the more developed feudalisms of Punjab and Sindh and by the bureaucratic capital of Karachi, who will ali accept the Baluchi Sardars as junior, acquies- cent partners but not as equal competitors. This is the hub of the centre-province conflict. The masses are not a party to it. The refusal of the Sardars to accept that secondary role does mean, however, a conflict and contradiction between the national ruling class and this particular segment of it. The Sardars have to mobilise the masses here against the encroach- ment on their indigenous privilege. Hence the first organized manifestation of Baluchi nat? ionalism during the Ayub era.

While there were excellent reasons for resistance against the dependent, neo-colonial- ist military-bureaucratic dictatorship of Ayub, resistance in Baluchistan was organized largely around the issue of restoration of the feudal, corrupt, backward, altogether redun- dant state of Kalat. The Sardars* interest was further identified with this objective as the consequence of Martial Law Regulation N0.64 which had abolished the jagirdari system as a whole; the Sardars, grown fat off the profits of huge tracts of land to which they did not even possess a deed of proprietorship, felt particularly threatened by these encroachments of a modern state. This is a classic confrontation of two reactionary forces neither of which deserve any approbation. Those battles in the hills of Baluchistan which radical youth of our generation used to admire so much were not fought against the repressive machinery of the Ayub regime; they were fought, basically, in the class interests of the Sardars. Of course, many progressive elements supported the Baluchi side and almost ali progressive Baluchi forces participated in the fight at some time or other. That is precisely what makes the error so very poignant. There were many who adopted a progressive rhetoric to justify their subjective class interests, and many others who genuinely subjected their pro? gressive battles to a retrogressive end; it is hard to tell who belonged to which group. The objective fact is that nationalism was used once more to mobilise the oppressed masses of a specific ethno-linguistic group not to break out of the shackles of oppression but to defend the interests of their indigenous elite against the siege laid by an external, more powerful



Page lk Pakistan Forum May-June 1973

elite. Of course, the absurdly nominal land reforms of the Ayub period could not be imple- mented in Baluchistan as a result, not even to the degree that implementation did occur in Punjab and Sindh. But is that what guerrilla struggles are about? Defence of feudal? ism?

Militarily, the thing was a disaster from the outset. The guerrillas survived largely by avoiding contact with the enemy and by wandering over vast unpopulated areas where

they had but minimal contact with the settled population of the region. Even this minimal contact resulted not in any social transformation or politicization of the masses. The

progressives who had joined the struggle thinking that they could use it for their own political purposes got used up in coping with the day to day logistic problems. Ten years or more of guerrilla warfare in a very large geographical area has had little political impact on the masses in so far as their poss? ible radicalization is concerned. Its only appreciable result has been seen in propping up the leading Sardars of the insurrection as the leaders of Baluchistan today; the Sardars have retained their Sardaris and have gained political legitimacy in addition.

The worst kinds of rhetoric were invented to realise this sordid aim. Ethnocentricity was rampant. The federal Army was not opposed for being a brutal and brutalizing occupation force, but for being Punjabi; while the rural poor were made to fight in fact to preserve the Sardari system and restore the defunct Kalat state, they were told all sorts of things about defending the true Baluchi ethos. They didnft need schools because the Punjabi Army might use those schools to station their troops in them; besides, book-reading was contrary to the sacred tribal custom of illiteracy. They didnft need hospitals, even dispensaries, be? cause the Punjabis might use them; furthermore, the forefathers had lived without these wretch- ed Western inventions anyway, and what was good for them was surely good for now. Roads could not be built because the Punjabis might use

them; besides, the use of proper roads is a

digression from the glorious nomadism of the forefathers.

Myths of tribalism, memories of the past, ethnocentric hatred of outsiders were all ex-

ploited for sanctification of a class privilege enjoyed by the few. You had to love your hun- ger, poverty, illiteracy, pestilence, lice, death?all in the interest of restoring the Kalat State and the jagirdaris of the aristocrats.

