An Article 370 for Balochistan — by Riaz Shahid
I propose an Article 370 type provision in the constitution of Pakistan to satisfy the Baloch. There should be a bar on people from other provinces on voting or buying property in Balochistan for a period of at least 25 years
There are many aspects of the Indian rule in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that are morally indefensible. India treats Kashmir as if it were an occupied territory. It frequently holds rigged elections. Disappearances of anti-Indian individuals are common as well as extra-judicial killings and detentions without trial. Thousands of people have disappeared in the last 20 years. There are frequent restrictions on movement and body checks of innocent civilians. People can be detained on mere suspicion by the Indian security forces. But, despite all this, there is one thing that goes to India’s credit. I am referring to Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which is almost as old as the Indian constitution itself. Under this Article, the Kashmiris have been given the following protections:
* Non-Kashmiri Indian citizens cannot permanently settle in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
* Non-Kashmiri Indian citizens cannot purchase immoveable property in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
* Non-Kashmiri Indian citizens cannot vote in the state assembly and/or municipal councils and panchayats.
* Non-Kashmiri Indian citizens cannot get jobs in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. All the jobs in the state are reserved for the citizens of the state.
* The Indian government cannot alter the geographical boundaries of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
These protections are a great source of moral legitimacy for the Indians. The total population of the Indian Kashmir is less than 11 million according to the census of 2001, out of which just 67 percent is Muslim. It was, theoretically, possible for the Indians to ‘solve’ the Kashmir problem once and for all by just flooding in just 3-4 million Indians from the rest of India, which would effectively make Muslims a minority in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. India could have easily taken a leaf from its strategic ally Israel, which has been able to successfully decimate the Palestinian cause by building settlements on the Palestinian territories and then enlarging them in the name of ‘natural growth’. But, despite all the cost it has had to suffer at the hands of insurgency in Kashmir and the pressure by the Hindu rightwing, India did not touch Article 370 or amend it in a way to extend the Indian citizenship laws into the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
We Pakistanis can take a great cue from the Indians. Demographically, Balochistan is the smallest province of Pakistan with a population of less than seven million according to the 1998 census. Of these, only a little more than 50 percent are Baloch.
For the last several years, there has been severe unrest and violent activities in Balochistan that has done a lot to damage the good name of Pakistan and its citizens. The Baloch always had grievances against the government of Pakistan but what, finally, made many Baloch youth cast their lot with the separatists is the fear that their province will be swamped by people from other provinces after the Gwadar port is completed and they will become a minority in their own province. The population of Gwadar is no more than 300,000 and it is almost entirely Baloch. A mere movement of a few hundred thousand can make our Baloch brethren Red Indians in their ancestral lands! This has happened before. Before partition in 1947, the ethnic Baloch were a significant group with considerable numbers in Karachi. In just 10 years, they became a minority and were confined forever to their ‘ghettos’ in Lyari.
I propose an Article 370 type provision in the constitution of Pakistan to satisfy the Baloch. There should be a bar on people from other provinces on voting or buying property in Balochistan for a period of at least 25 years. If the Hindu-majority India can provide such a safeguard for a hostile Muslim population in Kashmir for the past 63 years, why can we not do the same for our brothers-in-faith in Balochistan for a few decades at least? It will be a great propaganda coup for the Pakistani state and will provide decisive help in weaning away the Baloch youth from the separatists.
The Baloch have been living in Gwadar, Pasni, Turbat and in Balochistan for millennia; they have every right to retain their demographic majority in their ancestral areas.
I request Senator Mian Raza Rabbani and Mian Nawaz Sharif to seriously consider the above proposal. It will be a concession greater than the abolition of the concurrent list and increase in share in the NFC Award. In fact, it would be a great antidote to the anti-Punjab sentiment in Balochistan if this proposal was moved by the Sharif brothers, who hail from the bigger province.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at blazinggun25@yahoo.com
Source: Daily Times
I Would Support This Amendment. I am a Lahori raised all my life in Karachi. I have to say – this would probably be the best available idea to make sure that the Baloch, who are outnumbered by nearly all of Pakistan’s ethnicities are not swamped or overwhelmed by the anybody else from the rest of Pakistan. This is an amendment that should be bought up and adopted.
