![]() It is axiomatic that state repression only breeds resentment and radicalisation, whether in Pakistan or any other part of the world. There have been similar crackdowns on young Sindhis in recent times too - including members of entirely peaceful nationalist groups. There is also evidence to suggest a renewed wave of racial profiling of Baloch (and Pakhtuns) in metropolitan Pakistan. This is hardly surprising given the establishment-manipulated sham that is mainstream politics in Balochistan as well as the epidemic of Baloch missing persons. ![]() Reporting on such matters is of course always coloured by how much official sources wish to disclose but it is in any case apparent that segments of the Baloch nationalist movement are once again being radicalised. Over the past few days attacks on military installations have been reported in Kech, Noshki and Panjgur, some at least being claimed by separatist organisations. In a different context, the complete absence of justice and the progressive militarisation of the state apparatus in the peripheries is stoking another wave of militancy, one that the Pakistani state has never indulged. This is perhaps because the establishment continues to perceive the religious right as a natural ally that can serve domestic and foreign policy objectives as it has done for decades. Voices of peace in the Pakhtun border districts - not least of all those who were targeted in Qila Saifullah - have been demanding the state stop indulging the TTP, but these pleas fall on deaf ears. It is in the same ex-Fata districts that the TTP is regrouping, having been given a major fillip after the reconquest of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban. Even where exceptional legal regimes have been abolished - like when the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were merged with KP province in 2018 - the conduct of the state and those it patronises has hardly changed on the ground. Violence is common and state functionaries are often more interested in pillaging natural resources than serving the proverbial citizenry. It has been said before, but it must be said again: Pakistani statecraft and legal regimes in most ethnic peripheries remain colonial in their essence. ![]() They were demanding not only that their livelihoods be protected from foreign trawlers but also to stop being treated like aliens by law-enforcement agencies in their own homeland. Our memories are short, so let us be reminded that it was only a few short weeks ago that tens of thousands of people in Gwadar, mostly subsistence fisherfolk, were on the streets in an unprecedented demonstration of discontent. Or asked to sacrifice their lands and livelihoods in the name of ‘development’, the most recent example being the outlandish Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project.īut it is in the ethnic peripheries that the crisis of the federation is most acute, where justice remains, for most, a pipe dream. Indeed, those without hereditary influence in the Punjabi heartland are also subject to the daily whims of power in the thana, katcheri and patwarkhana. Seraikis, the Hazaras of Balochistan and even urban Sindh’s Urdu-speaking Mohajirs also ask why their lands, resources and labour are so coveted while their dignity, material well-being and political freedoms are so easily glossed over. ![]() Sindhi intellectuals and political workers ran social media campaigns to call attention to the slow but steady destruction of arguably the world’s largest fresh water lake, Manchhar families and loved ones demanded the production of yet another slew of Baloch missing persons Gilgit-Baltistanis rejected their region being marketed as a tourist haven even as they are denied citizenship rights and Pakhtuns decried yet more indiscriminate force against peaceful marchers in Qila Saifullah. ON the day that Justice Umar Ata Bandial was sworn in as chief justice, a plethora of voices in the long-suffering ethnic peripheries were screaming out, yet again, asking to be heard.
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