Zeba, Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. Much appreciated. Yes, some secular nationalist ideologues are still around, but the reality on the ground has changed a lot. Your or anyone’s denial will never make it go away. Acknowledging it and doing something about it might help though, to some effect. There never was a conflict in which enemy’s enemy is not a source for collaboration, if not an ally.

Unfortunately, the state’s strategy of countering Baloch nationalism with fostering Islamism has backfired, as it boomeranged in the case of Pashtuns. Give a dozen more years and, if nothing is done about it, vast swathes across Iran/Pakistan border will be infested with fundamentalists, just as they thrive on both sides of the Durrand line.

Your denial is mired in the past and not rooted in today’s dynamics. We all know that traditionally, Baloch nationalists have rejected the Islamisation project, for its ideological content and also because they rightly perceive it as part of a larger scheme to isolate individuals and make them more amenable to Islamabad’s policies. As a result, they have always opposed Islamist movements but the weakening of the nationalists through military repression is driving the activists on the ground into the arms of the jihadists, because of their capacity to provide depth, muscle, and protection.

The vast network of Deobandi madrassas in Baluchistan, ‘encouraged’ by the state to counter nationalists, today does not operate in vain. Initially, Baloch were rightly suspicious that the intelligence agencies may be using some segments of the sectarian militant groups as proxies against Baloch nationalists. However, these suspicions have of course lessened as the jihadists have truly and forcefully turned against their benefactors. A collapse of the legitimacy and authority of not only the federal government but also its provincial counterparts has further allayed the misgivings between the two groups. The teeming influence of radical Salafist ideology among Baloch militants also raises questions about its potential to gain adherents within the wider Baloch nationalist movement in Iran, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the years to come another pure nationalist struggle (like that of Pashtuns earlier) will be devoured by religious extremism. Till such time the ground realities will be increasing driven by the unity of purpose and not ideology. An example can be seen in the recent attacks on private schools, in abhorrence of Western and girls’ education, in places like Turbat, Panjgur and Gwadar, deep in the South Baluchistan, which has been the stronghold of Baloch nationalists. The permeation of Islamist ideology into the South indicates a progressive radicalization that threatens a further spread into currently non-Taliban influenced Districts. Baluchistan had not recorded any terrorist or insurgent attacks on education facilities till now. This new threat further compounds the already poor educational access and high dropout rate in the Province and will drive more people to Madrassas and extremism.

As I said, once again Pakistan’s stupid ideology of propping Islamist extremism for short term gains is rebounding on it to full view in the concourse of time. The diminishing of Baluch nationalism is bound to be an ineluctable side-effect in the process. The visible connivance between Baluch nationalists and jihadists in killing Panjabi workers and Shias plays straight into hands of Jihadists. And the dim-witted state of Pakistan still sees Baloch nationalists as greater enemy and bigger evil than Islamist extremist forces.

Pakistan’s ‘March of Folly’ continues and if your denial could wish away this particular instance in it, I would be the happiest for it.