Price of conflict
Monday, March 22, 2010
Imagine yourself and your family living in a conflict-ridden area. You would shudder at the thought of spending days and nights under a constant fear of being killed, wounded or oppressed. But this is what life saw itself reduced to in Balochistan with force employed as the sole effective option to quell an insurgency born out of decades of oppression. Neglect of children is one of the brutal consequences of this that are now coming to light. The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), an NGO that works to promote child rights in Pakistan, told the media on Thursday that the state of children was grim throughout Pakistan but in Balochistan it was the worst due to long years of political instability and poor governance resulting from that instability. The statistics made public reveal appalling conditions. Up to 160 children have gone missing in Balochistan and no effort has been made to trace them. There is no concept of child rights and the few laws that exist to protect children remain unimplemented. There is no place to keep juvenile prisoners. The probation and parole system is weak and facing a financial crunch. The province has only 594 high schools out of the total 12,151 schools, which shows most children acquire only primary education. Children are forced to work in some of the worst forms of child labour as labour laws are not implemented properly.
There is a pressing need to reach out to these neglected children. Urgent steps should be taken towards implementation of laws on child rights, compulsory primary education and establishment of more high schools. It’s a pity that the largest province that is also rich in mineral resources cannot take care of its population—the smallest in the country. The intervention from the federal government in Balochistan has hitherto mostly been for the wrong reasons. If it can’t do without intervening, it should do so to ensure transparent utilisation of whatever funds are allocated to the province. Fiscal transparency could go a long way in providing the people in general and the children in particular with the much- needed basic necessities of life.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=230430
Whitewashing Balochistan
When the current government assumed office and President Zardari offered an apology to the Baloch for past injustices meted out to them by successive governments, it seemed that the government was going to seriously address the grievances of the Baloch. However, that proved to be a pie in the sky. The insurgency is continuing and every day we hear news of disturbances in the province. Target killings of six people in different parts of Balochistan on Saturday are a stark reminder that the situation is getting worse instead of improving. These murders were followed by the detonation of a remote-controlled device in Quetta that killed two policemen and a shopkeeper, and injured 19 people.
While one would expect the chief minister of Balochistan to have full cognisance of what is happening in his province and the capacity to plead its case with the Centre, his statement to reporters the other day made one think otherwise. He said that the law and order situation in Balochistan has deteriorated because of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. One must concede that proximity to a war-ridden area does pose some risk of spillover and disturbance in the adjoining areas. However, placing the entire blame of the Baloch problem, which is as old as Pakistan itself, on the doorstep of the Afghan war, is a little too much. It tends to obscure the real issues that prompted the Baloch youth to take up arms and go down the warpath.
It was the Centre’s denial of due rights and development to Balochistan, while gobbling up its mineral wealth, which has caused deep-rooted resentment among the Baloch. Despite its rich mineral resources, Balochistan is the most backward province of Pakistan, with vast sections of its population living in extreme poverty. They have no part in decision-making over their own lands and resources. Security agencies’ behaviour towards the Baloch populace is more like that of colonial masters of occupied lands. The media blanket in areas under the military’s control has prevented the true picture of Balochistan from reaching the rest of the country and the world. On top of that, the chief minister, who is supposed to be the guardian of his province, tries to whitewash its problems. Wake up Mr CM!
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\23\story_23-3-2010_pg3_1
Assessing Article 370 —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
The question is, will Article 370 be acceptable to those who call the shots here? What will be done about the properties that people from other provinces already own there? Will Gwadar be exempted because most top guns hold property there? Will the army and the navy, who have numerous cantonments and bases, even consider giving up their rights?
