This is indeed paradoxical. For, it is the representatives of the power groups in this province who are thrown up to hold powerful provincial government offices as well.

Somehow, they fail to get a just share of the resources for the benefit of the people of Balochistan. There is consensus over this inter-provincial inequity. Also, there are socio-economic and political inequities within the province.

Both Balochis and Balochistan are receiving unfair treatment at the hands of the decision-makers inside and outside the province that cannot be mitigated by giving a few high-profile appointments to some Balochis in the federal government who are actually silenced by this charm offensive.

Ineffectiveness of those in power positions is demonstrated by a small example of allocation and utilization of Rs19.2 billion Khushhal Pakistan—Poverty Alleviation Programme for calendar 2000-2001. Only 9.2 per cent of the total programme budget had been allocated for Balochistan compared to 16.2 per cent for the NWFP, 19.7 per cent for Sindh, and 48.9 per cent for Punjab.

Utilization as a percentage of the budgeted amount was even lower and the lowest for Balochistan at 2.8 per cent compared to 7.7 per cent in the NWFP, 8.2 per cent in Sindh, and 19 per cent in Punjab during the first year of the programme.

It is true that Balochistan is the least populated but it is also the most underdeveloped. Low allocations because of low population will feed into underdevelopment and will make it that much more difficult to lift it out of its current state of deprivation.

Investment in large infrastructure projects might make the investment figure for Balochistan look good but that will not necessarily translate into broad-based socio-economic uplift of the people of Balochistan.

Illiteracy is the highest and health coverage very low in Balochistan. While two-thirds of male Balochis are illiterate, female illiteracy is appallingly high at 88 per cent (1998 Census). Skills availability is, therefore, also amongst the lowest in the country.

So, while impressive Gwadar like projects are being undertaken to ostensibly benefit the province, are Balochis’ skills being developed in parallel to make a large supply of Balochi labour available for employment as and when the demand arises? Is some department in the country planning to match Gwadar port’s labour demand with a Balochi supply of labour?

Or, are we contemplating a surplus extraction to be siphoned out of Balochistan into other better-off provinces? The answer to this last question may be an intentional or an unintentional yes, rhetoric notwithstanding.

In either case, if Baloch soil is used to benefit residents of other provinces, it will be fuel for a disturbance that will not be easy to contain.

As it is, for the last one year, the Frontier Corps and other security apparatus were getting set for military action in Balochistan. Eventually, Kohlu and Dera Bugti were attacked and precious innocent lives lost too of none other than our own citizens. Why was this extreme action necessitated? Root cause analysis is long overdue.

Military action was taken as gas pipelines, trains and tracks, power transmission lines, and other installations were attacked by explosive devices and rockets. True, this is a law and order situation but what is behind this lawlessness?

Baloch tribal leaders always complain of underdevelopment, unemployment, and loss of their rightful share in the country’s resources to other parts of the country. This is no secret as we also know that Balochis got to benefit from their own Sui gas much later as gas was immediately transported to the centres earmarked for rapid development ahead of others.

This is exploitation to say the least that was further compounded by a lack of agreement over the royalty payments. Exploitation notwithstanding, while none of this may justify taking the law into own hands, how must conflicts be managed to pre-empt violence?

One way of “managing” conflict is by avoidance. That is, the issue is avoided and is thus expected to take care of itself over time. We have tried this approach all along and it turned out to be a miserable failure. In fact, the conflict has now degenerated into violence.

A second approach is defusion. That is, to play down the differences and highlight the similar goals. This approach is usually followed by committees that may not be able to eventually cut much ice either as the parties involved may have a change of heart later as they are once again engulfed by the same sentiment they tried to rein in at the time of negotiation.

The third approach is confrontation whereby the issues are confronted head-on by focusing on super-ordinate goals. The catch here, however, is that there is a congruency of super-ordinate goals without which a meeting of the minds may not result and the conflict may resurface after some time even turning violent. While this congruency has yet to be struck, the issues have yet to be confronted and if not faced head-on for too long, passions will be fuelled as has been observed more than once.

Violence may, however, be pre-empted by watching the early warning signals. And, early warning signals have been generated aplenty in Balochistan. Every time there is complaint about royalties, jobs, and resources, there is a signal generated for a potentially volatile situation. We do not pre-empt this through timely action. And, timely action could lead to a virtual change in the paradigm in which Balochistan is trapped.

To avert the violent situation, we need to focus on energizing the province. Every time the Baloch leaders talk of jobs, we must talk of literacy, health, and education which areas are resisted by custom and convention in the backward province.

The idea is to liberate the Balochi not just by giving royalties to the powerful thereby making them more so but a royalty to the common Balochi is overdue in the form of education and enlightenment so that they are equipped to seek the remaining freedoms from debilitating convention. It is here that the battle lines need to be drawn with the forces the military is currently fighting with conventional weapons. There is conservatism on all sides of the dispute.

One side relies on the tools of ignorance to perpetuate own power, the other side relies on conventional weaponry to prevail over a situation that can be averted and diffused unconventionally for the benefit of all.

And, every time Baloch leadership talks of resource distribution at the national level, the other side must talk of distribution of land resources to the people who would then be on their own. Under the 1959 land reforms, only five per cent of the total area resumed was from Balochistan with only three per cent of the beneficiaries from this province.

Under the 1972 land reforms, over 39 per cent of the area resumed was from Balochistan but only 39 per cent of the total area was disposed off in this province until 1994.

The two land reforms of 1959 and 1972 impacted Balochistan the least. The upshot is that power structures remain highly skewed. Unless people are assured a share of the resources through intra-provincial equity, the common person is not likely to benefit equitably even if the desired resources were to be diverted to them from the national level.

It is the above ground work that needs to be undertaken by visionary leadership through a deployment of marketing skills that should be able to make a difference. And, this requires commitment of time and effort at the highest levels which time they do not make available for this small province that then has its presence felt in other ways.

Violent disputes between the power groups are likely to be followed by negotiations between the same. “Acceptable terms” might be agreed upon but it will remain unclear whether the ordinary persons’ interests, behind whose façade the fight took place, were even factored into the agreement substantively.

If not, life will go on as usual for the ordinary Balochi in caves of darkness too far away from the light that should begin to shine in Balochistan sooner rather than later.

It is with this sense of purpose that those with power must force substantive change for the people of Balochistan and not just by changing the landscape which will be futile if ordinary Balochi continues to be bypassed by infrastructure development.