We need to look at the national question

in Baluchistan today, and look hard, because that error, that unspeakable and pronged mis- ery of the Baluchi people, is not deserving of repetition. A Baluchi revolution, yesl But for whom? In what political framework? With what sort of politics? Under whose lead? ership? These are the fundamental questions of today precisely because Baluchistan has become a key area of international confronta- tions and consequently an area where questions of revolutionary transformation of the entire region might well be decided. On the side of the counter-revolution, however, there are not only the client regimes of Pakistan and Iran but also the repressive system of the Sardaris. This system commands both economic and political power in Baluchistan today. Revolution, like the proverbial charity, has to start at home.

Sardari System and the Agrarian Question

Two factors are worth noting. One, the fact that cities like Quetta were not indigen? ous developments but were simply grafted on to the Baluchi reality meant that there was no smooth transition from the rural to the urban structure in Baluchistan; agriculture simply became a supplier of these cities dominated by non-Baluchis without social transformation of the Baluchi society as a whole. Secondly, this market economy gave the Sardars an incen- tive to appropriate lands for themselves and to practise mass evictions. The fact that the Indian Penal Code was operative only in the cities and the rest was governed directly by the Khans and the Sardars under the protective umbrella of the *royal jirga* and the Frontier Crimes Regulation meant that these land appropriations and evictions were not challengeable in any court of law.

The jagirdari system was promoted both in the Union of States headed by Kalat and in the British Baluchistan. In Makran, for example, the majority of population was classified as Ra * yat-i-Hamsaya, which had no proprietory rights and simply had the status of landless labour tied to the ruling elite with intricate code of duties with virtually no rights whatever. In Kalat, part of the land was granted to the ruling Ahmadzais by the Durrani dynasty of Afghanistan as fees for troops that the Khan of Kalat was obliged to provide at the call of the Durranis (these lands are known as Ghammi Arazyat and the tribute itself as Ghum- e-Lashkar, compensation for the troops). The other part was parcelled out to the smaller Sardars as grants for services to Kalat state itself; nominally, the land was given to the tribe as a whole but the Sardar was entitled to establish rules for utilization; increasing? ly, the Sardar put himself at the top of an




intricate hierarchy consisting of the tuman- dars, the muqaddams, the naibs, the maliks and all other kindsof intermediaries to collect taxes and maintain law and order while the Sar? dar transformed himself into a full-fledged feudal.

Much the same pattern was adopted by the British, except for two major differences. One, the tribal nomenclature was preserved more thoroughly and the tribal chief here had on the whole greater arbitrary authority than the jagirdar, tumandar etc. in Kalat State. Secondly, the tribal agencies of British Bal? uchistan serviced the British garrison economy more directly and therefore developed a far greater dependence upon the fluctuations of the Quetta market. This market reached its limits fairly quickly, the scope being defined by needs of the garrison and the bureaucracy. Quetta never became a true manufacturing town.

Since the agrarian economy of Baluchistan was split up in a series of semi-autonomous Sardaris and Jagirdaris with each Sardar and Jagirdar having the right to fix the tax rate in his area, Baluchistan as a whole never developed a uniform system of taxation. This lack of uniformity persists to this day. For example, the Sardar alone appropriates one- sixth of the produce in Jhaljhao where a resistance was developed against this unjusti- fied collection during 1972 under the leadership of Abdul Karim Bizenjo. Since the case got considerable publicity, a mistaken notion has found currency to the effect that this rate is applied all through Baluchistan. That is not the case. The Sardar's share ranges anywhere from l/lOth to 1/3. In Tehsil Kolwah, some of the peasants pay l/7th or even l/lOth. The average in Kalat and Makran on irrigated lands, however, is closer to l/4th.