Last week in these pages Mr Riaz Shahid in his column ‘An Article 370 for Balochistan’, (Daily Times, March 21, 2010) suggested applying some clauses of Article 370 of Jammu and Kashmir in Balochistan. It is a courageous suggestion and I do not doubt Mr Shahid’s good intentions. The suggestion has not been put forward before and therefore it needs to be assessed for its usefulness and implementation in the conditions of Balochistan.
A G Noorani in his piece, ‘Article 370: Law and politics’, says: “Those who cavil at Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and the ‘special status’ of Kashmir constitutionally ought to remember the ‘special’ treatment meted out to it politically. Which other state has been subjected to such debasement and humiliation? And, why was this done? It was because New Delhi had second thoughts on Article 370. It could not be abrogated legally. It was reduced to a husk through political fraud and constitutional abuse. The current debate is much more than about restoration of Article 370 by erasing the distortions. It is about redressing a moral wrong.”
About Article 370, B K Nehru, who was Governor of Kashmir from 1981 to 1984, in his memoirs, Nice Guys Finish Second, published in 1997 says, “From 1953 to 1975, chief ministers of that state had been nominees of Delhi. Their appointment to that post was legitimised by the holding of farcical and totally rigged elections in which the Congress party led by Delhi’s nominee was elected by huge majorities” (Pp 614-5). So this is the reality of the original Article 370. This happened because of a ‘trivial change’ brought about in the originally agreed upon Article. Differences cropped up between Sheikh Abdullah and Vallabhbhai Patel. To smooth them out N Gopalaswamy Iyengar put in what he called a ‘trivial change’. Noorani says that “in its original form the draft would have made the Sheikh’s ouster in 1953 impossible”. Manipulators can and do put in elements that not only nullify the original intent but work against the whole idea.
The original intent of the Article was, “Nehru was eager to secure Kashmir’s ‘closer integration’ with India; the Sheikh to ensure popular governance.” Noorani says, “Article 370 is more than a provision of that solemn document. It is also a sacred compact with the state.” But apparently this did not happen and to top it all off the Indian Supreme Court also erred in its decision. Noorani says, “The net result of this ruling was to give a carte blanche to the government of India to extend to Kashmir such of the provisions of the Constitution of India as it pleased.” This background should suffice regarding the implementation of Article 370 and the benefits the Kashmiri people have derived therein.
Constitutional articles and clauses carry their own disadvantages and pitfalls. They give a sense of complacency and though they do temporarily defuse prevailing tensions, they can never be a panacea for problems unless they are implemented in letter and spirit and this depends entirely on the establishment’s attitude and mindset for it is they who decide the fate of all articles.
Riaz Shahid suggests that the following clauses of Article 370 be implemented in Balochistan for at least 25 years; whereby no non-Kashmiri Indian citizens can permanently settle, no non-Kashmiri Indian citizens can purchase immoveable property, no non-Kashmiri Indian citizens can vote in the state assembly and/or municipal councils and panchayats. No non-Kashmiri Indian citizens can get jobs; all the jobs in the state are reserved for the citizens of the state. And that the Indian government cannot alter the geographical boundaries of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The question is, will such clauses be acceptable to those who call the shots here? What will be done about the properties that people from other provinces already own there? Will Gwadar be exempted because most top guns hold property there? Will the army and the navy, who have numerous cantonments and bases, even consider giving up their rights? What status would these cantonments and bases have if ever Article 370 is accepted and implemented? Will the FC, which is accused of running a ‘parallel government’ there, relinquish what it holds? Will all the jobs be handed over to domiciled persons? Will these clauses be effective retrospectively? If so, how long back? There are so many questions that need to be answered. Moreover, the possession of land is not the only contentious issue; the Baloch are demanding much more.
