Destruction as Rule: Containment, Censuring and Confusion in Pakistani Balochistan Mahvish Ahmad Robinson College Department of Sociology University of Cambridge 10 September, 2018 Supervisors: Dr. Manali Desai, Department of Sociology Dr. Yael Navaro, Department of Social Anthropology This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Abstract Destruction as Rule: Containment, Censuring and Confusion in Pakistani Balochistan By Mahvish Ahmad This dissertation explores the contour and content of state-ordered destruction in the construction of state, territory, and subjects. To do so, it carries out a historical and ethnographic study of state violence, from the colonial era until today, in Pakistan’s southern province of Balochistan. Through this study, the dissertation argues: Where the construction of state, territory, and subjects requires a rendering of society as legible in order to create it and make it manipulable for the purposes of rule, the destruction of politics, places and peoples requires a rendering of networks opposing the state as obscure in order to dismantle them and make them docile for the same purpose. These networks, or “counter-societies,” are collective identities that transgress and resist the state’s version of society proper, e.g. through the collective identities of the anti-colonial rebel, the revolutionary communist, or the separatist ethnonationalist. In turn, society proper is constituted by state-sanctioned identities considered necessary for rule, like the “tribal” colonial subject or the loyal and growth-minded Pakistani citizen. Through a close reading of three cases of state violence in the colonial, early post-colonial, and contemporary era–a 1918 colonial-era military expedition, a 1973-’77 counterinsurgency campaign, and post-9/11 displacements, disappearances, killings, and army raids–the dissertation argues that the state sought to contain the “infection” of “fanaticism” in the colonial era, censure alternative ideas of Pakistan as socialist and multi-national in the early post-colonial era, and confuse attempts to articulate a counter- hegemonic front against the violence of the state in the contemporary era. For all those who have lived and died in the shadows. Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Chapter 1 | Introduction 1 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) 51 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Balochistan (1947-1988) 93 Chapter 4 | Confusion: State Destruction in Contemporary Balochistan (1988-present) 149 Chapter 5 | Conclusion 197 Bibliography 207 Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to the hundreds of Baloch who have opened their homes and their hearts to tell me their stories. To write this dissertation–or, perhaps, to write anything on the violence that has enveloped Balochistan for over a decade–is a heavy responsibility. I am not sure whether I can ever live up to the tremendous trust that has been placed in me by the many people who shared their stories. A sister traveled miles to a village in southern Balochistan’s Dasht because she heard a journalist had arrived; holding up the portrait of her brother, she unravelled stricken with fear that he may never return. A mother sat cowering at a missing person’s camp, horrified at the possibility that someone may discover who she was, demanding the return of her son. A small, old woman I met on the outskirts of Quetta told me that two of her son’s were taken in night raids. A young woman who traveled with me found out that her father–who had gone missing seven years ago–was taken by security forces during one of our trips, and did not know whether to be horrified or relieved. And friends have been disappeared or killed in the years since I started writing on Balochistan. Dr. Manan, the secretary-general of the Baloch National Movement who loved to read and talk Fanon, Marx, and Mao late into the night when I went for reporting trips in 2013 was killed in a raid just a few weeks after I arrived back in Pakistan to begin my fieldwork in 2016. Lakmeer, the 22-year old information secretary of the Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad, who met me in pizza parlours, hotels, universities, and tea shops around Karachi and Quetta was abducted just a few months after I left Pakistan and remains missing to this day. A troubled fighter prone to depression and nightmares who I met in a curious twist of fate was killed by his own group after he agreed to work with the security forces to save his wife and children. The lives and deaths overflow, uncontained by page or prose. I am not the first writer attempting to account for violence and war, only to be made painfully aware of the poverty of the written word. I know that this dissertation does little justice to the stories that were shared with me; yet, I hope that its attempt to trace violence in a broader history of state destruction in Balochistan can contribute to a collective commitment to build a more liveable world. - Page of -i iv The dissertation would have been impossible without those who helped me travel and live in Balochistan. Though I cannot name you all here, you all know who you are. Thank you Mehlab, for taking that trip with me, we’re bound together forever now, my friend; Hani, Mahekan, Mahrosh, and Ruzhun for putting up with my long conversations, for setting up interviews, and for traveling with me around Karachi and Quetta; Lakmeer, for whom I can only harbour a wretched hope that he will one day read this; Nasrullah and Mama Qadeer, whose camp and homes were always open for me to come and pepper them with questions. Thank you to Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur, who spent hours with me answering my questions, and all the others who told me their stories. Baloch journalists are among the bravest around, thank you to those who helped me, you know who you are. Though he repeatedly told me to stop poking my finger in the “inferno” that was violence in Balochistan, I am forever grateful that Dr Shah Mohammad Marri kept the door to his pharmacy open, welcoming me with tea and conversation whenever I called him. Thank you to all those who drove me around to interviews and provided me with a car when I needed one; the archivists at the Balochistan Archives, and Hafeez Jamali for making sure I did not pay a fortune for the suitcases of copied colonial documents I brought home. In Quetta, the managers and staff of the hotel and NGO I lived in cared for me like I was their own; thank you for going above and beyond for me. At one point, I spent several months at a hostel with a team of midwives training in Quetta; their warmth, friendship, and sisterhood was a much- needed respite from difficult trips and conversations. Thank you for the dinners, teas, caring for my burnt arm, gossip sessions, threading my eyebrows, songs, the TV shows, and for your kindness and generosity. My friends in Pakistan provided me a home. Thank you to Noor, my guru who reminds me to ground myself, to breathe, all those times I find myself in a storm; Madiha, my long-lost cousin, solid friend, and partner-in-crime at Tanqeed; Rabia, a brilliant, fierce mind who too often does not see her own light; Nadia Naviwala, my loyal, solid friend, who has given me a home more times than I remember; Ahsan Kamal, my comrade and brother, we’ve fought many battles together and I hope to fight many more with you; Taymiya for always being available to listen and share our shared, anguished love for Pakistan. My comrades and colleagues in Pakistan, particularly at the Awami Workers Party–but also in all those other circles of lefties, academics, journalists–have always been a source of immense inspiration and ridiculous stress. We do not always agree, and God knows we’ve had our fair share of fights, but I have learnt a lot from all our debates and debacles. For your selfless, fierce commitment, inspiration, and hope, thank you. - Page of -ii iv At the tail-end of my fieldwork, I was picked up and interrogated for four days by the intelligence services. After they discovered that I neither had foreign funding nor nefarious designs, I was invited back to celebrate Independence Day with the Pakistan Army, and promised a future as a successful journalist in Pakistan. I turned them down, eager to leave Pakistan at this point. I do hope to take them up on their offer to speak to them one day, though I doubt me and the army share the same definition of “success”. Thank you to all my friends, my family, my loved ones, the Danish Embasy, the Nordic Police, and others who went above and beyond to find me and ensure my release. I placed a burden on your shoulders no one should have to bear, and I remain indebted to you all. This dissertation would have been impossible without my community in Cambridge. Thank you Katie, for our friendship; Chana, for our many-hour long conversations about organising, archives, on the left and revolutionary friendship; Arif for your friendship and comradeship. I learnt a lot from my friends in Sociology (Olga, Dilar, Robert, Tiago, Phil, Kusha, Nurjk, Magda, Naim, Mohammad, Alice) and the Mawson Collective gave me a home (Alicia, Nina, Chris, Janani, Marcela). Thank you to Mezna, Ayse for our inspiring conversations. Thank you Yael I am so lucky to have find not only a supervisor in you, but a dear friend; may we continue to work and laugh together; Manali, for your brilliant supervision and guidance, for including me and supporting me, for tolerating my many shifting topics. My grandfather, Daddy Bare, passed one week before the end of my dissertation; thank you for being my home in Pakistan. Lahore will not be the same without you. Thank you to my family in Lahore, you have all always been there for me; Mama and Daddy for supporting me no matter what I do; Omar and Jawad for your brutal honesty and fierce love; Anna and Isabella, the newest members of the Ahmad’s, for supporting me and us in difficult times; my nephews Noah and Marius Jamal, and my brilliant niece Sophie–my three little babies, two born during this dissertation–for your pure joy, a reminder of what life is really about. Finally, thank you to Tariq, my love and my home. May we build a beautiful world together in the years that come. - Page of -iii iv - Page of -iv iv Chapter 1 | Introduction Chapter 1 | Introduction “Construction” presupposes “destruction.” — Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project This is a dissertation about destruction. More specifically, it investigates how state-ordered violence unravels places and peoples to build state, territory and subjects. To do so, it goes to Pakistan’s southern province of Balochistan. For more than a decade, Balochistan–especially territories within it populated by its Baloch–has been one site of state-led destruction: through forced displacements, disappearances, kill-and-dumps, “encounter” or extrajudicial killings, and army raids. The state says it is fighting 1 a separatist insurgency funded by India –an assertion nourished by racialised tropes of the 2 3 Baloch and Balochistan as “backward” and “uncivilised” , easily manipulated. Yet, its response 4 5 has far outweighed counter-state violence by ethnonationalist militants, and takes place against 6 a background of structural marginalisation and abandonment with two-thirds of Balochistan living under the poverty line. I was originally drawn to Balochistan with the question: Why such 7 violence? Though my dissertation may offer some tentative answers to such a question, my focus lies elsewhere: How and what does state destruction seek to eradicate? What forms does this destruction take historically and in the lifeworlds of those targeted? And, what insight does a focus on destruction, rather than construction, give us about the state that orders it? “Encounter killings” is a term that emerged in South Asia in the early 20th century to designate extrajudicial 1 killings. Dawn.com. 2017. “Pakistan Army Launches Operation Radd-Ul-Fasaad across the Country.” Dawn, February 22, 2 2017. Available at: http://www.dawn.com/news/1316332. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Dawn.com. 2017. “Army Accelerates Intelligence-Based Operations in Balochistan.” Dawn, August 26, 2017. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/ 1354086. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Associated Press of Pakistan. 2016. “RAW agent’s capture proof of Indian state terrorism in Pakistan: ISPR DG,” APP, 3 March 29, 2016. Available at: http://www.app.com.pk/raw-agents-capture-proof-of-indian-state-terrorism-in-pakistan- ispr-dg/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; The Express Tribune. 2010. “India supporting militancy in Balochistan: Musharraf,” The Express Tribune, 10 October, 2010. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/60862/india-supporting-militancy-in- balochistan-musharraf/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2018. Haider, Ejaz 2010. “Lies and half-truths on Balochistan,” The Express Tribune, November 6, 2010. Available at: https://4 tribune.com.pk/story/72970/lies-and-half-truths-on-balochistan/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Aamir, Adnan 2016. “The Sociology Book Controversy: A case of misplaced priorities for Balochistan,” The Nation, 5 March 15, 2016. Available at: https://nation.com.pk/15-Mar-2016/the-sociology-book-controversy-a-case-of-misplaced- priorities-for-balochistan. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Human rights organisations have urged the government to produce suspects in front of civilian courts. Amnesty 6 International. 2017. “Pakistan: End Enforced Disappearances Now.” November 6, 2017. Available at: https:// www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2017/11/pakistan-end-enforced-disappearances-now/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Human Rights Watch. 2011. “‘We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years’ Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan Security Forces in Balochistan.” July 2011. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ pakistan0711WebInside.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. UNDP. 2015. “Multidimensional Poverty in Pakistan,” Pakistan 2025: One Nation, One Vision. Available at: http://7 www.pk.undp.org/content/dam/pakistan/docs/MPI/MPI%204pager.