Determining the right to be Kashmiri or Baloch

Spoke to the boisterous Lateef Johar, who said with his mischievous smile that his mother thinks he is ignorant for not drinking juice as per the doctor's advice. Lateef belongs to Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) Azad. He is on a hunger strike. Sitting along with his comrades, in front of the Karachi Press Club for the past 12 days, he has not eaten anything. They are hopeful that someone will hear their pleas for justice and BSO Azad Chairman Zahid Baloch will be released. Their aim is to see their leader free of the shackles that have allegedly been put on by the Pakistani security agencies.

Banuk Kareema Baloch, the Vice-Chairperson of BSO Azad said that none of the mainstream political parties have shown their support so far. A thick register meant to record the voices in writing is progressing very slowly. When asked if she knew how many have signed it so far, she said she doesn't know, but the register was started only yesterday. She is a fierce voice among those who demand justice and freedom from the Pakistani State's oppression. Torture, threats, and illegal detentions are a norm, she said. The vociferous woman belongs to Turbat, a city located in southern Balochistan, within the Pakistani 'disputed territory'. Banok Kareema was awarded a five-year sentence on March 16, 2010 for arranging a protest rally on August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day.

The region of Balochistan mainly includes southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Iran and a very small section of southwestern Afghanistan. Administratively divided between three countries - Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan - Pakistan holds the largest 'share' of the disputed territory. However, nationalists have never accepted any of the countries as their conquerors. The website run by BSO Azad clearly states that Pakistan occupied Balochistan on March 27, 1948.

The rational side of my brain says that while being a separatist and actively working against a state, expecting good behaviour either stems from naivety or extreme political savvy-ness. However, my emotional side, that grew up on feeling for the Kashmiris suffering at the hands of the Indian 'enemy', makes me want to lash out at the treatment being meted out to the Baloch. How does one strike a balance? How can I support Kashmiris and Palestinians, but forget the Baloch? If Kashmiris are suffering from illegal detentions and custodial disappearances, their bodies being dumped in unmarked graves, while women and children continue to suffer, should I not show solidarity with them? And if I do that, is it honest and justified to not extend the same to the people of Balochistan?

They say that the Indian authorities are brutal and have in the past tortured many of those who want to be independent, to death. Sometimes, they even shoot loved ones to teach a lesson. They only demand for their right of self-determination; nothing more, nothing less. Should we not stand in solidarity with our brothers in Balochistan, who are facing the same situation, but at the hands of India's enemy Pakistan?

Here is another story. Published on a Pakistani tv channel's website:

Kin of missing people in Kashmir sit on indefinite hunger strike (October 21, 2013)

Srinagar.Residents in Indian held Kashmir launched an indefinite hunger strike on Monday (October 21) to protest against the mysterious disappearances of their relatives from the strife-torn province.
People in Kashmir’s Srinagar city, took to streets with empty utensils and photographs of their missing family members who had been allegedly subjected to custodial disappearances since the eruption of militancy over the region in 1989.
Protesters said that the provincial government had been neglecting the issue and didn’t initiate any probe into the missing cases of several youths.
The protesters demanded an intervention by the federal government to deliver justice to the families of the missing people.
“Some people have been kidnapped, and a few are missing and we are unable to figure out whether they are alive or dead. We are urging the provincial government to put pressure on the federal government to find out these missing people,” a protester, Zahoor Ahmed Mir, said.
Reportedly, nearly 50,000 people have been killed and countless have disappeared in Kashmir since insurgency started in the region, which India claims is sponsored by Pakistan.
The 1958 Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the country, which gives troops sweeping powers to kill suspected rebels and immunity from prosecution, applies only in Kashmir and insurgency-affected northeast India.
Human Rights groups say it has given the security forces a license to kill torture and rape with impunity in Kashmir.