The class contradiction developed by the increasing polarization of the population be? tween feudals and rural labour has victimized Baluchs and non-Baluchs alike. We have already cited the case of Makran where the population is almost a hundred per cent Baluchi but is yet for the most part unprivileged, with no rights whatever and wholly under the Sardar1s command. In Jhalawan, on the other hand, where most of the Arazyat Brahui-Jadgal Jang (lands appropriated at the end of the Jadgal- Brahui war) are located, we see yet another form of oppression. At the end of the war, the Brahui chieftains were given the lands which had been appropriated from the Jadgals. The entire non-Brahui population was relegated to the unprivileged status of serfdom and was officially defined as RTyat-i-Hamsaya.

We see, thus, a pattern of landownership

which concentrated the privileges in the hands of a small minority and relegated the majority of the population, Baluchi and non-Baluchi, to serfdom and literal chattel slavery. In other words, we see a system of oppression which went far beyond a simple national question and posited the primacy of the class question as the fundamental contradiction of agrarian Bal? uchistan which affected Baluchi and non-Baluchi alike. If the rising bourgeoisie of the towns was predominately non-Baluchi, the most abject exploitation in the rural economy of Jhalawan area was also directed at non-Baluchis. Paren- thetically, we should note that we also see a phenomenon in modern times which again reinfor- ces the notion that exploitation in Baluchistan is along class rather than simple national lines: if it is true, for example, that non- Baluchi families such as that of the Parachas have come to have substantial investments and profits in Baluchistan! minerals, it is also true that Swatis and Hazarvis are by and large the most exploited class of workers in that sector of the Baluchistani mining industry which is owned in fact by Baluchistani entre- preneurs themselves.

Baluchistani feudalism is not, as this analysis should have shown by now, structurally the same as feudalism in Punjab and Sindh. On the other hand, this analysis should have prov- ed also that society in Baluchistan, which means first of ali the organization of productive forces there, is not tribal either. Clan organization enjoys significant survivals, in Kalat as much as in the Murri-Bugti area. However, the fundamental fact about this soci? ety is that it is still making a transition from tribalism to feudalism, a transition wherein the productive forces have reached the feud? al stage a little more fully than has the nomenclature, myth, ideology etc. that pertains to the reality of this maturing feudalistic tendency. The fact that we are still speaking of a transition, a phase in which the system is neither wholly tribal nor wholly feudal, means nevertheless that it is caught between a number of contradictions some of which we shall try to identify here.

First of ali, the question of ownership of land is not really settled in Baluchistan. When the Sandeman system of administration exempted Baluchistan from what became the Indian penal code and subjected it to the royal jirga and the F.C.R., it foreclosed the possibility of a permanent land settlement in Baluchistan of the kind that was in fact obtained in most of British India. By statutes, the land continued to belong to the tribe as a whole, for such was the custom and only custom had authority according to this law; it gave the Sardar the right to interpret and implement the custom as




he well pleased but, quite inadvertently, foreclosed the possibility of the Sardar becoming legally the owner of the land.

Customarily, the Sardar leased out the land to an intermediary who then organized the rural labour for cultivation of the land. Once the produce was ready to be taken away, the Sardar as well as his intermediaries claimed portions of it. Since the intermediary was a more immediately present factor in this production relation and since he provided, on loan of course, the basic capital needed over the crop period, he too began to consider himself the owner while thinking of the Sar? dar as a sort of overseeing authority who had a right to a share of the produce but not the land itself. Nominal ownership of the land was still in the hands of the tribe as a whole, so far as the tribal tradition went. The peas? ant, therefore, had an altogether different picture of the situation: he felt, more often than not, that he himself in fact had rights over the land while he surely had to pay a part of the produce for the intermediary offi- cial as compensation or interest on his in- vestment and another part to the Sardar simply in his capacity as Sardar. The differences between these three conceptions never got resolved within a concrete legal framework during the British period precisely because the Brit? ish had exempted the area from application of laws that were otherwise normal in most other parts of British India. This ambiguity as to who exactly owns this land has never been resolved in precise legal terms and constitutes one of the major contradictions of the Sardari system as it presently exists.