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -1 Chapter 1 | Introduction I argue that the wider repertoire of state-ordered destruction–not just of lives, but villages, shrines, corpses, archives, books, posters, pamphlets, protests, meetings, schools, newspapers, 8 libraries, graveyards, study centres, crops–has had to attend to the material and immaterial infrastructures already in place. After all, something must be destroyed. What gets singled out 9 for destruction, and the process that follows, is not altogether random: Much like its constitutive other, construction, destruction also has a pattern, though one that gives us other insights about state-making and state rule. As Bernard S. Cohn (1996), Timothy Mitchell (1988), and James C. Scott (1998) have argued, the construction of state, territory, and subjects requires a rendering of 10 society as legible to build it and make it manipulable for the purposes of rule. I demonstrate 11 how destruction of politics, places, and peoples renders other networks transgressing and opposing the state’s version of society illegible in order to dismantle and disperse them for the same purpose. By destruction I mean the reversal (de-) of something that is built (-struere). And, I define the processes of illegibility, dismantlement, and dispersion as the rendering of other networks as un-readable (like a book in a foreign and inaccessible language) against notions of the state as primarily constituted through its writing practices, the active breaking down of subjectivities 12 and collectivities that sit oddly or against the state rather than the mere production of governable subjects, and the driving apart of relations that constitute counter-societies rather than the bringing together of them within a state-sanctioned body politic (cf. Mitchell 1988; Messick 1996; Foucault 1975a, 1975b, 2007). These counter-societies are other networked collectivities that coordinate interventions to “disarticulate the existing hegemony”–which, as Gramsci (1929) reminds us, is always contingent and incomplete–through a “process of re-articulation of new and old elements into [a] different configuration of power” (Mouffe 2008). I argue that the counter- societies targeted in processes of destruction consist of collective identities that transgress and resist the state’s version of society proper e.g. through the shared identity of the anti-colonial rebel, the revolutionary communist, and the ethnonationalist. To identify and target these counter-societies for destruction, such identities are reduced and flattened e.g. through the category of the “fanatic,” “traitor,” and “terrorist.” In turn, society proper is constituted by state- See note 6. Corpses of Baloch that have been dumped by the road have been tortured, sometimes beyond 8 recognition, making it difficult for families to identify those who have been killed. Or, as Massad (2001, 4) says, ; or, “[t]o produce something new, the old must be repressed” (Massad 2001, 4)9 Inspired largely, though not exclusively, by Michel Foucault’s work on the productivity of power and violence, this 10 constructivist turn is also apparent in other scholars including Nicholas B. Dirks (2001); Messick (1996); and Gupta and Sharma (2009). E.g. through the census which defines demographic categories upon which state rule is founded and managed.11 In his seminal book on Egypt, Timothy Mitchell (1988) writes: “Egypt was to be ordered up as something object-like. 12 In other words it was to be made picture-like and legible, rendered available to political and economic calculation. Colonial power required the country to become readable, like a book, in our own sense of such a term.” Illegibility is the underside of this project. - Page of 231 -2 Chapter 1 | Introduction sanctioned identities considered necessary for rule like the “tribal” colonial subject or the loyal and growth-minded Pakistani citizen. Upheld as categories that fully account for the social world, such tropes and identities deny the “unsutured character of the social” which is the condition of possibility of all political projects, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic alike, for the purposes of fabricating state-sanctioned “social truths” that crowd out the possibility of democracy itself (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 192; Aretxaga 2005, 53). By shifting the lens from that which the state produces to that which it demolishes, this dissertation centres methodologies of destruction pursued by states in order to clear the ground and path for their own continual (re)creation and (re)production. It is possible to study methodologies of destruction because states are neither homogenous nor bounded, and because state-making and state rule everywhere is “an always incomplete project” (Das and Poole 2004, 7). After all, state sovereignty is rarely located in a singular site, like a central government, and is instead fragmented through e.g. the military and development interventions of transnational institutions and foreign governments, the conflicts of a powerful military versus a civilian authority, inequalities between a strong central and weakened provincial administration, or because of porous borders and “ungovernable” mountains and lands. Similarly, a state’s constructive projects are “always a process” which “has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified.” (Williams 1977, 112-113). The fractured and incomplete state means that constructions of state-sanctioned societies are “never either total or exclusive” and that counter-societies are never completely destroyed, remaining and surviving “in spite of all efforts to eliminate, bury, curb, and control” (Williams 1977, 113; Navaro 2017). It is this continually incomplete state-sanctioned society, and surviving lineages and lives of counter-societies targeted for destruction, that provides a methodological opening through which destructive processes of illegibility, dismantlement, and dispersion can be discerned and delineated. Such openings allow me to trace the shifting contour and content of destruction through history by focusing on all that which violence attempts to unravel in one of the places and peoples subject to it today: The Baloch of Pakistani Balochistan. Such a study of destruction in Balochistan carries both risks and opportunities. On the one hand, clichés of Pakistan as an exceptionally “weak” and “failed” state in perpetual “crisis” and “instability”–especially in its marginal sites, like Balochistan–have dominated analyses of sovereign violence. Against such stereotypes of extraordinary fragmentation and incompletion, I argue that the state of fracture and incompleteness is a shared condition of statehood everywhere: A Brexit vote reflecting fears that British sovereignty had been overtaken by a faraway EU, and a Danish “ghetto” policy threatening minority families with welfare cuts if they - Page of 231 -3 Chapter 1 | Introduction refuse to send children to daycare–both events that took place during the writing of this dissertation–are but two examples of other states convinced of their fragmented sovereignty and the incompleteness of their governing project. Indeed, the ubiquity of the fractured and unfinished is a reminder that state order’s other–disorder–is constitutive of it, much like state destruction implies construction (cf. Benjamin 1921, 1942; Tilly 1984; Anzaldúa 1987; Taussig 1992, 1997; Agamben 1998, 2008; Das 2004; Federici 2004; Öcalan 2017a, 2017b). This is why such an empirical study, on the other hand, also provides an analytical opportunity: The heightened sensation of a state-not-quite-established in regional, racial, gendered, and classed peripheries like Pakistani Balochistan can be perspicacious in uncovering a more general condition of state- making and state rule. This is because such margins tend to be a source of anxiety: Peripheral to the order of the state, they are imagined as insufficiently disciplined into the body politic. Anxiety–from the Latin angere or “to choke,” and which I define as fear of an unknown object –13 prompts alarm that disorder will erupt from such an unknown margin to strangle and unravel the imagined centre. In Balochistan, the colonial state feared Russian, Ottoman, and German agents would rally anti-colonial “tribes,” mullahs, and Communists against the Raj; after 1947, Pakistan has feared Indian, Afghan, Russian, and American support for separatist Baloch–an angst exacerbated by Balochistan’s geostrategic position and mineral resources, and after a $46 billion (now $62 billion) Chinese investment to connect landlocked Xinjiang to the Indian Ocean via Balochistan. This escalated feeling that disorder is concentrated in margins like Balochistan repeatedly prompts state violence seeking to fix borders perceived as chaotic within the reigning order. This amplification of violence in Balochistan helps uncover methodologies of destruction central to the workings of states everywhere. To carry out this analysis, the dissertation analyses destruction historically, sociologically, and anthropologically: In the moment of the state’s inception in the colonial era (1839-1947), its consolidation in the early post-colonial era (1947-1988), and in its contemporary guise as an arbiter of future growth and prosperity (1988-present). This is done through a granular study of three moments of state destruction in each of these periods: a 1918 military expedition, a 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation, and post-2001 state violence which, in Balochistan, was intensified after the assassination of a prominent Baloch nationalist figure, Akbar Bugti, in 2007. Through 14 this inter-disciplinary study spanning a 180-year period, the dissertation argues that the state repeatedly sought to render alternative imaginations of peoples and places in Balochistan Borrowed from Princeton South Asia Conference. 6-7 April, 2018. “Call for Papers: Anxiety and Authority in South 13 Asia.” Available at: https://southasiaworkshop.wordpress.com/proposal-guidelines/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Musharraf took responsibility for assassinating Akbar Bugti, a “[v]eteran Baloch nationalist leader and former 14 Chief Minister of Balochistan.” Shahid, Saleem. 2006. “Bugti killed in operation: Six officers among 21 security personnel dead,” Dawn, 27 August, 2007. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/207726. Accessed 3 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -4 Chapter 1 | Introduction illegible to both itself and those it seeks to govern for the purposes of dismantlement and dispersion. On the one hand, the logics and modes of state destruction have shifted emphasis as the state sought to contain the “infection” of “fanatics” rebelling in the colonial era, censure “traitors” propagating alternative imaginations of what Pakistan could be, and what it could mean to belong to it, in the early post-colonial era, and confuse attempts to articulate a united front against state violence in the contemporary era through the charge of the “terrorist.” On the other hand, these logics and modes intersect, with traces emerging in earlier eras and legacies persisting in subsequent ones. Colonial containment and notions of the “fanatic” conditioned post-colonial censuring and the figure of the “traitor;” in turn, this history shapes contemporary policies of confusion and the post-9/11 spectre of the Baloch separatist “terrorist.” Similarly, the emergence of each subsequent modality and category of destruction finds predecessors in a previous era. In other words, I acknowledge that one cannot talk of hard shifts–of an era of containment, censuring, and confusion–but I also contend that different methodologies of destruction become “dominant feature[s]” to render illegible, dismantle, and disperse counter- societies that through (at times disparate, at times coherent) being and action propagate an alternate “ethical-political” and “economic” “united front” against the state’s “homogenisation and herdification of society” (Foucault 1977, 23; Gramsci 1929, 161-163; Öcalan 2017a, 104). This introductory chapter proceeds in four parts. Part I: State Violence in Pakistani Balochistan opens with one of the most iconic images of state violence and efforts to subvert it from Balochistan by the Baloch themselves: the travels and travails of families and friends of the disappeared. Through these stories I describe the widely shared sensation among those that I talked to that they were suspended between violence and indifference–a sensation, I argue, which is deeply entangled with the position of Balochistan as simultaneously marginal and strategic. After an introduction to contemporary violence, its equivalents in other parts of the country, and its historical antecedents, I situate the reader in this southern Pakistani province to show how its people both do not matter, and matter too much, for the states that have governed them. Part II: Studying Violence 1: Debates opens with a security analyst in Islamabad who said one need not go to Balochistan to write about its violence, and academics who asked whether this research inflamed stereotypes of Pakistan as a site of chaos. I demonstrate how these encounters capture the terrain of popular, and some academic, debate on violence in places like Pakistan and Balochistan: While one side reifies pre-existing categories of knowing violence, inadvertently reproducing tropes of instability, the other–fearful of igniting such clichés–circumvents the question of violence altogether. I explain how such dominant debates remain mired in a notion of - Page of 231 -5 Chapter 1 | Introduction a disordered state of nature and an ordered state of law as oppositional formations, where the former is the “necessary opposite and origin point” of and for the latter (Das and Poole 2004, 8). Against this binary, I position this dissertation amidst literature arguing that seemingly oppositional entities like order and disorder or stability and instability are co-imbricated (Benjamin 1942; Fanon 1961; Tilly 1985). I follow this by explaining how this dissertation engages critically with a constructivist turn in studies of the state, which centres what state power and violence produces (Foucault 1975a, 1977; Scott 1998; Mitchell 1988; Cohn 1996; Dirks 2001; Sharma and Gupta 2002), advocating