Baloch to go to any lengths for rights: Khan of Kalat
Balochistan: Mir Suleman Dawood Khan, the Khan of
Kalat, has said the
Baloch people will go to any lengths to achieve their rights and
alleged that the main purpose behind building cantonments is to
control the Baloch people and exploit Balochistan's mineral wealth.
In a wide-ranging interview with Dawn, the Khan of Kalat said all
land in Balochistan belonged to the tribes; "nothing belongs to the
state." His emphasis was on Balochistan getting adequate royalty for
fisheries, gas and other minerals, besides payment of overflight
rights.
As a Baloch he had no objection to the building of Gwadar as a
commercial port. But he feared that the ambitious schemes that were
being announced would need a million people, while the port at
present had a population of 60,000. "Where will these people come
from? Obviously from Karachi." he said.
Asked if the reports about "camps" were true, and if true who was
running them, he said these were Baloch camps. "Give us our rights or
we will fight".
Baloch to go to any lengths for rights: Khan of Kalat
KARACHI Nov 7: There has been a slight quiescence in Balochistan in
recent days, but there is no sign that the underlying problems or
passions have subsided. An indication of this is the way Mir Suleman
Dawood Khan, the Khan of Kalat, talks.
Give us our rights, he says, or we will do anything to get those
rights. We created Pakistan, he says, and it needs to survive. This
is his message in a nutshell.
Royalty on fisheries, royalty on gas, royalty on all minerals. He
even wants money to be paid to Balochistan for overflights. All land
in Balochistan belongs to the tribes, he says, "nothing belongs to
the state."
It is difficult to beat the Khan in argument. He is knowledgeable
about Baloch history, and the facts about Gwadar and the land
ownership pattern are on his finger-tips.
Interviewing him for Dawn the other day in Karachi turned out to be a
daunting task. He tells you in a jiffy about Prince Saeed's flight
from Oman in 1783, the grant of asylum by Khan Mir Naseer Khan the
First, his re-conquest of Oman with Baloch help in 1791, Gwadar's
position after Prince Saeed won, the coming of the British, Gwadar's
sale to Pakistan in 1956, and so on.
He put it graphically, "Great Game Part II is being played. We want
our rights. If we don't get them, we will be a major player in the
Great Game Part II."
The thrust of the Khan's arguments was on the unique position Kalat
enjoyed in August 1947 when the British left the subcontinent. Unlike
the hundreds of other princely states in British India, he said,
Nepal and Kalat occupied an entirely different position. Kalat had
the right to have diplomatic relations with other countries, and the
British paid "taxes" to Kalat, while in the case of the princely
states the situation was the other way around.
Between August 1947, when the British left the subcontinent, and
March 1948, Kalat was an independent country. Unlike Pakistan, which
became independent on August 14, 1947, Kalat became independent six
days earlier - on Aug 8. It acceded to Pakistan on March 27, 1948,
after the Khan of Kalat, His Highness Baglar Begi - the present
Khan's grandfather - signed an agreement with the Quaid-i-Azam.
According to the terms of the agreement, the centre was to control
only four subjects: defence, foreign affairs, communications and
currency. In all other matters, Kalat was to be completely
independent. (As an aside, he pointed out, Kalat was the only area in
Pakistan where there was still a Qazi court. This was to point out
the continuity in Kalat's political tradition.)
However, subsequent governments did not abide by the terms of the
agreement of accession. Makran, Kharan and Bela were part of Kalat,
but later they were given separate status when during the time of
Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad a Balochistan States' Union was
created.
Balochistan then constituted 62 per cent of (West) Pakistan. Later,
parts of the province were given to the NWFP, Punjab, and Sindh. But
even now it constitutes 46 per cent of Pakistan.
As a Baloch, the Khan has no objection to the development of Gwadar
as a commercial port. But what he fears is the trampling of the
rights of its people. The port has a population of 60,000, he says,
but the grandiose schemes that have been announced will need at least
a million people. "Where will these people come from? Obviously from
Karachi, mostly Urdu-speaking," he says.
Khan Salman said when India was partitioned, most of the Urdu-
speaking people who came to Pakistan had lost everything they
possessed, unlike the local people, "who were quite prosperous". The
tragedy was, he said, that policy-making in this country had always
been in the hands of the migrants. The result was that "the refugees
are controlling your country, and the sons of soil are beggars".