In its current manifestations, the Sardari system perpetuates a very specific pattern of absentee landlordism. The use of intermediar? ies makes it unnecessary for the Sardar to directly supervise or participate in the prod? uctive and distributive processes, and he is released to live out his leisure elsewhere. The surpluses he thus accumulates do not find their way back into the agrarian economy of Baluchistan in form of his investments. On the other hand, he typically withdraws these surpluses out of agriculture and spends them wherever he chooses to spend the period of his almost permanent absenteeism. In other words, Baluchistan! agrarian society suffers from a very specific discrepancy between the forces of production and the relations of production. The majority of Baluchistani peasants and rural workers get to keep that portion of their produce which is minimally necessary for their below-subsistence survival. The rest is transferred to the Sardar who spends it on his conspicuous consumption in the city of his own choice, or purchasing or

building urban property, even in some manufac? turing investments as a feudal lord trying to join the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Ali of this takes place in areas quite distant from the rural economy of Baluchistan, often in places as distant as Karachi. This net and continuing outflow of agricultural surpluses out of that sector, and often out of that province, is a considerable factor in the stagnation of the rural economy of Baluchistan. Lack of invest? ment signifies a perpetual underdevelopment of cultivable land and lack of modernization in implements of agriculture, resulting of course in low net returns?and thus the cycle goes on. The Baluchi Sardar is thus not play- ing even the usual historic role of the real feudal lord: accumulating agricultural surplus? es to rationalize and improve the means of agricultural production so as to collect ever larger surpluses to the point where enough capital accumulation has occurred so as to finance the next stage of development in the mode of production itself. The Sardar, on the other hand, has by and large detached himself from the productive process. He is a mere parasite whose use of the surplus is antagonistic to the process which produces the surplus. He is thus incapable of propelling the next phase of development, namely the bourgeois phase, precisely because his activities gener- ate not a progress in agriculture and hence a larger surplus, but stagnation and consequently narrowing margins of surpluses. Thus, the present form of the Sardari system is not only despicable in human terms but literally disast- rous for everyone concerned in pure economic terms as well.

The Sardars of today feel a double pull. First, they would like to complete their un- equivocal transition from the tribal to the feudal stage of production, from a semblance of communal ownership of land to their own clear-cut proprietorship with no clan element in their relationship with their serfs. Hence, ironically, the Bill the NAP government has sent to the Central Government recommending abolition of the Sardari system. Hence also, significantly enough, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo*s and Attaullah Mengal*s assertions that Shashik (the one-sixth of the produce that is paid to the Sardar in Jhaljhao) is not a Sardari tax at ali but the legitimate right of the propri- etor whose lands are being actually sharecrop- ped. The two things are parts of the same design. The Sardars would like to become leg? al proprietors of lands which symbolically still belong to the tribe as a whole. During the sixties, they managed to bribe the bureaucracy into entering their names into the revenue records as proprietors; when jagirdaries were abolished and their holdings came up for sale, they saw to it that no buyer came in sight and




bought back their jagirdaris at nominal rates. However, they hold lands far beyond any limits conceivable in any rational system of land distribution, and their proprietorship, forged as it is, dates back to the *60s only. They would like to camouflage all this and would even appear to accept the abolition of their special status. It is a very intricate man- oeuver which deserves some close scrutiny.

The recommendation to abolish the Sardari system has not a word to say about altering the pattern of landholdings. It asks basical.- ly for two things: 1) the abolition of privy purses, compensations, grants etc. for the ex-Chiefs, Khans and so forth; and 2) to abol? ish the jirga system and replace it with judi- cial committees to dispense justice according to the regular laws of the land. On the face of it, this looks good and progressive enough. In fact, what has happened is that the Sardars have recognized the crucial fact that their emergence as legal proprietors of land has been foreclosed precisely by their special status; conversely, if they are to secure this new, profitable status their earlier, spec? ial status needs to be abolished. The choice is clear enough: it is more profitable to be a feudal lord than to be a tribal chief merely. As such, they are keen to forego the tribal connection and secure their positions as feudal lords with personal claims to what used to be tribal lands.