instead a (re)turn to studies that centre what state power and violence destroys. To make this argument I turn to the rich theoretical and empirical incisions on the state and its violence which question the eclipse of sovereign power (coercion) by disciplinary modes of rule (consent) through a return to studies of physical violence (Benjamin 1942; Agamben 1998, 2008; Taussig 1992, 1997; Massad 2001; Aretxaga 2005; Das and Poole 2004; Shah and Kelly 2006; Khalili and Schwedler 2010). After substantiating why I narrow my definition of violence through the use the heuristic of destruction, I make two interventions. Firstly, I mobilise an anthropological insight garnered from sites of violence: Namely, that the state is reincarnated not only in its rational, legible, order-making mode but in its magical, illegible, and disorder-making ones. However, I widen the scope of this assertion in two ways. One, I argue that it is possible to discern and delineate modes of illegibility, dismantlement, dispersion rather than reproduce sensations of it as “opaque and mysterious” (Taussig 1997, 5), devoid of history and a context, or of an analytical language. I do this by attempting to write a genealogy of the state’s magical, illegible, and disorderly modes, by focusing not only on the present, in the field, but through history, in the archive. Two, I centre counter-societies sought destroyed. To do so, I first subvert Gramsci- inspired studies of articulation to focus, instead, on dis-articulation. And, I turn to writings from collective lifeworlds subject to destruction, including Gloria Anzaldúa’s writings on borderlands, Abdullah Öcalan’s writings on Kurdish state and society, and writings on black fugitivity to remember how they persist despite attempts at annihilation. Noting that too many writings on sovereign violence on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier have curiously and disturbingly circumvented the lifeworlds of those targeted, I contend it is crucial to centre those subject to destruction if we are to understand the “devastating consequences of violence in destroying social relations, scorching landscapes, decimating cities, and sundering lives.” (Khalili 2013, 794) Part III: Studying Violence 2: Methodologies opens with three moments of methodological failure: My inability to gather oral histories of the 1918 military expedition, the inaccessibility of documents detailing arrests of key Baloch opposition leaders around the 1973-’77 operation, and the inaccessible terrains of violence in the contemporary moment. I use these - Page of 231 -6 Chapter 1 | Introduction moments of failure to bring attention both to the conditions of doing field and archival work in a site still subject to violence, and the challenges of studying collectivities targeted for destruction. I introduce the three types of materials gathered–colonial records, state and movement documents, interviews and field notes. The unevenness was both limiting and perspicacious; after examining what the shape and content of available and accessible materials tell us about destruction, I find a methodological route through the challenges of working with uneven, seemingly incomplete evidence. To address the lack of oral history interviews around 1918, I draw on Ann Stoler to argue that colonial records are not merely repositories of knowledge, but can also be read “along the archival grain” for their habits and conventions (Stoler 2010). To address the spotted history of the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation, I explain how I piece together the “miscegenated” “entangled histories” (Menon 2018) of what Yael Navaro (2017) calls “remnants” left behind in the long aftermath of violence. And, to address the slippery sensation that nothing or no one could be fully known, I turn to anthropological literature on affect, which helps me draw out insights from sensations regularly dismissed as epiphenomenal to the real business of politics (Laszczkowski and Reeves 2018). Throughout, I discuss my embodied experience as a Punjabi woman with a Danish passport. Against the positivist notion that the subject and object of inquiry are separate, I argue that I was implicated in what I was studying and that my experience provided another node through which I could analyse violence in Balochistan. Part IV: Chapter Outline brings this chapter to a close. After outlining the dissertation’s three, substantial chapters–on colonial containment, early Pakistani censuring, and contemporary confusion (Chapters 2-4)–I conclude with the figure of the musafir, or traveler, as constitutive of targeted lifeworlds (Chapter 5). Described by Hammal, a student in Quetta, as being-in-movement against “anti-nomadic” state capture and violence, the musafir emerged in all periods–embodied in traveling anti-colonial rebels, revolutionary communists, and Baloch ethno-nationalists–as that which was “not inferno”; or, as the only way to live against the anxious violence of the state. - Page of 231 -7 Chapter 1 | Introduction I State Violence in Pakistani Balochistan In February of 2014, the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an advocacy collective of the families of the missing, completed a 100-day “Long March” on foot from Quetta in Balochistan’s far western provincial capital, to the southern commercial capital of Karachi, north through Punjab to the cultural capital (and seat of political power) in Lahore, ending in the national capital of Islamabad. The caravan of travellers were led by the now 70-year old Abdul Qadeer– affectionately called Mama, or Uncle, Qadeer–and counted among its flock his grandson, whose father had been killed; mothers, sisters, and daughters of the missing and the dead; and well- wishers and supporters who joined them, when they could, along the way. The journey was a macrocosm of several smaller travels and travails that Baloch “affectees” have had to take since 15 the troubles first began over a decade ago: To register cases at thāṇās, the Urdu word for Balochistan’s levy-posts or police stations in the cities; to tell their stories to journalists, politicians, and judges at the provincial and federal courts; to identify corpses that are transported from desolate mountaintops or deserted roads to hospitals in Quetta or Karachi; or to negotiate the hand-over of the bodies of their kin for burial. However, like the “Long March” of 2014, these other journeys and efforts have been either violently obstructed or barely registered. Those who have traversed such long miles have been harassed, threatened, or attacked: Many are A peculiar English word that has emerged in Pakistan to describe those affected by the violence.15 - Page of 231 -8 Image 1.1 | Voice for the Baloch Missing Persons arrive in Islamabad after a 100 day “Long March” from Quetta. Source: AP/Dawn File Photo at Ahmad, Mahvish. 2018. Myths of Balochistan. Dawn, 28 January 2018. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1385767/non-fiction-myths-of-balochistan. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018. Chapter 1 | Introduction disappeared or killed much like those they venture out to speak of. And, like the message of the 2000-kilometre “Long March,” the stories that have traveled such distances seem to quickly have been forgotten, forcing “affectees” to repeat the journey. Some decide to doggedly go on despite threats and despite the sensation that their stories are disappearing into a black hole–like Mama Qadeer himself, who is frequently found sitting alone at the missing persons camp in front of the press club in Quetta. Others have given up, refusing to register cases, tell their stories, or identify the bodies–the risks too great, the disregard too cutting. As Nasrullah Baloch, one of the spokespeople for the VBMP, once said: “The affectees are tired of going, again and again. They feel broken, humiliated (لیلذ, zaleel).” This dissertation is written at a time when such narratives of atrocities remain suspended between violence and indifference. I begin with this observation for two reasons. First, as a reminder of what both prompted and conditioned this more expansive study into methodologies of destruction. Second, as indicative of how places and peoples within Balochistan are caught between mattering too much and not mattering enough–or between necessary violence and ordinary indifference. This section introduces state violence (I.A.) and the places and peoples (I.B.) of Balochistan with an attention to this state of abeyance, produced through a sensation of brokenness and humiliation (تل&ذ, zalālat), within which targeted Baloch find themselves today. I.A. State Violence in Balochistan There is by now little question that systematic state-ordered displacements, disappearances, torture, kill-and-dumps, “encounter” or extra-judicial killings, and army operations have been ongoing in Balochistan for over a decade. These practices continue, in spite of the announcement of a general amnesty for armed Baloch separatists that this violence is targeting, claims by both security forces and the federal and provincial government that they are restoring “law and order,” and reports claiming that peace has come to Balochistan. 16 At the time of submission, the newly-elected prime minister, Imran Khan, has entered into an agreement with the 16 Baloch nationalist politician Akhter Mengal. In 2012, Mengal came to Islamabad with “Six Points” or demands which included the end of military operations, the production of all missing persons, the dismantlement of proxy “death squads,” the free operation of Baloch nationalist parties without interference from Pakistani intelligence services, the prosecution of those behind killings and disappearances, and the rehabilitation of those displaced. The “Six Points” are also a reference to a similar set of points presented to the central government in 1966 by the Bengali Sheikh Mujibur Rehman; Bengal eventually seceded after the 1971 war. The fall-out of Khan’s acceptance of Mengal’s “Six Points” is unclear, but will nevertheless require the new prime minister’s ability to place Balochistan squarely under civilian rather than military control. See also: Khan, Sharif. 2016. “202 militants surrender arms to Balochistan CM.” The Nation, 8 November, 2016. Available at: https://nation.com.pk/08-Nov-2016/202-militants-surrender-arms-to- balochistan-cm. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Zafar, Muhammad. 2015. “Balochistan govt announces general amnesty for militants who lay down their arms.” The Express Tribune, 26 June, 2015. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/ 910477/balochistan-govt-announces-general-amnesty-for-militants-who-lay-down-their-arms/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -9 Chapter 1 | Introduction A series of forced displacements across Balochistan were initiated after the government began pursuing large infrastructure projects backed by military force under the reign of Pakistan's last army ruler, Pervez Musharraf. These have escalated after China’s 2014 investment, 17 particularly of indigenous communities in and around Gwadar Port on the southern coast where the planned route will end. In its place, the federal government stands accused of attempting to 18 transform the Baloch into a minority through sustained population transfers of workers from the demographically, economically, and politically most powerful province of Punjab –an accusation 19 that has prompted killings of Punjabi “settlers” by armed separatist Baloch. 20 Similarly, enforced disappearances began rapidly spreading from Pakistan’s northern, Pashtun-dominated provinces to Balochistan after Musharraf ’s post-9/11 alliance with the US. At the behest of George W. Bush, the military ruler began carrying out extraordinary renditions of suspected militants, a practice which eventually spread to other parts of the country, most 21 notably Balochistan. According to Amnesty International, “the practice under which people are kidnapped, held in secret locations outside any judicial or legal system, and often tortured, sometimes to the point of death” remains a “particularly painful legacy of the Musharraf era.” A 22 flurry of reports and statements about disappearances in Balochistan have been released by the South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) 2009. Internally Displaced Persons: A report on the Fact Finding Mission to 17 Balochistan in 2008. Available at: http://www.southasianrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Internally-Displaced- Persons-in-Baluchistan.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Jamali, Hafeez. A Harbor in the Tempest: Megaprojects, Identity, and the Politics of Place in Gwadar, Pakistan, 18 Dissertation, Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin, May 2014; Baloch, Behram and Muhammad Akbar Notezai 2017. “The travails of Gwadar’s fishermen,” Dawn, August 15, 2017. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1351634. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Aamir, Adnan. 2016. “The majority to minority debate.” The News on Sunday, April 24, 2016. Available at: http://19 tns.thenews.com.pk/majority-minority-debate/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Human Rights Watch. 2010. “Their Future is at Stake”: Attacks on Teachers and Schools in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. 20 New York: Human Rights Watch, December 2010. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ pakistan1210.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Zafar, Muhammad. 2017. “15 men from Punjab found dead in Kech.” The Express Tribune, 15 November, 2017. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1559105/1-15-bullet-riddled-bodies-found- turbat/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Pakistan Today. 2018. “Six Punjabi labourers shot dead in Balochistan.” Available at: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/05/04/six-punjabi-labourers-shot-dead-in-balochistan/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Yusuf, Huma. 2018. “The Other Threat to Pakistan. The New York Times.” The New York Times, 2 April, 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/opinion/the-other-threat-to-pakistan.html. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Dawn. 2003. “443 Al Qaeda suspects handed over to US,” January 6, 2003. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/21 news/76305/443-al-qaeda-suspects-handed-over-to-us. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Musharraf, Pervez. 2006. In the Line of Fire. New York: Free Press; Goldenburg, Suzanne 2006. “Bush threatened to bomb Pakistan, says Musharraf.” The Guardian, 22 September, 2006. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/22/pakistan.usa. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Amnesty International. 2008. “Musharraf is gone, but still no sign of the disappeared,” 2 September, 2008. 22 Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2008/09/musharraf-gone-still-no-sign-disappeared-20080902/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -10 Chapter 1 | Introduction UN, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Human Rights Watch (HRW), 23 24 25 Amnesty International, The Herald, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC, and many others. 26 27 28 29 30 Indeed, various arms of the Pakistani state have publicly acknowledged that security forces are behind extra-judicial abductions: In 2005 the Supreme Court took up the issue of enforced disappearances through a suo motu action, a constitutional provision which allows the court to assume jurisdiction on matters of “public importance” related to the “enforcement of any of the fundamental rights” of Pakistani citizens. Following a petition submitted by the HRCP, the 31 32 court acknowledged that the disappeared were in the custody of security agencies, even summoning high level military and intelligence officials to account for the practice. Eventually, 33 the court set up the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIOED) which was 34 tasked with investigating, tracing, and prosecuting on behalf of “such persons as has been picked up/taken into custody by any Law Enforcing/Intelligence Agency, working under the civilian or The Express Tribune. 2012. “Enforced disappearances can’t be justified under any circumstances: UN group.” 20 23 September, 2012. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/439990/enforced-disappearances-cant-be-justified-under- any-circumstance-un-group/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. HRCP. 2013. Balochistan: Giving the People a Chance: Report of an HRCP fact-finding mission. Lahore: Human Rights 24 Commission of Pakistan. Available at: http://www.hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/wp-content/pdf/ Balochistan%20Report%20New%20Final.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Human Rights Watch. 2011. “‘We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years’ Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan 25 Security Forces in Balochistan.” July 2011. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ pakistan0711WebInside.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Amnesty International. 2011. “Amnesty International Says Balochistan Atrocities Continue to Rise in Pakistan.” 23 26 February 2011. Available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/amnesty-international-says-balochistan- atrocities-continue-to-rise-in-pakistan/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. The Herald. 2011. “Herald Exclusive: The Dead End.” The Herald, 18 March, 2011. Available at: https://27 www.dawn.com/news/614072. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Walsh, Declan. 2011. “Pakistan’s secret dirty war.” The Guardian, 29 March, 2011. Available at: https://28 www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/29/balochistan-pakistans-secret-dirty-war. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Al Jazeera. 2012. Balochistan: Pakistan’s Other War. TV Documentary. Directed by Ahmad Zaidan, 9 January, 2012. 29 Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2012/01/2012121372863878.html. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Hassan, Shoaib. 2011. “Pakistan: Abuses in mineral-rich Balochistan province.” BBC, 1 June 2011. Available at: 30 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-south-asia-13617719/pakistan-abuses-in-mineral-rich-balochistan-province. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Article 184(3); Omer, Reema. 2017. No More “Missing Persons”: The 31 Criminalization of Enforced Disappearance in South Asia. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, August 2017, p. 27. Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/South-Asia-Enforced-Disappearance-Publications- Reports-Thematic-Reports-2017-ENG.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. The HRCP petitioned the Supreme Court to take notice of more cases of enforced disappearances under Article 32 184(3) which allows the court to take suo motu action. Ibid, p. 27. Omer, Reema. 2013. “Justice for the disappeared.” Dawn, 29 July 2013. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/33 1032711/justice-for-the-disappeared. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Omer, Reema. 2017. No More “Missing Persons”: The Criminalization of Enforced Disappearance in South Asia. Geneva: 34 International Commission of Jurists, August 2017, pp. 27-28. Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/08/South-Asia-Enforced-Disappearance-Publications-Reports-Thematic-Reports-2017-ENG.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -11 Chapter 1 | Introduction military control, in a manner which is contrary to the provisions of the law” ; the COIOED 35 continues to function today, now under the mandate of the Ministry of Interior. In October 2012, 36 the Supreme Court announced that there was “overwhelming evidence” implicating Balochistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) in the disappearances of 100 people in Balochistan. In one statement, the Supreme Court invoked the widespread sensation of zalālat, when it announced that the enforced disappearances compelled the “nears and dears” of the missing to run “from pillar to post spending their energy despite poverty and helplessness but without any success.” Despite the ardour with which the issue has been pursued, however, 37 recent reports indicate that there has been little progress in counteracting the practice: In January 2018, the COIOED announced that it had received nearly 300 cases from around the country between August and October 2017 alone–the largest number recorded in recent years–and reported that 1,532 cases were still pending, 125 from Balochistan. A statement from Amnesty 38 International released days after the commission’s press release indicates that the cases in the hands of the COIOED are underreported, after the organisation expressed alarm at “reports it … received of a wave of enforced disappearances … particularly of activists in … Baluchistan.” 39 Indeed, the VBMP claims that the disappeared number as high as 18,000 since 2001. 40 In most cases, however, the disappeared have neither been traced nor returned. Instead, corpses of the missing, alongside other Baloch, have turned up on desolate mountaintops and deserted roads, tortured beyond recognition, in what is known as “kill-and-dumps.” Sometimes, bodies have been found in the aftermath of “encounter” or extra-judicial killings. On 28 May, 41 Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, Government of Pakistan. 2011. About Us. Islamabad: 35 Government of Pakistan. Available at: http://coioed.pk/about-us/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, Government of Pakistan. 2011. Regulations of Commission: Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan. Available at: http://coioed.pk/notification2/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Omer, Reema. 2017. No More “Missing Persons”: The Criminalization of Enforced Disappearance in South Asia. Geneva: 36 International Commission of Jurists, August 2017, pp. 27-28. Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/08/South-Asia-Enforced-Disappearance-Publications-Reports-Thematic-Reports-2017-ENG.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Constitution petition no.77 of 2010, para 10 in Omer, Reema. 2017. No More “Missing Persons”: The Criminalization of 37 Enforced Disappearance in South Asia. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, August 2017, pp. 27-28. Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/South-Asia-Enforced-Disappearance-Publications-Reports- Thematic-Reports-2017-ENG.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018, p. 28. Haq, Riazul. 2018. “1,532 cases of enforced disappearances still pending,” The Express Tribune, 10 January, 2018. 38 Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1604675/1-1532-cases-enforced-disappearances-still-pending/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Amnesty International. 2017. “Pakistan: End Enforced Disappearances Now.” November 6, 2017. Available at: https://39 www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2017/11/pakistan-end-enforced-disappearances-now/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018 Omer, Reema. 2017. No More “Missing Persons”: The Criminalization of Enforced Disappearance in South Asia. Geneva: 40 International Commission of Jurists, August 2017, p. 25. Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ South-Asia-Enforced-Disappearance-Publications-Reports-Thematic-Reports-2017-ENG.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Sohail, Riaz. 2015. یلاماپ یک قوقح یناسنا ںیم ناتسچولب [Trampled Rights in Balochistan]. Tanqeed: a magazine of politics 41 and culture, January 2015. Available at: https://www.tanqeed.org/2015/01/balochistan-riaz-sohail-urdu/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -12 Chapter 1 | Introduction 2018, the HRCP announced that 90 mutilated bodies had been found in Balochistan in 2017 alone; another 545 people had been killed in extra-judicial encounters. Alongside this practice, the 42 security forces have carried out broader sweeps through a series of counter-insurgency operations: After February 2017, these operations began to take place more formally under Operation Raddul Fassad, which aimed at “indiscriminately eliminating … the residual/latent threat of terrorism … consolidating the gains made in other military operations, and further ensuring the security of Pakistan’s borders.” Under this country-wide operation, Pakistan’s 43 security forces have launched Intelligence Based Operations or IBOs in Balochistan, particularly through the FC. 44 Such violence is part of a wider repertoire of state-ordered destruction in other parts of the country, as well as part of a longer history within Balochistan itself. Though numbers on violence within Pakistan, as elsewhere, are frequently limited by accessibility and skewed through the categories applied and measured, those available indicate that of the at least 60,000 people killed in Pakistan since 2001, 40 percent have been killed by the security forces–another 10 percent, or 3000 people, have been killed in American drone attacks. Seventy-five percent have 45 been killed in territories dominated by another ethnicity–the Pashtuns–who at the time of writing are marching in the thousands under the umbrella of the Pashtun Tahaffuz or Protection Movement (PTM) to protest disappearances, harassment at checkpoints, and “encounter” or extra-judicial killings carried out by security forces. State threats, harassment, and attacks have 46 also spread to those who speak about racialised and targeted communities, most notably political The Express Tribune. 2018. “90 Mutilated Bodies Found in Balochistan in 2017: HRCP,” May 28, 2018. Available at: 42 https://tribune.com.pk/story/1720497/1-90-mutilated-bodies-found-balochistan-2017-hrcp/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Dawn.com. 2017. “Pakistan Army Launches Operation Radd-Ul-Fasaad across the Country.” February 22, 2017. 43 Available at: http://www.dawn.com/news/1316332 [Accessed 2 Aug. 2018]; Dawn.com. 2017. “Army Accelerates Intelligence-Based Operations in Balochistan.” August 26, 2017. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/1354086 Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Ibid.44 This is based on numbers from the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), and on numbers from the Bureau of 45 Investigative Journalism. These numbers are neither fully reliable nor do they give a full picture, but they are indicative of the layout of violence in Pakistan. I would like to thank Arif Naveed of the University of Cambridge for providing the numbers from PIPS. Furthermore, despite protests by various arms of the Pakistani state that drones are an affront to Pakistani sovereignty, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the security forces have regularly coordinated attacks with the Americans. See: Albritton, Chris 2012. “Exclusive: How Pakistan helps the U.S. drone campaign,” Reuters, 22 January 2012. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-drones/exclusive-how- pakistan-helps-the-u-s-drone-campaign-idUSTRE80L08G20120122. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018; Miller, Greg and Bob Woodward. 2013. “Secret memos reveal explicit nature of U.S. Pakistan agreement on drones,” The Washington Post, 24 October 2013. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-pakistani-leaders-secretly- backed-cia-drone-campaign-secret-documents-show/2013/10/23/15e6b0d8-3beb-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. Ahmad, Meher. 2018. “‘Our First Mistake Will Be Our last’: Pakistani Rights Movement Defies Army.” New York 46 Times, 17 April 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/asia/pashtun-movement-pakistan- military.html. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Zahra-Malik, Mehreen. 2018. “In Pakistan, Long-Suffering Pashtuns Find Their Voice,” New York Times, 6 February 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/world/asia/pakistan- pashtun-long-march.html. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -13 Chapter 1 | Introduction organisers and journalists. Similarly, military expeditions were frequent under both colonial 47 48 and Pakistani rule. Beginning with the 1839 storming of what was then called Kalat State (a polity that, after the solidification of Balochistan’s borders under colonial rule, came to constitute its largest governing unit), colonial military expeditions were continually launched along the frontier of which Balochistan was a part on average three times a year. Under Pakistani rule, a 49 similar military annexation of Kalat State was followed by counter-insurgency operations throughout the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s–frequently narrated by Baloch nationalists, who mark these moments with stories of armed resistance (Baloch 1987; Breseeg 2004; Dashti 2017; Marri 2015). These expeditions and operations were part of a broader repertoire of actions aimed at securitisation: The imagination of Balochistan as a vulnerable border area susceptible to foreign invasion and intervention, and its people as easily manipulable, prompted a militaristic approach to this place and its people, as the colonial and Pakistani state organised territory and subjects for the purposes of security. So, the British transformed the border settlement of Quetta into a provincial garrison capital by the border to Afghanistan, and the Pakistani state initiated the construction of cantonments from the 1950s onwards. 50 On the one hand, it makes little sense to speak of a homogenous and unitary state. The state within Balochistan, as elsewhere, has always been a fragmented entity seeking to complete its governing project. In the colonial era, disagreements proliferated between the Attorney to the Governor General (AGG) responsible for Balochistan, and his superiors in Delhi and London, about the best tactics to use in governing Balochistan. Meanwhile, an “over-developed” bureaucratic-military apparatus inherited from the colonial era (Alavi 1972) has wrangled for power with both country-wide and Baloch civilian political parties; this conflict is enhanced in Balochistan where regional political formations regularly critique the centralising and Kermani, Secunder. 2018. “Pakistan activists targeted in Facebook attacks.” BBC, 15 May 2018. Available at: https://47 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44107381. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Baloch, Shah Meer. 2017. “Pakistan’s ‘missing activists’ - what’s behind the disturbing phenomenon?” DW, 12 December 2017. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/ pakistans-missing-activists-whats-behind-the-disturbing-phenomenon/a-41754825. Accessed by 3 Aug. 2018. Zahra-Malik, Mehreen. 2018. “Who’s afraid of Imran Khan’s Pakistan? Almost everyone.” Washington Post, 2 August 48 2018. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/08/02/whos-afraid-of-imran- khans-pakistan-almost-everyone/?utm_term=.02ff1c390a77. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Masood, Salman. 2017. “Gang Attacks Pakistani Journalist Critical of Military.” New York Times, 27 October 2017. Available at: https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/world/asia/pakistan-journalist-ahmad-noorani.html. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Boone, Jon. 2015. “Pakistan press freedom under pressure from army.” The Guardian, 14 Sep. 2015. Available at: https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/14/pakistan-press-freedom-army-journalists-military. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018. See Chapter 2: Containment: Colonial Destruction in Pakistani Balochistan (1839-1947).49 Gazdar, Haris and Kaker, Sobia Ahmad and Khan, Irfan. 2010. “Buffer zone, colonial enclave or urban hub? Quetta: 50 between four regions and two wars,” Crisis States Research Centre working papers series 2, 69. Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. - Page of 231 -14 Chapter 1 | Introduction homogenising forces of the Pakistani state. The state has also been forged and sustained 51 through foreign capital first during the Cold War, when US-allied Pakistan was the premier anti- communist front in South Asia, and in the post-9/11 era following the launch of the American War in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a debilitating economy is sought addressed through a post-2014 investment by China, which is dependent on access to Gwadar Port on Balochistan’s coast. Power wrangling on the one hand, and the investments and demands by foreign governments on the other, has enhanced the sensation that the governing project remains incomplete, and sovereignty fragmented. This sensation is enhanced in the imagined border of Balochistan, justifying enormous violence. On the other hand, it is necessary to place responsibility for violence in Balochistan–its occurrence, its complex but still identifiable geographical and historical point of origin–with state security forces. The nexus of Pakistan’s security forces–including but not limited to the Pakistan Army, its intelligence agencies, the FC, and an informal network of “death squads,” all products of a historic colonial legacy and contemporary foreign support–are the primary perpetrators behind this violence. Establishing this is necessary because they and those who support them fluctuate 52 between denying the violence and dismissing it as justified. It is perhaps this tension that fuels the sensation of zalālat among targeted Baloch. The primary grounds cited for denial and dismissal is referral to foreign-funded separatists intent on undermining Pakistan’s present integrity and future prosperity. Armed separatists from organisations like the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), stand accused of atrocities including attacks on teachers and labourers from Pakistan’s politically, Akhter Mengal, the head of Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-Mengal), famously arrived in Islamabad in 51 2012 to present his Six Points, which included a critique of the federal government and the military, reminiscent of the one presented by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, before the 1971 civil war or War of Independence. The recent election of Imran Khan has resulted in the current government accepting Mengal’s Six Points, though whether the new Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government will manage to wrangle control away from the Pakistan Army in Balochistan remains to be seen. Cf. Ahmad, Mahvish. 2012. “Scathing Reviews as Mengal Wraps Up Visit," Dawn, 30 September 2012. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/753175. Accessed on 21 Aug. 2018; Shabbir, Abbas. 7 August 2018. “Imran Khan has accepted Akhtar Mengal’s six-point agenda, says Shah Mehmood Qureshi,” Samaa TV. Available at: https://www.samaa.tv/news/2018/08/imran-khan-has-accepted-akhtar- mengals-six-point-agenda-says-shah-mehmood-qureshi/. Accessed on 21 Aug. 2018. News Desk. 2018. “‘Notorious militant’ Shafiq Mengal aspiring to be MNA,” 19 July, 2018. Available at: https://52 www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/19/notorious-militant-shafiq-mengal-aspiring-to-be-mna/. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Baloch, Saher. 2014. “Herald Exclusive: Mangled facts,” 19 March, 2018. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/ 1094180. Accessed 3 Aug 2018; Human Rights Watch. 2011. “Pakistan: Security Forces ‘Disappear’ Opponents in Balochistan: Government Fails to Confront Military, Intelligence Agencies on Abuses,” 28 July 2011. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/07/28/pakistan-security-forces-disappear-opponents-balochistan. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018; Iqbal, Nasir. 2012. “Court takes FC to task over disappearances,” Dawn, 1 June 2012. Available at: https:// www.dawn.com/news/723179. Accessed 3 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -15 Chapter 1 | Introduction economically, and demographically largest province of Punjab, Baloch politicians meeting and 53 working with the federal government, suspected mukhbirs or informants, and Chinese 54 55 engineers working on Gwadar Port on the southern coast, the destination for CPEC. These 56 groups are seen as continuous with their Islamist counterparts, which have been behind some of Pakistan’s bloodiest attacks in recent years including one that practically wiped out an entire generation of Balochistan’s legal fraternity, and another that killed 149 people during a 2018 57 election campaign rally. This is despite the fact that the link drawn between separatist and 58 Islamist militant groups is tenuous; typically at logger-heads, the former is frequently targeted in state operations while the latter, especially in Balochistan, enjoys significant support from state security forces. Meanwhile, the 2016 arrest of an Indian Naval Officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav, 59 prompted Pakistani authorities to announce that they finally had solid proof that political and armed opposition groups from Balochistan were an Indian conspiracy. This dissertation 60 contends that such frameworks overdetermine analyses and commentaries on Balochistan, taking precedence over all other possible explanations. It is at this moment of overdetermination that well-founded fear transforms into ill-founded anxiety, or that fear goes from having a definite object to having no definite object. As will become apparent throughout this dissertation, anxiety about foreign invaders manipulating locals to undermine the state has been a recurring trope; in turn, to resolve this anxiety both the colonial and Pakistani states have sought and located–attempted to fix or attach–their object of fear in the Baloch “fanatic,” “traitor,” or “terrorist” of Balochistan through the deployment of immense violence. This dissertation fixes Human Rights Watch. 2010. “Their Future is at Stake”: Attacks on Teachers and Schools in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. 53 New York: Human Rights Watch, December 2010. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ pakistan1210.pdf. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Zafar, Muhammad. 2017. “15 men from Punjab found dead in Kech.” The Express Tribune, 15 November, 2017. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1559105/1-15-bullet-riddled-bodies-found- turbat/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Pakistan Today. 2018. “Six Punjabi labourers shot dead in Balochistan.” Available at: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/05/04/six-punjabi-labourers-shot-dead-in-balochistan/. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018; Yusuf, Huma. 2018. “The Other Threat to Pakistan. The New York Times.” The New York Times, 2 April, 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/opinion/the-other-threat-to-pakistan.html. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. Baloch, Doda Rasheed Ahmed. 2010. “Remembering Moula Baksh Dashti,” Dawn, 2 August 2010. Available at: 54 https://www.dawn.com/news/872369. Accessed 4. Aug 2018. Ahmad, Mahvish and Rabia Mahmood, “Surveillance, Authoritarianism and ‘Imperial Effects’ in Pakistan,” 55 Surveillance and Society 15(3/4): 506-513, https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/ download/6721/6454/. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. BBC. 2006. “China workers killed in Pakistan,” BBC, 15 February 2006. Available at: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/56 4716820.stm. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. Bearak, Max. 2016. “An entire generation of a city’s lawyers was killed in Pakistan,” The Washington Post, 9 August 57 2016. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/09/an-entire-generation-of-a-citys- lawyers-was-killed-in-pakistan/. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. Shah, Syed Ali, Sophia Saifi, and Judith Vonberg. 2018. “At least 149 killed in Pakistan terror strike targeting political 58 rally,” CNN, 16 July 2018. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/13/asia/pakistan-suicide-attack-balochistan-intl/ index.html. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. Notezai, Muhammad Akbar. 2017. “Spiral into chaos,” Dawn, 16 August 2017. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/59 news/1351870. Accessed 4 Aug. 2018. Sajid, Humaira. 2016. “The arrest of RAW agent turns out to be a goldmine for agencies,” Dunya News, 5 April 2016.60 - Page of 231 -16 Chapter 1 | Introduction the lens on sovereign violence not only because it dwarfs that of its stated enemies–today the foreign-funded Baloch separatist–but also because this violence and its place in state-making and state rule too often recedes into the background, particularly in a place like Balochistan. The simultaneity of violence and indifference, and the zalālat it produces, is intimately tied to the representation of places and peoples of Balochistan as marginal and strategic. It is this representation, and its odd fit with the lifeworlds of those who live here, to which we now turn. I.B. Places and Peoples of Balochistan In the calculations of those on high–the governments which encompass it, the regional states that surround it, the world powers that eye it–or in the euro- cosmopolitan writings of diplomats, 61 foreign correspondents and adventure travellers, Balochistan has the feel of an in- between place and its people the feel of marginality in spaces wrought with adventure and intrigue. Titles like Balochistan: At a Crossroads, In Afghanistan’s Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations, or Balochistan, the British and the Great Game: The Struggle for the Bolan Pass, Gateway to India betray how Balochistan is cast as an adventurous place that is at a crossroads, a shadow, or a gateway to somewhere else–while its people are secondary, if not invisible, in such representations (Marx 2014; Harrison 1981; Heathcote 2016). The view of Balochistan as strategic is a reflection of its locality in the calculations of others. Today, it is primarily understood as territory constituting the Pakistani province of Balochistan though, as will be clear later, Baloch nationalists have a more expansive territorial vision of their imagined nation. Pakistani Balochistan borders Afghanistan to the north, Iran to By euro-cosmopolitan I refer to a very particular form of cosmopolitanism. I refer to what is understood as 61 cosmopolitanism in the normative mainstream: As one that traces its origins to early European travellers–explorers, conquerors, governors–and that now encompasses their counterparts in the West (which, of course, includes the United States). I make a point of defining this cosmopolitanism as “euro” because I agree with scholars like Caron and Dasgupta (2016), Marsden (2007) and Iqtidar (2007) that cosmopolitanism is not limited to the western or westernised subject which is normally cast as being among “educated, affluent, and highly mobile citizens” (Marsden 2007, 6). As Marsden (2007, 6) says, “Why should the ‘open-endedness’ of cultural visions not apply to less fortunate global citizens?” - Page of 231 -17 Balochistan Afghanistan Iran Sindh Punjab KP India China FAT Image 1.2 | This is a regular political map of Pakistani Balochistan. As will be clear in Image 1.5-1.6, there are other ways to conceive of, or map, this area. Chapter 1 | Introduction the west, and the Indian Ocean–facing the Gulf, the eastern coast of Africa, and western India– with a 760 kilometre long coast in the south (see Image 1.2). This locality is the main reason that it has frequently been used as a throughway for powerful states: First, for British troops attacking Afghanistan in the 19th century, more recently by NATO trucks passing through to enter Kandahar, and now by China, which plans to build a corridor–a route of “Belts and Roads”–to link southwestern China to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf via the deep-sea water port of Gwadar (see Image 1.3-1.5). In other words, the construction of railways, telegraph lines, roads, and ports have figured centrally in the history of Balochistan. Its usefulness as a transportation route plays a key role in its enormous strategic value for Pakistan, and Pakistan’s willingness to do almost anything to secure this territory. The strategic centrality of Balochistan co-exists with its marginalisation. Its large size combined with its sparse and impoverished population has frequently been cited as the main reason for its marginality: Balochistan covers half of Pakistan’s territory (almost as large as Germany) but has less than 5 per cent of its population; however, in a country of 200 million, less than 5 per cent is 12.3 million people. Not everyone who lives in Pakistani Balochistan is Baloch: 62 The northern strip is primarily dominated by Pashtuns, and there are significant populations of Hazaras and Punjabis in the capital of Quetta. Along with claims that the Baloch cannot be thought of as a unitary ethnic group–they speak two languages, Brahui and Balochi, though nationalists claim that this does not necessarily result in political division–ethnic diversity encourages claims that the Baloch living in the rest of the province are too few to matter. In Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. 2017. Population Census 2017. Government of Pakistan. Available at: http://62 www.pbscensus.gov.pk/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -18 Image 1.3-1.5 | These maps represent how Balochistan has always been imagined as a throughway. The top map is of the one railway built in colonial Balochistan by the British to attack Afghanistan; the middle map shows NATO routes; the bottom map shows the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Source: Sourabh, Naresh Chandra and Timo Myllyntaus. 2015. “Infrastructure and railroads,” in Virtual Exhibitions 2015, No. 2: Famines in Late Nineteenth-Century India: Politics, Culture, and Environmental Justice, Environment and Society Portal. Available at: http:// www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/famines-india, Accessed 8 Aug. 2018; Pepple, Sam. 2012. A Map of NATO Supply Routes. Foreign Affairs. Available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/map-nato-supply-routes-out- afghanistan. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018; Yousafzai, Fawad. 2018. “MPs for finalising CPEC central route on priority,” The Nation, 16 March 2018. Available at: https://nation.com.pk/16-Mar-2018/mps-for-finalising-cpec-central-route-on- priority. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018. Chapter 1 | Introduction political statements or action, it is apparent that the excessive cost of connecting distant villagers and townspeople to road networks, health services, schools and colleges, telecommunication networks or polling booths during elections, has been deemed unworthy of committed and long- term investment by the state. When Pakistan's Planning Commission launched a 63 Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, in 2016 measuring health, education, and living standards to approximate the state of its population, two-thirds (or 71 per cent) of Balochistan’s residents were found to be living under the poverty line. The only other place in Pakistan that had similar rates of poverty was the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA: Notorious for being the original hiding place of Osama bin Laden, the Haqqani Network, the Pakistani Taliban, and various other Islamist militant groups, as well as the site of American drone attacks and Pakistani military operations, FATA is another site of violence in Pakistan. 64 This duality of marginality and strategic significance–of not mattering and mattering too much–sits uneasily next to the geographic imaginations and social relations of the Baloch themselves. For the Baloch–after whom Balochistan, which literally means “Land of the Baloch,” is named–Balochistan is an intimate geography and other Baloch are family, friends, neighbours, and sometimes comrades. For them, their places are anything but in-between and they are not Mehdi, Tahir. 2018. “Obfuscating Balochistan,” Dawn, 30 March, 2018. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/63 1398427. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. Two-thirds, or 73 per cent, of FATA residents live in multi-dimensional poverty. Like Balochistan, FATA was 64 governed through a system of tribal governance during the colonial era. Tribes and tribal heads were anchored by tribal levies who served as a quasi-policing force, tribal jirgas that functioned as a circle of elders that recommended grants and punishments, and the Frontier Crimes Regulation or FCR which identified members of tribes as collectively responsible for one another’s actions. Most of this tribal governance was removed in the early decades of Pakistan’s independence in Balochistan. In FATA, however, the system remains in place: It is only in March of this year – 2017 – that the parliament voted to “mainstream” FATA. Arguably, this has been done after the launch of an army operation in FATA’s agency of North Waziristan–Operation Zarb-e-Azb–which resulted in the mass displacement of one million people who remain on the run. - Page of 231 -19 Image 1.6-1.7 | The emergence of Baloch nationalism in the early 20th century led to the idea of a bounded nation- state of Balochistan. The first map was drawn by Abdul Aziz Kurd, one of the founders of Baloch nationalism, in preparation for the very first, nationalist All India Baloch Conference held on 27-29 December, 1932, and was published on 25 December. 1932 in the weekly Al-Baloch. As can be seen from the second map these borders roughly correspond to Baloch nationalist imaginations of an independent state today. Source: Baloch, Inayatullah. 1987. The Problem of Greater Balochistan. Hamburg: Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung; Dashti, Naseer. 2018. “Modernisation and Balochistan,” Voice of Balochistan: Facts-Perceptions-Reality. Available at: https://voiceofbalochistan.pk/opinions- and-articles/domestic-politics/modernization-and-balochistan/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018. Chapter 1 | Introduction quite so irrelevant. Though they recognise how Balochistan is seen by those on high (as Dr. Shah Mohammad Marri, a pharmacist in Quetta, once said to me, geography has been both a blessing and a curse for the Baloch) their place and relations always exceed the definitions into which they are cast. To see Balochistan from where they stand (and they do not all stand in the same place, and therefore do not share one unitary vision) means to get very different senses of this place and its people. The Baloch identify Balochistan as comprising territories stretching from southern Iran and a slice of land in southern Afghanistan into most of south-west Pakistan including districts currently considered part of the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The territory covers around 340,000 square miles, meaning it is as big as Pakistan itself, bigger than Afghanistan, or twice the size of Sweden. With the emergence of Baloch nationalist politics in the early 20th century, a period that witnessed the articulation and solidification of national liberation movements across the colonised world, the question of where the exact borders of Balochistan could be drawn surfaced with some force. It was at this moment that Abdul Aziz Kurd, one of the founders of the nationalist movement, drew the first known map of Balochistan (see Image 1.6-1.7), more or less setting the boundaries of the 65 imagined state of Balochistan that is now emblazoned on flags and shared by staunch separatists. Pakistani Balochistan only comprises around half of the imagined state of “Greater 66 Balochistan” (Baloch 1987; Dashti 2017). Baloch nationalists have subsequently engaged in some debate over the exact boundaries of an imagined 65 Balochistan, spending much time discussing to what extent primarily Baloch populations are settled in a particular territory or not. The map of Balochistan that emerged was what Benedict Anderson (1983, 179) calls a “map-as-logo” which he 66 defined as one of “two final avatars of the map” which were both “instituted by the late colonial state”. This map-as- logo saw each defined colonial or, later, national space as a “detachable piece of a jigsaw puzzle.” Each “‘piece’ could be wholly detached from its geographic context. In its final form all explanatory glosses could be summarily removed: lines of longitude and latitude, place names, signs for rivers, seas and mountains, neighbours. Pure sign, no longer compass to the world. In this shape, the map entered an infinitely reproducible series, available for transfer to posters, official seals, letterheads, magazine and textbook covers, tablecloths, and hotel walls. Instantly recognisable, everywhere visible, the logo-map penetrated deep into the popular imagination forming a powerful emblem for the anticolonial nationalisms being born.” - Page of 231 -20 Image 1.8 | This map, which actually shows prevailing winds on this part of the Indian Ocean in the months of January and July, roughly correspondents to the migratory circuits that have led to the spread of a significant Baloch diaspora along the Gulf and eastern Africa. Source: The University of Texas at Austin. 2005. “A Modern Indian Ocean Wind Map,” Islands, Oceans, Poles. Available at: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ islands_oceans_poles/dhow_76.jpg. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018. Chapter 1 | Introduction The Baloch themselves, however, are not contained by nationalist imaginations of their home territory. Instead, mobility and travel figure centrally in the lives of the several million Baloch who populate this region (we know there are at least 10 million Baloch, and possibly more than 30 million, though no one knows the exact number). A popular nationalist origin myth, which describes them as a nomadic tribe that settled in the area between contemporary Iran and Pakistan after leaving Aleppo, recalls this theme of constant movement. Subsequent epic ballads 67 recall stories of Baloch heroes who conquered territory not to rule, but to expand the remit of Baloch migratory circuits. The Baloch regularly travel between the sovereign borders of 68 Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. At times, these regular movements are replaced by more permanent migratory waves of Baloch, like in 1928 when a crackdown by Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran forced the Baloch across the border into what they call Eastern Balochistan and what became Pakistan in 1947. Usually, however, Baloch across this vast province of Pakistan link into different migration circuits. So, Baloch settled along the western borders look towards, and are integrated into, labor and trade circuits into Iran. Baloch living in the northeastern districts of Dera Bugti and Kohlu are linked, by road, to the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab in the east, and into an old migration route that links them to Kandahar in Afghanistan to the west. This latter migration route has historically been used by Baloch-in-armed-uprising to escape punitive operations by sovereign states, as they regularly escape over the border into Afghanistan to seek refuge. Baloch along the southern Makran coast are part of migration circuits linking them to the Gulf, the eastern coast of Africa, and the western coast of India. This means that a large Baloch diaspora is settled in places like Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Tanzania, Kenya, and India as part of the Indian Ocean circuit (see Image 1.8). Finally, Baloch settled in the southern part of the province regularly travel to the neighbouring provinces of Sindh, Punjab, and Karachi–one of the largest cities in the world with the largest concentration of Baloch anywhere. All of these cycles and circles of migration and settlement are relatively stable over time, despite being sensitive to larger world events. However, they do indicate that boundaries of group inclusion, or of who is and is not Baloch, has long been flexible: Over the last many centuries, Some versions of this origin myth say that the Baloch took part in the Battle of Karbala which took place between 67 the Prophet’s grandson Imam Hussain and the Umayyad Caliph, Yazid I, that descended from the second of four major caliphs in Islam, Uthman. The battle led to Imam Hussain’s death and the emergence of Shi’ite Muslims as distinct from Sunni Muslims. According to this version of the origin myth, the Baloch – who had fought with Imam Hussain – left Aleppo and other parts of contemporary Syria and Iraq to travel towards modern-day Iran. Inayatullah Baloch credits Mohammed Hussain Anka for writing the Baloch qomi taranna or national anthem, which says, “We are the Baloch with a glorious past / We belong to the respectable people of Aleppo” and continues “We have conquered all the areas which are now our homeland / It is real and true Baluchistan / If we are separated and