Where clerks like generals, intellectuals prefer paternal elite

Here I go again, talking about the interpreter class that forms the academic elite in this country. The ‘intellectuals’ for whom nearly all that is local, traditional or let’s say ‘desi’ is worth rubbishing merely because it does not fit in those defined Western boundaries of ‘civilized’, unless, mind it, the matter is about the exoticized version tailored for the sahib. Just like those perfect ‘gourmet samosas’ and ‘connoisseur jalebis’, all enjoyed wearing ‘dholki haute couture’. Tea party culture hidden behind Marxist theory and dialectics of how to buy vodka from the local bootlegger. Disjointed nuanced semantics of urban and rural divide that are not as feudal as they used to be just because the lord put some money in a couple of sugar mills and sent his children to study at Eton, Berkeley or Oxford.

Not to forget the sugar coated, tech-savvy babus who went to local IBAs and LUMs to get their humble degree; either because they were too mummy daddy to bear the routine of doing their own laundry, or because no international elite school found their credentials worth getting besmirched by the humble presence on campus. Do not count the odd ones out, for they are so few, you can count them on just one hand. [Also, to trample their self esteem, they are lathered in shariat terms like Qarz-e-Hasna]

It wouldn’t be a long shot if one said that it was summarised in the 19th century by Macaulay for the rest of the hullabaloos who were busy being ‘clerks’ [and continue to do so] since British Raj gave them the ‘authority’.

"We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population," Macaulay declared.

Apparently the enrichment never seized and continues to befuddle those who must be guided by the intellectuals as a shepherd guides ‘sheep’.

The intellectuals are stuck in the rut about generals, because supporting paternal elites in their opinion is better than supporting the status quo. Oh the fuzzy frenzy of semantics, prey the clerks cannot fathom the difference, if there is one, as they were never trained to distinguish the nuances of mere words.

But lest the clerks demand to send a general to a foreign hospital instead of the gallows, rest assured that the Berbers in them were never thoroughly put to rest. Though it is all right for my lord to inaugurate a humble school for the clerk, where never would he ever send his own son or daughter. The general must pay. Both for the hospital, as well as the school made for the clerk’s descendants. For who else would my lord not elite rule if there were no more clerks? Not those peasants, for the fiefdoms have them as serfs, and missing out the peasant lot comes natural to clerks and intellectuals alike, for those poor dudgeons exist merely as ballot papers.

Why I think RAW wins against ISI?

I grew up listening to praise for the armed forces of Pakistan and the idea that we have one of the best intelligence agencies, namely Inter-services Intelligence (ISI). However, since the May 1, 2011 incident I have been thinking if the ISI is really the best, or we are supposed to think it is the best. We all know how easy it is to get away with security checks in Pakistan because at one point everyone has done this.

Here’s a personal anecdote. In 2009, I visited Islamabad with some friends and we were going to Trail 5 for which we had to cross the red-zone, the high security area. Two of us did not have the ID cards, so the Rangers sent us back. However, our taxi driver told us not to worry, and he drove around all the check points and dropped us in the lane from where we were hardly on a 5 minute walking distance from ‘Trail 5’ entrance. Nobody checked our ID cards since we were pedestrians. The privilege seemed to be reserved only for the people in vehicles.

Anyway, moving ahead before I digress too much. The ISI has a notorious reputation. How much of that is actually true, we might never find out, but with that reputation around, it is very understandable for us to doubt whether Osama’s presence was with the ISI’s consent and protection, or not.


This brings me to why I think that the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has won against the Pakistani ISI. It's pretty simple. When Indians say that the ISI was involved in a terrorist attack on their land, their public believes them, but when Pakistan says RAW was involved, we think it's not possible. It is because the Pakistani establishment brainwashed us with a lot of lying. It made us think Pakistan won the wars against the evil, good-for-nothing ‘banyas’. That rhetoric ultimately played in the hands of the Indians, and why should it not?

A good spy agency would stay low key to avoid discovery as well as direct involvement, which cannot be said of the ISI. Having formed an alliance with the CIA, which looking at the CIA’s track record is not a big deal (one only needs to bait them with some anti-communist bullshit), the card ISI played with its own public, was played by the world - The best secret service agency. The ISI lived with this rhetoric for so long, that people directly involved actually started believing this idea too. Now whether the ISI is the best intelligence agency, capable of many tricks is true or not, it still gets accused of a lot of shit happening around the world, including its own territory. In that, the RAW wins and have bested the ISI. Be it in Baluchistan, Afghanistan or China, the blame will stay with ISI.