Balochistan in Doldrums:
"Sectarian (pseudo) of whatever persuasion, blinded by his irrationality, doesn't(or cannot) perceive the dynamics of reality-or else misinterprets it"
Paulo Freire
Recently, at the sidelines of a conference on Pakistan-Afghanistan-India Peace prospects, I got a chance to meet some intellectuals, or rather pseudo-intellectuals as they seemed to me after getting to know their views on Balochistan. In a rather general mood of inquisitiveness that I noticed in the conference about the situation in Balochistan, these pseudo intellectuals were adamant to toe their narrative of the events in Balochistan. In a series of arguments with them their assertiveness of their take on the events at times made me feel as if I was an outsider in my own province, where as I am the local of this province.
The thing that further spoiled my mood and with it also my spirit of doing efforts of striking a common that would serve as base for our further discussions was an article written by Arifa Noor in the Dawn news. This article represented more of a Russian short story suffering from with enigmatic characters and a contradictory plot. This article contained disjointed information on the province, leaving us in a limbo as to what opinion we should make about the events stirring in the province. She opines that the vortex point in the province i.e the issue of missing persons is dissuaded after the suo motto notice of the Supreme Court. Her argument that the dust in Balochistan has begun to settle after the SC involvement was proved frivolous within few hours of the publishing of this article when four more mutilated bodies were found.
As a resident of this province, I wonder that can the Supreme Court be looked at as a Messiah for resolution of Balochistan issue, when the Supreme Court is yet to take action on the targeted killings that the city of Karachi witnessed, when the present CJ, hitherto deposed was visiting that on12th of May 2007. Now he is visiting Balochistan for the third time, and is seen yelling at the law enforcers and Administrative chiefs. It is a fact that the lower Judiciary is blemished to an extent that the law enforcers do not trust it for trying the insurgents that they present before the judiciary. As there have been instances that these very insurgents have walked through the judicial process not being convicted.
The way Supreme Court is carrying its business especially on Balochistan, at times makes compelled to believe in the authenticity of its spirit to make the things correct, but unreliability of its impractical verdicts are also implicit.
The fact of the matter is that Balochistan is always looked upon as a step brother by the powers to be. The Laissez-faire way the establishment has always run the affairs of Balochistan province has given birth to a lot of confusions. The so called free media is also doing just the lip service on the issue, and that too in a manner that is evidently flawed. Every night the anchor persons turn up in the talk shows with their non-congruent ideas and loosely knitted arguments about the future of Balochistan. With their flawed approach of extracting solutions of chronic problems in single sittings, they are not doing justice to their professions. They try to find out solutions to Balochistan problem by doing talk shows in Islamabad, it is an anomaly to many. They by inviting irrelevant people on their talk shows, who are more concerned with putting forward the official take on the issue, rather than discussing the ground realities, cannot relieve themselves of the responsibilities that they shoulder as journalists.
Thus, Balochistan needs practical pacification, rather than political rhetoric. The administrative arm of the government along with the civil society needs to strive for getting implemented the verdicts of the Supreme Court. Pseudo-intellectualism for cheap fame should be discouraged because it brings more harm, as it seeks to disrupt the public discussions on non issues. This is mostly seen in the Urdu press. The game of missing persons and forceful abductions should cease by now, and political solutions to the problem should be pragmatically worked out. Egos should be put aside, and all stake holders should be invited to the discussions that are held for deciding the future of Balochistan. The situation in Balochistan is presently grim, because on ground the matters are handed over to the law enforcement agencies which on many accounts are deemed as foreigners in the province and on the political front it is left to the capricious lot of politicians with below average capabilities and on intellectual front to the pseudo-intellectuals.
