Afghanistan's tribal assembly, Loya Jirga, will elect a new government in June. Outside powers will promote their respective Afghan proxies. Each proxy ...
A revived demand for independent Pushtunistan would involve protracted efforts. The first to break away may be the Baluchis. The British used to administer a corner of Baluchistan. The rest belonged to the princely state of Kalat. The Khan of Kalat refused to merge with British Baluchistan. In 1946, a lawyer representing the Khan presented a memorandum to the British cabinet mission that Kalat was geographically separate from India. The lawyer was M.A. Jinnah.
Baluchistan is a territory contiguous with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. There are a million Baluchis in Iran, a lakh in Afghanistan. Pakistan's sparsely populated Baluchistan province comprises 40 per cent of its territory. Baluchistan has untapped gold, iron ore, oil, copper. Thirty per cent of its population is Pushtu, five per cent Punjabi, the rest Baluchi. The 500 Baluchi tribes are the poorest. After Partition, Kalat was independent for eight months. It sought accession to India, but Nehru rejected it. In 1948, Pakistan militarily annexed it, forcing a merger treaty. Kalat's premier, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, sought autonomy and confederal status. He went into self-exile. Ataulla Mengal led a movement for a sovereign Greater Baluchistan. Pakistan army action continued against Baluchistan in the intervening decades. No big power supported Baluchistan's independence. Not even the Soviets who wanted all of Afghanistan.
Things have changed. An independent Baluchistan comprising Pakistani and Afghan Baluch territories would provide an alternate route for a gas pipeline from Central Asia through Gwadar port into the Arabian Sea. Gwadar is 250 miles from the Straits of Hormuz that provide a focal point in the oil route from the Persian Gulf to West Europe and the East.
China is developing Gwadar port. An independent Baluchistan could change that. US multinationals, frustrated over a delayed pipeline via Afghanistan and Pakistan, might encourage an independent Baluchistan. Afghanistan's disintegration could start with the new Loya Jirga. Facing a cry for Baluch independence, will India recognise its national interest? Or would it, as usual, rely on foreign godfathers for guidance?
The crisis at hand
May affect our land!
Stuck in quicksand
Can we take a stand?