Told that this could have been the position in Pakistan's formative
stages, he said even now 40 to 50 per cent of those making policies
were Urdu-speaking or had an Indian Civil Service background. Along
with Urdu-speaking and Punjabis, he said, the Pathans were now a
partner in the triumvirate ruling Pakistan.
The Khan's main grievance is that Balochistan's minerals and other
natural resources are being exploited without any benefit to the
Baloch people.
Balochistan had a coastline of 600 miles, and the fish catch got
Pakistan something between $750 million and one billion dollars a
year, but Balochistan got nothing. Similarly, overflight rights for
aircraft should give billions of dollars to Balochistan but "not a
rupee is given to us". The same was true of marble and natural
gas. "Gwadar belongs to the Gichkis", he said, and wondered of what
use Gwadar's development would be to the people of Balochistan.
The Khan referred to the question of royalty time and again and
emphasized that "every inch of the land belongs to the tribes and not
to the state".
He was bitter about the cantonments issue. He was asked what
objection a Pakistani could possibly have to the building of
cantonments in Pakistan, because every country reserved the right to
defend itself and build cantonments within its territory. Khan Dawood
said one only had to travel through Balochistan to realize what the
cantonments issue was all about. One would find a "qila" (fort or
mini-cantonment) after every 30 miles. It was obvious that
those "qilas" were being built not for Pakistan's defence but for
what he described as exploiting Balochistan's mineral wealth and for
controlling the Baloch people. This was a colonial approach, the aim
being "to plunder Baloch resources".
Asked if the report about "camps" were true and if true who was
running them, he said these were Baloch camps.
"Give us our rights or we will fight". For achieving those rights, he
said, the Baloch could go to any lengths and contact any power.
Asked if he condemned the murder of the Chinese engineers involved in
Gwadar's construction, the Khan said enigmatically that he
would "condemn nothing, and support nothing ". The issue was that the
Baloch people should be given their rights. If they were denied those
rights they would fight for their rights. If the situation continued
this way, there could be more casualties.
The Baloch were more pro-federation than anyone else in the
country. "We created it (Pakistan) and we can damage it." If Kalat
had not acceded to the federation and Pakistan had not come into
being, he said, "we would be the underdogs of the Hindus. The papers
(of accession) are lying in the Mohatta Palace and you can see them".
In November 2003, the Supreme Court, he said, had given a ruling
saying no court could admit any case that challenged the (accession)
treaty documents. This means an agreement signed by the Quaid was not
being honoured. With the door of the judiciary closed on the
Baloch, "what is the remedy left for us? Confrontation?"
The Khan referred to the close ties between his grandfather and the
Quaid, who was legal adviser to Kalat. When there was an
assassination attempt on Mr Jinnah in 1943, no one in the entire
subcontinent gave him protection, except Kalat. As a measure of his
grandfather's love and respect for the Quaid, he had given him ll
security guards, two cars, two drivers, and two bearers. But, while
the Quaid's picture adorned the office of every government leader,
nobody was prepared to honour the agreement signed by the Father of
the Nation.
He said the Baloch would now become a major part of the Great Game
Part II.
It was a myth, he said, that Gwadar was being built for trade with
Central Asia. Most of Central Asia's trade was already going through
Chah Bahar (Iran), and Gwadar was of no use in this respect.
The country that hoped to benefit most from Gwadar was China.
In the development of Saindak and Gwadar, the Baloch people were
playing no role, even though trained Baloch engineers and other
skilled hands were available. He wondered why they were not being
trained by China.
The murder of the Chinese engineers, he said, was part of the larger
international forces that were at work in the region. He referred to
the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the break-up of the USSR and
Yugoslavia, the virtual division of Iraq into four zones, the
situation in Assam, and the Tamils and Biharis. "If the Baloch do not
get their rights, we will demand independence".
About his role as a mediator in disputes among different Baloch
tribes, the Khan of Kalat said he was helpless against the divide-and-
rule policy followed by the government. This policy suited the
English, because they realized one day they would go back go
England. "But where do our rulers have to go? Or us?"
He said the government was protecting murderers and often helped both
sides to a dispute. In the dispute between the Rinds and the
Raisanis, the corps commander, the Khan alleged, gave millions of
rupees to one side and the governor to the other.
He is happy he can move about freely in Balochistan, unlike many
other Baloch politicians - whom he said he wouldn't like to name -
who had committed murders but were now ministers and members of
parliament.
He regretted that people still thought of themselves in terms of
Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, Pathans and Mohajirs but not as
Pakistanis. -By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi and Shamim-ur-Rahman