,You mean they actually read books in Balochistan?” My Lahori friend got suspicious. For him, as for most Pakistanis, Balochistan is a war zone where people want guns, not books. But, just back from the 2023 Gwadar Book Festival, I told him that he was not only wrong, but as wrong as could be. Young Baloch are thirsty to know; They buy almost three times as many books as literary festivals in Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad.
More importantly, this festival – and others I’ve attended in Balochistan – was organic, energetic and free. Thankfully, I have neither seen nor heard of support for BLA/BLF terrorists. With a low budget, staffed by youth volunteers, and organized inside a high-school campus, GBF stood in stark contrast to the dreary, nostalgic lit-fests of the Karachi-Lahore type. Held in five-star hotels with copious corporate and embassy funding, these are feel-good events with lots of self-congratulation, but topics and speakers considered controversial are carefully excluded.
My friend was pleasantly surprised to find that after my Gwadar University lecture the students asked more questions than the students themselves. I had long complained to him that, over the last 35-40 years, women students at my old university in Islamabad have lifted the veil and turned into passive listeners, rarely summoning the courage to stand up and ask.
But if my well-educated, well-traveled, and good-natured friend was consistently wrong, what’s going on in the other mind? When the news stops, both the good news and the bad news stop. Officials are sensitive to negative news for fear of weakening CPEC. Print and TV media cannot touch Balochistan in any case, except as cleared from ‘above’.
No one has underlined this sad fact more eloquently than Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman, a fisherman’s son of Haq Do Tehreek, Gwadar. Last year at the Asma Jehangir conference in Lahore, she stole the show. When a rat entered a confectionary shop in Lahore, it thundered, Pakistani media was set on fire. But when bodies appear by the roadside in Balochistan, no one dares to whisper. The suspected cleric, also a Jamaat-e-Islami leader, is currently under arrest and has been charged with murder. People say she is at the center of a tussle between two agencies, one of which wants to bring her in, the other out.
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As an outsider from Gwadar (last visit circa 1960) I could not ascertain which of the multiplicity of security organizations held top charge. Each defends its own turf and probably has its own additional salary income sources. Along all the highways and major roads, the hilltop is dotted with Omani style forts and fortifications. Bunkers and check posts are everywhere.
Driving through the dry-dusty town of Turbat, I wondered what the local economy had done. Answer: Smuggling. No effort is made to hide the free flow of petrol, oil and LNG across the Iranian border – not even the smallest one. On their way to Karachi and parts of Punjab, pickup trucks laden with jerry cans filled with fuel form the largest portion of road traffic. I was told that the luxury coaches going to Karachi have a tank under the chassis which holds eight to ten thousand litres. Pre-assigned hot pocket bites.
One fact – more than any other fact – immediately impresses the visitor. The people who designed New Gwadar did not waste a moment in worrying about the native Gwadarites. As they are pushed further away from harbors, their allowed fishing areas keep shrinking. A proposed new road would devastate the local boat building industry. The old city looks like a garbage dump, but Rawalpindi doesn’t care.
The builders of the port – the Chinese – are invisible. The locals humorously call them Yajuj-Majuj. Instead of lounging around incredibly beautiful beaches, they live inside what looks like a prison camp from afar. Once the project is over, I am sure they will be eager to come back home and taste the freedom.
An almost accidental visit to Gwadar Institute of Technology turned out to be a surreal experience. A plaque says that this super-modern institute was handed over by China in 2021. Auditoriums, lecture halls, classrooms and laboratories are picture perfect. I counted over 60 training simulators for cranes, gantry, heavy vehicles and forklifts. Later, upon googling, the price per piece was between $30,000-$50,000. All spanks are new, still under plastic cover. There are no teachers, students or staff on this vast but desolate campus – only janitors. No one has any idea how to take things forward.
This development has gone insane. But who is to blame and who will foot the bill? Was there a PC-1 planning document, and what’s in it? Nevertheless, the development of Gwadar will undoubtedly benefit those who have always won. Vast areas have been cordoned off with razor wire for various official organizations and their housing schemes. Colonization is, of course, too strong a word to use here. Let’s say this is the familiar desire of the officer colonies.
An unexpected encounter between Quetta and Gwadar led to a three-hour conversation with the Kakul graduate, a junior army officer. Brilliant and likeable, he engaged the TTP in a firefight in South Waziristan. Well, how do they compare against BLF/BLA? He laughed: these are criminals and adventurers. But TTP are formidable hardcore terrorists. Then he paused: he would prefer to fight somewhere where people would like him, not here.
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Complicated! This begged my question – why don’t you guys go back home? Leave law and order to the local police and Baloch levies? she sighed. Yes, it should be as soon as possible. But both are less equipped, less trained and being locals they have families that terrorists can target. This young officer does not want to be seen as an occupying force. Though troubled, he still loves the military.
Those at the center of power see Balochistan as a distant, barren land of tribals. Too rich to be left alone, they think it should be governed from afar. Stalled development stemming from this regressive mindset is pushing Pakistan back to the rocks. Balochistan – and the concept of Pakistan for that matter – will have to be rethought in very new ways. Otherwise history will do its terrible damage as it once did. But next time the price may go up even faster.
The writer is a physicist and writer based in Islamabad. Thoughts are personal. this article was Originally Published on the Dawn website.