Alongside this pull to complete their transition to feudalism, the Sardars, these aspiring semi-feudalists, have seen the obsol- escence of feudalism itself, as have the more enlightened feudals of Punjab and Sindh; they would like to quickly become junior partners of Karachi capitalists. In other words, they would like to consolidate their feudal status, would use this status to gain political power and use that power, in turn, to purchase their right to profits by bartering manufacturing and mining rights in Baluchistan for partnership in industries for which the capital would have come from Karachi.

Their dependence on outside capital is predicated upon their inability to produce large enough surpluses in the sector of econ? omy they themselves so ruthlessly dominate. Here again, they have two choices?both within the framework of dependence, which is the historic role of these bogus feudalists. One, they can accept junior partnership in enter- prises financed by non-Baluchi capital from Karachi and Punjab, consolidate their political power inside Baluchistan and stage a Baluchi nationalist revolt against their senior part? ners after reaching a certain stage of maturity, maybe in ten years. Alternatively, they can try to eliminate the need for senior partners

from within Pakistan by staging the same nationalist uprising now; then, instead of depend- ing on the comprador capital of Karachi, they can formulate terms of dependence on capital from New York and Detroit and London directly, much like Mujibur Rehman.

As of now, the Sardars of Baluchistan are wavering, intimidated almost by the magnitude of choices they are faced with. The most im? portant factor behind their waverings is their lack of cohesion as a class. As feudals who are not even wholly feudal, they are yet incapable of abrogating, each to each, their personal interests and feuds in the larger interest of their class as a whole. The fundamental difference in the consciousness of feudals and the bourgeoisie is that whereas the egotism of the bourgeoisie is mainly the egotism of a class, the egotism of the feudalists is always personal and contrary to other members of his class. The current politics of Baluchistan, with the macabre confrontation between Bizenjo and Akbar Bugti, the allies and cohorts of yesteryears, is a classic, cutting instance of just this inherent weakness and fragmentation of the feudal class.

As of now, they are incapable of making a choice. But the choices are there, and will have to be made sooner or later. History nev? er waits; if there doesn*t rise a class capable of mastering and using it for revolutionary ends, it makes room and even fortune for the ones who are demonstrably decadent but also, at that particular time, the only ones capable of seizing the time.

The crucial sector of Baluchistani economy is the agrarian sector; cities are merely grafted on to an economy to which they are by and large not related. The crucial question in the agrarian sector is the question of historically unresolved and undetermined ownership of land. There are three claimants to proprietorship of land: the Khet Mazdoor or Bazgar (landless peasant; rural labour etc), the lathband (the middle man who claims to be the small propriet- or) and the Sardar (Chief, or variations there- of). Revolutionary movement in Baluchistan, as in Pakistan as a whole, is wholly split in its loyalties. It doesn*t know what to do with the national question, doesn*t understand the relationship between the national question and the class question, doesn*t know whether to identify, in the specific situation of Baluchi? stan, with the Bazgar or with the Lathband. These are subjective weaknesses of a movement which is very young, very fragmented, very much on the defensive because of the objective power of the Sardari system, very much beseiged by both Right opportunism and Left adventurism.

The agrarian question in Baluchistan is




examined with some specific detail elsewhere in this issue, along with some recommendations pertaining to a correct revolutionary strategy. Here, we can only reinforce some blunt facts.