Even if we assume that these Article 370 clauses are accepted, the fate suffered by the much flaunted and sacrosanct 1973 Constitution presages doom for them. I will quote from, ‘Towards infamy’, a piece of Ardeshir Cowasjee: “At noon, on Independence Day 1973, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with joy and jubilation promulgated what has now become a shameful contentious document, the third constitution to be presented to the people of Pakistan. Four hours later, at 16:00 hours, Prime Minister Bhutto ordered his appointed president, the meek and gentlemanly Fazal Elahi Chaudhry, to sign an order, which was notified in the Gazette of Pakistan, Extra, dated August 15, 1973, No.F.24(1)/73-Pub.”
It was mutilated within four hours with Emergency to curb rights and to facilitate arrests of NAP leadership including Nawab Khair Baksh Khan Marri who, like my father Mir Ali Ahmed Talpur, did not sign the constitution because they felt it did not guarantee autonomy and rights to the people. They were prescient to say the least.
The Indian leaders had the partial foresight to understand that the Kashmiri identity would emerge and had tried pre-empting it with Article 370 but their scheming minds did not allow them to stand by their commitment and 25 years later, an insurgency is raging in Kashmir.
Here not even an outward show of tolerance was exhibited; all lands, languages, cultures and rights were considered fair game. The terra nullius (no man’s land) doctrine was implemented in all fields. The Bengalis were told that they will have to adopt Urdu by none other than Jinnah himself. Contrary to all assurances, Balochistan was annexed on Jinnah’s orders; in short, the masters dictated what the subjects had to submit to unquestioningly. The consequences of this attitude are for all to see and rue. Expecting the arrogant and intransigent establishment to make concessions to Balochistan what the apparently willing and accommodating Indians failed to concede in letter and spirit is delusional.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\28\story_28-3-2010_pg3_4
The Texas-sized, resource-rich Balochistan, with 750 km of strategically significant Arabian Sea coastline, is the largest, but least developed, of Pakistan’s four provinces. Balochistan shares a sizable and strategically significant border with Afghanistan’s southwest, volatile provinces and Iran’s Balochistan regions.
The conflict has recently turned more critical, as Pakistan officially incorporated the Balochistan crisis into the high-level Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh on July 16, 2009. Afghanistan, in unison with the international community, unabatedly claims a Taliban presence in the province’s capital city of Quetta.
In fact, Balochistan is also an important transit route for NATO’s military goods to Afghanistan. Unsettled, the Baloch-Islamabad conflict will have a damaging impact on Obama’s troops-surge plan in Afghanistan. In 2009, there was an unprecedented increase in attacks on NATO supplies in the region. The weak-kneed political administration in Balochistan is incapable of protecting and guaranteeing the safe passage of much-needed supplies to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Simmering unrest in the resource-rich and second largest populated province of Sindh has remained unaccounted for. The Sindhis, including the Baloch natives, are politically alienated and their social and economic participation is restricted to very few areas. No doubt, ethnically carved institutions are one of the major reasons behind repeated ethnic unrest in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, where security and economic institutions have mainly been encroached upon by non-natives.
Socio-economic and political priorities in multi-ethnic Pakistan are not arranged on a fair and transparent scale. Evident political and economic inequalities are widening the gap among the communities and regions. Political questions are being responded to by absolute force. Human and basic rights are not recognised and intimidation is the only tool to keep dissidents silent.
Repeated military rule and ethnocracy in Pakistan have shattered the very basics of political affairs, where Islamabad employs undesired and unpopular policies by force on non-core groups. Society in Pakistan is divided along ethnic, sectarian and regional lines. Only a few districts in central Punjab, which are the core beneficiaries of the state, are peaceful and thriving. However, populations in the resource-rich and strategically significant regions of Sindh and Balochistan are starving.
The US, being a major stakeholder in the peace and security of the region, bears the responsibility to look beyond the Taliban issue and encourage Pakistan’s super-establishment to fairly and peacefully resolve the political conflict in Balochistan. The monetary and military approach must be part of a consequential discourse with the government of Pakistan to integrate FATA into the NWFP without further delay, and establish a more modern but decentralised governance mechanism for the region.
Pakistan’s other fault lines —Sanaullah Baloch
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\28\story_28-3-2010_pg3_5