APROPOS the article ‘Baloch nationalism’ (July 20). It is worth enquiring as to what the writer actually means when he links the tribal history of Balochistan with its nationalist impulse.

The article amplifies well the historical currents and the tribal structure but falls short of establishing a linkage of tribal structure with Baloch nationalism. The nationalist movement by a politically aware and educated segment of Baloch activists like Muhammad Yusuf Magsi and Abdul Aziz Kurd in 1929 was like a parallel stream to the tribal sardar’s struggle for the maintenance of their privileges and power structure. How and where these two streams meet is the question worth answering by political scientists and sociologists.

It for instance is quite perplexing as to how the tribal sardars like Khair Baksh Marri and Attaullah Mengal got repeatedly on the wrong side of the power structure at the central government level during the reigns of Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, and Bhutto.

Was it the usurpation of their political rights by a covetous centre or the nihilistic impulse of Baloch sub-nationalism unwilling to get assimilated in the federation? What were the demands of leaders like Khair Baksh Marri and Attaullah Mengal that could not be conceded by the centre?

And the biggest question that begs an answer is the relationship between the aspirations of the common Baloch and the tribal sardars. Is it that the tribal leadership is part of the problem rather than a solution because it insists on anachronistic tribal power structures at the cost of public weal in a socially and economically polarised and deprived province?

And what do the educated Baloch want? Someone ought to clarify these points through a scholarly analysis to point the way ahead towards a new era of political empowerment and socio-economic development for the province.

Brig(r) Raashid Wali Janjua
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2020