Baluchistan produces only one third of its food at the present time. It can more than make up for it by 1) developing its rich mineral resources which will need capital out- lays and technical know-how of a kind that it is far from possessing at this time; or 2) changing the entire pattern of ownership and production in the agrarian sector so that the vast land resources of Baluchistan begin to

produce at least the food requirements of the present meagre population. In either case, a total transformation of society, transformation of the relations of production that is, is a prerequisite for self-sufficiency if such were to be attained outside a framework of dependence. The two factors, development of the mineral resources and the transformation of agrarian relations within a framework of self-sufficiency, are of course not mutually exclusive.

An example in context is the coastline of Baluchistan which needs to be developed for fisheries, export facilities and even defence purposes. Imperialisms would like to exploit this facility in Baluchistan. Is development to be achieved by selling the rights to oneTs own coast, as the U.S. is eager to convince the Baluchi leadership to do? Or, is it too high a price for some immediate gains which might be too costly in spheres both economic and otherwise? Baluchi nationalism is in dire need of finding a point of convergence where political, economic, human, nationalist aims can all meet so as to resolve a conflict be? tween the poor majority and the rich minority while taking into account conflicts of both ethno-linguistic and class nature; it is only such a point of convergence that is worthy of being called a revolutionary practice in the specific historical context of present-day Baluchistan.

The Sardari system, a left-over from the days of Sandeman and his warring predecessors, is at the root of underdevelopment in Baluchi? stan?feudal or bourgeois, rural or urban, in fact all sectors of economy and polity in Bal? uchistan. This is a fundamental, irrefutable reality. Secondly, the present composition of the state structure in Pakistan as a whole is not such as to encourage any hopes of fair development in Baluchistan. In other words, the masses of Baluchistan are facing a two- fold contradiction, with its own regional ruling elite and with the national elite as well. Subjectively, there is of course a conflict between the ruling elite of Baluchi? stan and the Central Government, as we have

pointed out earlier in the article. Nonethe- less, with respect to the oppressed in Baluchi? stan, the indigenous and the external elites share an interest which makes them allies in ali objective ways possible. It would be a mistake for the revolutionary forces in Baluchi? stan to imagine that they can demolish one term of this contradiction without at the same time destroying the other term as well.

The area of activity for the revolutionary movement in Baluchistan today is the agrarian area. However, the revolutionaries of Baluchi? stan who have always considered this area autonomous and removed from everything else must learn to contemplate one fact rather lucidly: the Baluchi segment constitutes a significant element, one of the largest in fact, in the proletarian relations in Karachi. We do not know the precise numbers of Baluchi workers there: surely, they are more than a hundred thousand. In the midst of ali assertions about identity of Pakistani and Irani Baluchistans, a good number of them perfectly true, we must also point out the historic relation between Baluchistan and Sindh. And ask: what is the relationship between the small Baluchi working class living inside Baluchistan and the very large Baluchi working class outside? Baluchi? stan faces, with respect to the working class movement, a very specific dilemma: not that it does not have a working class but that its working class is dispersed and integrated into the capitalist sector of economy in Pakistan as a whole. Secondly, the working class inside Baluchistan, particularly in the mining sector, is predominantly non-Baluchi, Hazarvi Pashtun and Swati. With respect to Swati labour, it should be noted that it is spread ali over Pak? istan and has some concentration in Karachi as well, where most of the Baluchi working class is concentrated too. Thus we see a pattern of multi-faceted contradictions which has resulted in specific material relations of class identi? ty between the Baluchi and non-Baluchi workers, inside as well as outside Baluchistan. A genuine working class movement must try to link the interests of the workers of different ethno- linguistic origins over the whole territory that they cover. Meanwhile, it is not altogether improbable that the Baluchi proletariat that lives outside Baluchistan at present shall play a crucial role in the emancipation of Baluchi? stan in a national democratic revolution which envelopes the country as a whole. Nor should we stop exploring possibilities of concrete links between this non-resident working class and the resident rural labour of Baluchistan.

