YET another official inauguration of the Gwadar seaport last month — this time by the Balochistan chief minister — will not allay the misgivings of the people of the province whose sense of deprivation runs much deeper than the deep, blue sea.

What is really needed is a truth and reconciliation commission, comprising public representatives (elected and unelected) from the province and the federation, to probe into the roots of alienation of the people of Balochistan from the national mainstream.

Balochistan is physically the largest and, ironically, the poorest and the richest of the provinces given its economic deprivation and the wealth of its natural resources, respectively. While Balochistan has been wholeheartedly sharing its wealth with the rest of the country, it has been burdened with a very unfair share of the poverty prevailing in Pakistan.

Thorny issues as to why the people of this province are so alienated from the national mainstream need to be identified, analysed and resolved with a consensus among all stakeholders. Home to significant multi-ethnic communities that include the Baloch, the Hazaras, the Pakhtuns and the Brahvis, with a sizable sprinkling of Punjabis and Urdu speakers, Balochistan in microcosm reflects the greater diversity of the macrocosm that is Pakistan. Like the rest of Pakistan, it is also dogged by decades of bad governance, tribal feuds and a clash between the old and the new. These are factors which in turn define who gets what, when, how and at whose expense. If left in its present state of unravelling, Balochistan is nothing short of a disaster waiting to happen.

The list of injustices meted out to the province and its people is long and harrowing. The state has literally waged wars on this federating unit to make it fall in line with Rawalpindi and Islamabad. There is little that trickles down to the people from whatever rental fees the federal government pays to the all-mighty sardars from whose lands the government extracts minerals, oil and gas. The royalties given to the provincial government barely meet its running expenses, with the result that there is little left for annual development programmes. In the current fiscal year the amount stands at zero. And nobody cares.

The coastal belt of Makran, as the emerging scene of the new great game owing to the location of the Gwadar seaport there, is very different from the provinces’ hinterland which has been cohabited mainly by Baloch and Pashtun tribes for centuries. The Makran region is almost entirely inhabited by the Baloch, without any history of a tribal, sardari system behind them. Society is based on egalitarianism, and respect for all, regardless of their social or economic status, is an ingrained social value. The Baloch of Makran take pride not in their history of war amongst tribesmen and conquests of one another’s territories but in sharing the high moral values of equality among all individuals, of respecting the other person’s privacy, and practising cooperation among communities as opposed to competition. This should have been a ready constituency for democratic governance, one that can take root easily without being diverted by vested and opposing feudal interests, and accountable only to the electorate. But this has not happened for several reasons, due mainly to the way the federal government has treated the province over the decades.

The traditionally ruling feudal-mullah duo at the provincial level also ensured that only a subsistence level, if any, funding reached Makran, because it had nothing to gain from the empowerment of the people there (as indeed elsewhere). The sardars meanwhile ran their personal fiefdoms in their respective domains, raising private armies and taking turns to side with or oppose successive federal governments to settle scores with rival clans. The Marris, the Mengals and the Bugtis, all have played such games over the years.

At critical junctures in the past, too, they even ganged up on Islamabad but such solidarity in their ranks pleading for the rights of the Baloch has been short-lived. What is different today is the all-pervasive feeling of a Balochistani nationalism; it has never been this widespread, shared and owned by ordinary people across the province. There is now talk among various nationalist groups of seeking justice for Balochistanis, an all-inclusive term applied to all residents of the province, and not just the Baloch. That some of the old names and faces of Baloch sardars are part of this popular new movement is not a coincidence but a coming together of disparate forces that derive their legitimacy from popular sentiment.

Thus, it can be argued that the alienation of Balochistanis is near complete. The February 2008 election results and subsequent decisions taken by elected MPs also help make the reading of the emerging picture clear. While nationalist and most Islamist parties boycotted the polls, the incumbent PML-Q (backed by Islamabad) emerged as the largest party with 17 seats out of the total 51 that were contested; the right-wing MMA got just seven because many religious-minded voters heeded the boycott call; the PPP grabbed seven, the ANP two, the BNP five, while 10 independent candidates made it into the provincial assembly.

But the public sentiment of anger and alienation was so strong that despite their respective party positions on issues concerning Balochistan, all MPAs were unanimous in condemning the killing of the nationalist leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, and demanding that President Pervez Musharraf be impeached and brought to book for initiating military action in the province. This ‘uprising’ of the elected House mirrored the province’s resolve vis-à-vis the centre. Baloch nationalists, who boycotted the election, showed only a lukewarm response to Mr Zardari’s post-election apology to the people of Balochistan, as his PPP formed a new government at the centre. They said they would judge the PPP chief on what he did as opposed to what he said.

Nearly a year down the road, kidnappings, bombings and attacks on targets seen as representing the state and its apparatus have continued. The present provincial government is as ineffective as its predecessors, and Islamabad’s promise of righting the wrongs done to Balochistan has remained just that. Democracy has changed little for the people of Balochistan in everyday terms; they cannot be expected to be happy with self-promoting and cosmetic development projects such as setting up a medical college named after Benazir Bhutto!

Unless a truth and reconciliation commission is formed and all stakeholders are brought to a negotiating table to resolve the many issues Balochistan is suffering from, the province’s integration into the national mainstream will remain a distant cry.