sarjau: The demands for independent Baluchistan no longer can be ignored

Each person puts himself and all his power in common under the direction of the common will, in a common capacity, the community member receive each member as inseparable part of whole community. This common corporation creates a moral and collective body, and receive from common unity its common identity.

The Baluch have acquired identity and ethno consciousness before the formulation of the nationalism doctrine. They have been a self defining ethno culture through history even if they did not have the required sense of social and political solidarity to assert themselves as a nation as it is understood in the today’s world.

Before the arrival of British colonial power the Baluch lived in the state rule by the Baluch nationality.

The first incursion into Baluchistan by the British 1837,( Kalat Charles Massion) wrote; the territories of Mehrab Khan (Baluchistan) were dismembered and were annexed to dominion of the neighbouring state.

The British interest grew in Baluchistan during 1860-70 because of the British perception that the Russian might extend their territory southward. The British introduced a different dimension to internal tribal relationship.

(IOR/1/34/60 1934 on the constitutional history of the Kalat state); Keyes writes that the khan alone, who had British government jurisdiction and power of treaty and administer over most of tribal territory... he argued the necessities of frontiers required the obedience of the powerful Sardars to the British Indian government; the right and privilege of the Khan of Kalat were matter of less important to British. The British decentralised power and empowered the Tribal chiefs and reduced the Khan influence on the Baluch. The British introduced heredity tribal chiefdom.

Dr Inyatulla Baluch write in his book the problem of greater Baluchistan;

The British ignored all the evidences of certain areas, coming under the jurisdiction and influence of the Kalat state and gifted them away either to Iran or Afghanistan, in a bid to soothe the rulers in these countries and befriend them in anticipation of an attack from the Russian side. Baluch had to pay deadly for the selfish motives of the colonial rulers.

The British colonial power decided to divide Baluchistan under their control with Iran in 1870 and with Afghanistan 1896 and 1905. In 1871 major General Frederick Goldsmith was appointed chief commissioner of the joint Persian Baluch boundary and decision of the commission was not acceptable to the Baluch because the British were seen eager to persuade the Iranian away from Russia by gifting away some of Baluch territory.

The final demarcation of Persian and Baluchistan ignored the historical Baluchistan state and the principle of the right to self determination. Azand Khan of Kharan and western Baluchistan chiefs refused to acknowledge the Persian rules over the western Baluchistan and rose against British and Persian.

The Goldsmith line has no legitimacy in the Baluch eyes. The partition ignored the geography, culture, history and will of the people. The boundaries divided communities, and people. The Iranian regime has built a wall in order to divide people who are connected to each other by language, culture and blood relations.

The modern state must try to maintain security, as well as individual dignity and protect individual property and liberty. The state should create conditions in which profitable capital accumulation is possible, the state must provide free education and create and maintain social harmony.

The dignity, property and the Baluch life is not safe in the Iranian state. Assassinations and summary justice, Shiite judges, social stigma, collective humiliation, hanging people in groups in a public square and arrogant Persian elites are driving the Baluch into a desperate situation.

The people of western Baluchistan are ethnically Baluch, religiously Sunni. Iran is Shiite majority state. The Iranian invaded Baluchistan in 1927. Iranian government has openly used their coercive forces to subjugate Baluch nation.

The Baluch do not speak the state language, publication and education in Baluchi language is prohibited by the state even in private education. The Baluch cultural activity is either prohibited or confined to one’s home. The employability, security and self respect of individual hinge on their education. The Iranian has deprived Baluch from education instead of literacy the state indoctrinated theory of Jihad, and Persian myth making policies are taught.

The Baluch religion is different from the Persians; Baluch are discriminated on the bases of their religious as well as cultural beliefs. Most Iranian cities lack worship places for Sunni Muslims. The Baluch have remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy; there is no hope in sight.

We believe that no nation or state arrived by divine order. The Baluch people desire for self respect, personal worth and human dignity, equality, the human desire for independence. There is no conscious individual who does not desire the benefits of equality and joy of freedom, the Iranian have denied the Baluch all of the above.

An Independent Baluchistan could play host to a modern capital economy, it possess a large young population with the drive to work, natural resources in abundance, as well as a commercial route to central Asia.

Independence Baluchistan will ensure a large market for trade and investments. The Baluchistan territory possess it own natural resources in sufficient quantity, it could sustain Baluchistan population and transfer the state to manufacturing and developed area of the world.

Baluchistan can meet economical and political criteria that can furnish stable territorial state and mass culture has a central role to play in the security and stabilities in geo-political relations.

Pakistan and Iran have failed to meet the economical and political viabilities that could play in the great movement of history and their integration into the globalising market economy and their ideologies marked their imminent demise as states.

Baluch envisage an independent Baluchistan where every individual member is a citizen and there is assumed equality of citizens, in theory there is no intermediary mediating between citizens and the state.

Baluch nation are the legal political community as well as the historical cultural community. The nation is the source of all power; the individual must belong to a nation; each nation must express its genuine nature by being autonomous and that a world of peace and justice can only be built on autonomous nations.

Independent Baluchistan will be part and parcel of a wider international system on which the whole world is divided into separate nation and state. This system came into being in Europe after the Westphalia in 1648, the First World War, and the Second World War, decolonisation of Africa and Asia from European powers.

The economically interdependent world, cannot function unless people respect diversity and build unity through common bonds of humanity. The demands for independent Baluchistan no longer can be ignored by any states or by international community. Confrontation over the quest for independent Baluchistan is likely to grow, unless Iranian and Pakistani elite suspend their inherent right to colonization, and accommodate independent Baluchistan. Baluchistan is big and important; Baluch are here to stay, independent Baluchistan will contribute to the world peace and security.

Mehrab, sarjov is a political activist based in London.