A Baluchistani revolution will occur only when it has combined the energies of three distinct though complementary sectors: the agrar? ian labour which is mostly though by no means entirely Baluchi, the labour in the mines which

(Continued on page 37)




work inside the mines. The result is that when these workers are abused and subjected to cruelty inside the mines, the news does not reach the local population outside and no broad- er sentiment is generated against the oppress? ion of workers. On the other hand, the worker who comes from the villages of the foreman and the gang leader is totally under their control. The foreman appoints a representative in sev- eral neighbouring villages in Swat. This man recruits the workers from the young villagers and sends them to the mines when ordered by the foreman. This man also keeps in touch with the families of the workers and now and then supplies them with badly needed money which the foreman deducts from the wages of the workers. While this man gives himself out as a well wisher of the workers and their fam? ilies, he can also make things miserable for a worker*s family in Swat in case the foreman does not receive due obedience and cooperation from him. Thus the gang leader and the fore? man have a special stranglehold on the inside workers of the mines.

We also found out that the inside workers speak Kohistani which is neither Pushto nor Persian. This makes it impossible for them to converse with the local people. The fore? man and the gang leaders also prohibit them from learning any local language. This streng- thens the exclusive hold of the gang leaders on their lives, for they are neither able to know anything about the other workers, nor able to inform them of their own plight. We found only one old man who could speak broken Urdu. We asked him how did the people in the mines get news from the outside world. He replied that whenever somebody comes from out? side they get some news and then went on to say that he knew that Yahya Khan ruled the country in those days. This was August, 1972. Ali this indicates the total oppression of these people by their bosses.

Whoever we have talked to since our return from the mines says it is hard to believe that human beings are living in these conditions in the twentieth century. We also could not believe this before we observed the situa? tion ourselves. Who is to be blamed for this? Is it our public communications media which have kept us ignorant? Or, is it ourselves who have sat contented in our cities without pro- testing our lack of knowledge about other parts of the country? Not too long ago we paid the price of such ignorance by losing half of our country. Are we going to make the same mistake again?

(Translated by H.N. Gardezi from the Newsletter No. 39 of the Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party).

National Question

(Continued from page 18) is predominantly non-Baluchi and has contra? diction with both Baluchi and non-Baluchi

owners, and the Baluchi labour scattered all over Karachi, the Western districts of Sindh and even parts of Punjab. Our analysis has

demonstrated, we hope, that owing to the

peculiar historical constitution of the Bal? uchi people, resulting in thorough admixture of ethno-linguistic groups and in extreme

dispersal of the Baluchi people, questions of revolution in Baluchistan are inseparable from questions of a national democratic revo? lution in Pakistan as a whole.

MEMBERS OF BALUCHISTAN ASSEMBLY

1. Attaullah Mengal?Sardar 2. Khair Bukhsh Marri?Sardar 3. Agha Abdul Karim?Prince, brother of Khan

of Kalat 4. Gul Khan Naseer-Mir, cousin of Mengal 5. Mohammad Khan Barozai?Sardar 6. Abdul Rahman?Sardar 7. Ahmed Nawaz Bugti?Mir, brother of Sardar

Bugti 8. Chakar Khan?Mir, brother-in-law of Ahmed

Nawaz 9. Dost Mohammad?Mir

10. Sher Ali Khan?Nawabzadah 11. Ghaus Bukhsh Raisani?Sardar 12. Ghulam Qadir?Jam of Lasbella 13. Yusuf Ali Magsi?Mir li+. Saifullah Piracha?Mineowner 15. Saleh Mohammad?Maulvi 16. Haji Shamsuddin?Maulvi 17. M. Hassan Shah?Maulvi 18. Abdul Samad Achakzai?Khan, Pushtun nation?

alist 19. Shahnawaz Jamali?Mir 20. Anwar Jan Khetran?Sardar 21. Miss Fazilla Alliani (nominated)?related

to Sardar Marri



Aijaz Ahmad - The National Question in Balochistan

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