demarcated, then so what, this is a temporary / division, our soul is one. / We will destroy these walls. / We are like a rain and a storm.” (Baloch 1987, 67-68). See Lutfi, Ameem, “Conquest without Rule: Baloch Portfolio Mercenaries in the Indian Ocean” (PhD diss., Duke 68 University), 2018. - Page of 231 -21 Chapter 1 | Introduction collectives of nomads and travellers have regularly migrated into the region and been integrated into existing communities. To some extent, this openness continues to exist today: During an interview with an avowedly Pashtun politician in northern Quetta representing the nationalist Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), he admitted that his wife was a Baloch and his brother a member of the rival Baloch National Party-Mengal (BNP-Mengal) across the street from his party’s office. This story is all the more surprising considering that ethnically-mediated distributions of state resources and patronage has exacerbated tensions between Baloch and Pashtun communities in Quetta. More importantly, it reminds us that travel, journey, and a certain unsettledness continues to permeate Baloch communities, even as the state and nationalists attempt to fix and clearly define the outer limits of what it means to be a Baloch. Thus, the state’s imagination of this place as a strategic border territory populated by marginal state subjects sits oddly, or against, the mobile lifeworlds among the people who live within and through this place. It is this misfit between, on the one hand, the state’s attempts to “capture and fix” territory and subjects through “anti-nomadic techniques” and, on the other hand, older lineages of mobility and movement, that has played a key role in repeated explosions of sovereign violence (Foucault 1975a, 189, 218). II Studying Violence 1: Debates It is both very easy, and exceedingly difficult, to write about state violence in a place like Pakistan and Balochistan. Advice given by a security analyst in Islamabad demonstrates its ease. Upon my return from fieldwork, she said: “You do not need to go to a place to know about it. Write about Balochistan from Islamabad.” Its difficulty is, in turn, exemplified in a question posed by an academic at a conference in Copenhagen: “Does your research inflame tropes about chaos in Pakistan?” The question was repeated, two months later, by another scholar, at a conference in Oxford, and several times in individual conversations with academics working on Pakistan. These unrelated encounters index two dominant, though not exclusive, ways that the question of the state and violence in such sites has been approached. On the one hand, researchers like the security analyst reify pre-existing categories of analysis in sites of war. In such cases, places and peoples in violence are approached with a ready- - Page of 231 -22 Chapter 1 | Introduction made taxonomy of terms (e.g. militant or civilian, greedy or aggrieved, pro- or anti-state, 69 70 71 religious or secular ) that are then identified and measured, inadvertently transforming abstract 72 categories into things-in-the-world before encountering the site of study through the archive or the field. This approach is founded on a notion that the state is the norm, and in turn the instrument, which will resolve the problem of violence; the solution, therefore, lies in further strengthening its institutions. To a large extent, this normative approach to the state has been driven by a boom in state-funded research on terrorism after 9/11; its predecessor can be found in Cold War-era scholarship seeking to advise governments in North America and Western Europe, alongside their allies, as they worked to counteract the influence of the Soviet Union (Collier and Hoeffler 2000; Huntington 1996; Fukuyama 2006). This research tradition focuses on the cultural, political, ideological, religious, or other foundations of non-state militancies and on how to understand and improve the “Way[s] of War” of state militaries (Fair 2014). Ongoing violence within Pakistan is read as a sign of a country that is “weak,” “failed,” or in “crisis;” given understandings of states as norm and solution, these researchers propagate further investments into the country’s military and intelligence services (Lieven 2011). The stereotype of weakness is prominent in writings on Pakistan and Balochistan; Pakistan is frequently considered a “place insufficiently imagined” (Rushdie 1983; Oldenburg 1985) and its marginal sites, like Balochistan, are cast as exceptionally deserted, devoid of state ordering (Fukuyama 1990; Cohen 2011; Rashid 2012; Grare 2013; Riedel 2013; Fair 2014; Qadir 2017). Within Pakistan, a recurrent theme of crisis on religious, ideological, cultural, political, economic, and other fronts has been a mainstay within scholarship and public debate; public commentators and academics alike have repeatedly asked: “Can Pakistan survive?” (Ali 1983) Of late, and in the face of a country that has yet to disintegrate, scholars have begun to cast Pakistan as a “Paradox” of “Instability and Resilience” that survives despite its obvious failings (Jaffrelot 2015). To resolve this paradox, this genre of scholarship argues that Pakistan’s “underlying social structure” embodies a “strength and stability… which enable[s] the country to weather national and regional storms and rebound from disasters– natural and manmade [sic]” (Lodhi 2011, 2). Armed with an analysis that Pakistan is “resilient” this literature goes on to explore “the path to a post-crisis state” (Lodhi 2011, 2); yet, by maintaining the E.g. the Council of Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker.69 E.g. Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. 2004. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 56 (4): 70 563–95. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpf064. E.g. the methods used by the US government to identify civilians and militants in drone attacks. This can be a 71 dangerous exercise, as demonstrated by the Obama administration’s practice of identifying all males over the age of 16 in drone strike areas as militants. See Becker, Jo, and Scott Shane. 2012. “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” The New York Times, May 29, 2012. E.g. Fair, Christine, and Ali Hamza. 2017. “Rethinking Baloch Secularism: What the Data Say.” Peace and Conflict 72 Studies 24 (1). https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2946050. - Page of 231 -23 Chapter 1 | Introduction bifurcation between crisis and stability, or violence and peace, it continues to reproduce the trope of chaos. Much public writing on Balochistan, particularly in the contemporary moment, mirrors this War on Terror lens: A recent book on violence in Balochistan applied a greed versus grievance framework (Qadir 2017), another wrote about Balochistan as a site of intrigue and adventure (Marx 2014). 73 The ready availability of a vocabulary casting Pakistan as “failed,” “weak,” “uncivilised,” and a hub for Islamist militancy like ISIS and the Taliban, has prompted some separatist Baloch movements with representation in Europe and North America to deploy the same language. This has included accusations that the Pakistan Army collaborates with ISIS and demands for the military intervention of NATO and India. As Dr. Manan, a now-assassinated leader of the separatist Baloch National Movement (BNM) said to me during my reporting trip to Balochistan in 2013: “We speak the language of NGOs because it is the only language that the world understands.” Or, when Kareema Baloch, the head of the Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad (BSO-Azaad), sent Modi a message on raksha bandhan–an annual festival in which sisters secure ritual protection for their brothers–her organisation’s now-abducted information secretary, Lakmeer, angrily wrote to me: “What else are we supposed to do when everyone is killing us and no one is listening?” Fitting with pre-existing tropes of crisis means this language travels more easily and with greater speed, garnering attention that both separatist nationalists and missing persons organisers hope can pierce the zalālat in which they find themselves. Against far-too-easy critiques and dismissals of Baloch for deploying a reductive discourse, I argue that this indexes the double-silencing, or impasse, produced by the War on Terror. Minorities like the Baloch–or for that matter Kurds turning to the US, Christian Arabs turning to the West, Kashmiris turning to Pakistan–are desperate to get help from anyone who will give it, even if it does not fully align with their own politics. Though this language certainly represents some facts–the Pakistan Army has indeed harboured relations with militant groups–minorities like the Baloch know it fits oddly with their politics: This is apparent from a contentious debate among Baloch nationalists, and from repeated questions posed to me by female BSO-Azaad members, who wanted to know what the UN and NATO stood for and what good intervention would do. However, the challenge lies not in obstructing attempts to garner attention, but rather in co-articulating another equally urgent discourse that can travel as far, as fast. As Chapter 4 will show, alternative global discourses both existed and were deployed by the Baloch during the Cold War in the form of Third World Internationalism. See Ahmad, Mahvish 2018. Myths of Balochistan. Dawn, 28 January 2018. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/73 1385767/non-fiction-myths-of-balochistan. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -24 Chapter 1 | Introduction On the other hand, another set of scholars, concerned with the tendency to reify pre- existing categories of analysis in sites of violence, are wary of researching the state and violence altogether, fearing it may ignite clichés about Muslims and the worlds within which they live. Disturbed by how a War on Terror discourse has almost completely overrun the public domain, these scholars ask: “[W]hat are our responsibilities as those who represent this part of the world in a global discipline whose weight nevertheless remains in WENA [Western Europe and North America], especially if we choose to write in English? In other words, who are our audiences for our work and how should this affect our responsibility to be vigilant about the effects of our knowledge production, which after all takes the form of representations of the social realities in… [the worlds we study]?” (Abu-Lughod 2017, 69) This concern remains a mainstay in literature on violence, in sites like Pakistan and Balochistan; this literature does not unquestioningly apply War on Terror frames; and, it frequently underpins concerns of academics who remain concerned about tropes of crisis. Researchers, especially of Pakistan, have begun to address this concern in new and innovative ways. They have called for a need to go “Beyond Crisis” and “Beyond Tremors and Terror” in studies of Pakistan, arguing that “[m]uch of [the] recent scholarly work on Pakistan … has been guilty of reproducing crude and overly-narrow analysis of the country and its people, an analysis (if one could call it that) which seems to be more committed to promoting US foreign policy objectives than to stimulating any serious academic inquiry” (Khan 2010; Toronto et. al. 74 2014). More specifically, two types of responses have emerged from this critique. The first has engaged with the theme of crisis in new and creative ways, the second has turned the lens to subjugated lifeworlds and histories that have repeatedly been sidelined and repressed. As an example of the first response, Saadia Toor (2011, 2-4) has argued that Pakistan’s supposed crisis is a sign of “the vibrant and dynamic nature of the politico-ideological field in Pakistan.” Meanwhile, Naveeda Khan (2010, 1) has argued that while the themes of “crises,” “instability,” and “chaos” have “overshadowed more nuanced perspectives on Pakistan, they are yet perspicacious in capturing the affect of not getting it right.” Crisis, according to Khan (2010, 1-2), “becomes a moment to ruminate on the artificiality of this most modern construct, [the state,] the failure of nationalism, … and the failure of sovereignty…” Indeed, it becomes “an opportunity to dream of alternative modes of association…” These “alternative modes of association” imagined throughout the contentious history of Pakistan, constitute the second response to themes of crisis. Toor (2011, 2-4) “resurrect[s] the important role played by the Pakistani Left”; Kamran Asdar Ali University of Toronto, York University, and Ryerson University 2014. “Call for Papers | Pakistan Beyond Tremors and 74 Terror: Critical Engagements With Political, Economic And Cultural Change.” Available at: https:// pakistanconference.wordpress.com/. Accessed on 4 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -25 Chapter 1 | Introduction (2015, 2) pays attention to “other perspectives” than that of crisis–in particular, communism in Pakistan–that “could update us about how people, with all the uncertainties in their lives, struggle to maintain a modicum of dignity and create opportunities to live decent and meaningful lives.” Crucial attempts to resurrect these alternate and subjugated imaginations of subjectivity and collectivity has become central to studies of Pakistan as scholars recognise that available histories are the “fruit of power” and that alternate ones are actively erased by the state (Trouillot 1995, xix; Salim 1991, 1997; Aziz 1993; Toor 2011; Ali 2015; Uddin 2016; Caron and Dasgupta 2016; Qasmi and Robb 2017; Raza 2014). However, despite creative and exciting responses and alternatives to War on Terror framings, studies of sovereign violence–one of the most obvious and blatant manifestation of the problematic theme of crisis–has been tacitly circumvented within this more nuanced literature. This is not akin to saying that there is no research on violence. However, research focusing on the state’s violence in Pakistan has concentrated on violence-making institutions through a focus on the history and political economy of the military (Fair 2014; Nawaz 2008; Jalal 1990; Siddiqa 2007) or on exceptional moments of violence in the contestation of power between the colonial state and anti-colonial uprisings (like the Battle of Plassey, the Uprising of 1857, or the 1919 Jalianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar) or between the postcolonial state and contemporary militancies (illustrated by the proliferation of writing on the War on Terror since 9/11). Studies have also focused on violence in and among the social, most notably insurgent violence (Sheikh 2016; Rashid 2000), gangsters, criminal networks, and ethno-politically-driven violence (Gayer 2010; Verkaaik 2004), and, to a far lesser extent, gendered violence (Shah 2016; Anwar, Mustafa, Sawas and Malik 2016). This means that violence, and its place in disciplining territory and subjects, has mostly been circumvented; the result is an inadvertent ceding of analytical space to the very crisis-centric approach which these more subtle perspectives seek to decentre. When it comes to literature on Balochistan or the frontier this absence is particularly glaring. In the post-9/11 era, the entire Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier region has been subject to exceptional levels of state-led destruction. Though this state-led destruction officially started with the launch of Operation Al-Mizan in FATA in 2002 and is currently on-going with Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad across the country, it has also had an exceptionally large and overpowering place in the lives of frontier peoples through the informal and everyday physical violence of threats, checkpoints, disappearances, encounters, raids, censorship, surveillance, and more. While there has been a proliferation of academic writing on the imperial violence of drones in FATA, which borders Pakistani Balochistan, there has been comparatively little scholarly focus on the history or place of state-led destruction which is simultaneously embedded in and separate from imperial violence, outside of the important and brave, but ultimately policed, censored, and - Page of 231 -26 Chapter 1 | Introduction reactive worlds of journalistic or political writing. While there are crucial studies of subaltern lifeworlds (Haroon 2007; Caron 2016; Shahzad and Crews 2012; Hopkins and Marsden 2011), there is comparatively little work on the place of destruction in state-making and state rule, though recent scholars working on Pakistan are seeking to rectify this lacunae (Tahir 2017; Alimia 2016; Iqtidar 2016; Maqsood 2016). Pakistani Balochistan is particularly hit by the absence of this research: As Jamali (2007) notes, most scholarly writings on Pakistani Balochistan have circumvented the historical and contemporary place of state-led destruction in the everyday lives of the province’s peoples, focusing instead on exceptionally local like “tribal” formations or distantly global dynamics like geopolitical intrigues. Outside of some select and very recent work (Swidler 2014; Titus 2011)– focusing on the reconstitution of space through the construction of Gwadar Port (Jamali 2014), everyday experiences of violence among Karachi’s Baloch (Kirmani 2015), oral narratives of Partition among the Baloch (Suhail and Lutfi 2016), or the circulations of Baloch military labor (Lutfi 2018)–detailed work among and with the Baloch has mostly been limited to exceptionally local phenomenon. This gives “the impression that the Baloch are pre-modern beings living in bounded cultural groups which are relatively unconcerned with larger geo-strategic and political developments in the region and the world.” (Jamali 2007) Indeed, analyses of sovereign violence remain few and far between: The only scholarship that comes close to registering and exploring the place of state-led destruction is that of the Baloch nationalists themselves, who weave moments of state violence into their historical and contemporary narratives of resistance (Janmahmad 1989; Marri 2015; Baloch 1987). The history of their five armed uprisings–in 1948, 1958, 1963-’69, 1973-’77 and post-2001 until today–and the role of state violence in both sparking and responding to the insurgencies, constitutes the nodes though which most Baloch nationalist narratives tell the story of resistance. While these two, extreme positions of reification and circumvention in no way fully account for a rich and nuanced academic literature on state and violence, they do index the public terrain within which this dissertation is written; this public terrain is not wholly irrelevant, as it continues to shape the questions that are asked and the topics that are investigated by scholars, particularly researchers of Pakistan and Balochistan. The axiom which consistently produces this public divide, and which this dissertation actively departs from, is that a disordered state of nature and an ordered state of law are necessary opposites. Indeed, the teleology of a state that necessarily progresses towards order undergirds both liberal and Marxist theories of it; these theories cast a disordered, wild state of nature as a historical and spatial “origin point” and, therefore, the necessary opposite of the state. As Das and Poole (2004, 8) point out, “[t]he fact that Hobbes ([1651] 1968), Locke ([1690] 1988), Rousseau ([1762] - Page of 231 -27 Chapter 1 | Introduction 1981), and other early theorists of the state imagined the state of nature through the image of America as both a real site of savagery and an idealized primordial place suggests that we, too, should think of the margins of the state–the “state of nature”–as located in the space and practice where the real spaces or sites that provide impetus to the idea of the state of nature meet the mythical or philosophical origins of the state.” It is therefore not a coincidence that the imagined margin of Pakistani Balochistan is frequently described as an abandoned place of “anarchy” that 75 has yet to be ordered by the state of law. While counteracting the representation of places like Balochistan (or for that matter Pakistan) as a site of chaos is crucial–for instance through a search for other, ordered worlds than that of the state–I contend that it is also necessary to question the foundational claim that disorder and order are necessary opposites. The tacit circumvention of physical, sovereign violence by the critical lineage of scholars on Pakistan and Balochistan who problematise tropes of chaos indexes the tenacity of this binary prism, which casts order and disorder as necessary opposites. The point, therefore, is not (merely) to locate order, contention, or life in places cast as disorderly–for example through the crucial resurrection of alternate, subaltern political lifeworlds–but to remember that stability and instability, violence and peace, coercion and consent are co-imbricated. As Benjamin (1942) reminds us, “[t]here is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” The challenge remains to speak of the disordering effects of states and their violence without casting a place like Pakistan and Balochistan as exceptionally chaotic. The dissertation therefore takes its point of departure in literature that argues that violence is constitutive of power, rather than oppositional to it as Hannah Arendt (1969) argued. It thus follows Charles Tilly (1985) when he emphasises “the interdependence of war-making and state-making,” Frantz Fanon (1961) when he identifies violence as the founding moment of power, and, of course, Walter Benjamin (1942)–with whom this dissertation opens–when he 76 states that “[t]he tradition of the oppressed reminds us that the ‘state of emergency’ is not the exception but the rule.” In other words, the dissertation situates itself amidst literature across the disciplines of history, sociology, and anthropology, which have similarly seen violence as constitutive of state power. This includes historical studies into the founding violence of imperial and post-colonial rule (Pierce and Rao 2006; Pandey 2008; Chatterjee 2012; Kolsky 2011, 2015; Condos 2016a, 2016b; Barder 2015; Taussig 1986), sociological tracings of expansive violence- Grare, Frederic. 2013. “Balochistan: The State Versus the Nation,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 11 April 75 2013. Available at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/04/11/balochistan-state-versus-nation-pub-51488. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. He also identified violence, despite his protestations that he had been mis-read, as the necessary anti-dote to the 76 violence of the state, the only way to subvert a colonial system. This dissertation does engage with the question of violence within political movements, though it inevitably emerges since Baloch insurgents have regularly attacked the state. See Fanon, Frantz 1961. “Concerning Violence,” in Wretched of the Earth, Grove Press. - Page of 231 -28 Chapter 1 | Introduction making institutions and their practices like the army and police (Melman 1974; Kaldor 2013; Tilly 1985; Skocpol 1979; Mann 2003; Shaw 1991; Bacevich 2002; Khalili and Schwedler 2010; Khalili 2012), and anthropological studies investigating living and dying with state violence in the everyday (Taussig 1997, 2003; Sluka 1999; Shah and Kelly 2006; Das and Poole 2004; Hansen and Stepputat 2005). Here, the liberal notion of the violent disorder of nature which is suppressed by a state through the peaceful order of law is read in a different light: The former is the raison d’être for the latter, and therefore constitutive, sometimes even produced by the latter to justify its own existence. The dissertation’s primary incision into existing literature on violence and the state is through the deployment of the heuristic of destruction–which, as mentioned earlier, is defined as the reversal (de-) of something that is built (-struere). The deployment of destruction intervenes 77 in literature on violence and the state. Firstly, expansive literature on violence over the past many years has expanded its definition in both enriching and confounding ways. On the one hand, more expansive studies have brought to light hidden forms of violence–classed, gendered, racialised or emergent in structures of cities, income inequality, gendered hierarchies, and forms of knowledge (e.g. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Bourdieu 1979; Farmer 1996; Bourgois 2001). On the other, this expansion has also led to “[d]isagreements on how to define violence, what categories of events, practices, and discourses to include under its sign, and how to conceptualize it” (Khalili 2013, 791). It is precisely from an acknowledgement that “[v]iolence is a slippery concept–non-linear, productive, destructive and reproductive” that this dissertation deploys its most conservative and narrow definition as a destructive force (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004, 1). Or, as a force that erases, obfuscates, annihilates, unravels, and undoes that which already exists in the sites in which it is concentrated. Secondly, the heuristic of destruction intervenes in literature on the state, much of it inspired by Foucault, which focuses on all that which the state produces rather than that which it destroys. These seminal works, which include Bernard S. Cohn’s essays in Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, Timothy Mitchell’s (1988) Colonising Egypt, James C. Scott’s (1998) Seeing Like A State, and Nicholas B. Dirks’ (2001) Castes of the Mind, have discerned and delineated how the order-making function of the state under both colonial and post-colonial rule has identified, categorised, and reified social categories for the purposes of rule; these have, in turn, been a It comes from the Latin destruere, from de-, expressing reversal, and -struere, which means to build. Building, as a 77 term, refers to a dwelling or an inner room, and also traces its meaning back to the German bauer which means birdcage. The building that is reversed during moments of destruction thus seem to be both that which contains us and that which does not allow us to fly free. The use of the term destroy thus allows me to explore the reversal of something that is built– that which both secures and limits us–in those moments when government officials order destruction. - Page of 231 -29 Chapter 1 | Introduction reminder that the state does not exist as such but is “an effect of mundane processes” of state administration (Mitchell 2006, 185). These studies expanded the remit of critiques of state-making and state rule by pointing out how seemingly benign processes, which aimed to establish order, were shot through with power. They pointed out that colonial conquest was embedded not merely in military expeditions, but in the “cultural effects of colonialism” and post-colonial rule and, in reminding us that the state was produced in everyday bureaucratic processes, they alerted us to how the state is not an entity that merely exists prior to social practices but are a result of these practices (Dirks 1996, viv; Sharma and Gupta 2006; Hull 2012). Inspired by Foucault, these studies have been particularly invested in understanding how state practices produced legible, docile subjects for the purposes of rule (Foucault 1975a). At best, ideas of war and violence have been used as metaphorical or discursive descriptions of conflict, as Foucault (1975b) does in Society Must Be Defended; the destructive (rather than productive) effects of physical and corporeal punishment is too often circumvented, primarily because of Foucault’s dedication to counteracting the dominance of the “repressive hypothesis” which at his time had been too all- encompassing an explanation for power (1975b, 17-18). While the dissertation maintains this 78 interest in the relationship between the state and political subjectivity, it calls for an investigation of the underside of this process: In order to produce subjects for rule other identities and socialities necessarily had to be sufficiently destroyed, to clear the ground and path for state construction of territories and subjects. One of the most frequent interventions into this literature is made through an invocation of Giorgio Agamben’s (1998, 2008) theory on the state of exception and bare life, inspired by Walter Benjamin (1942) and Carl Schmitt’s (1934) idea of the sovereign as “he who decides on the exception.” The use of Agamben is particularly frequent among scholars working on state violence, particularly marginal places like Balochistan, because colonial and post-colonial states have so often declared martial and emergency law in such sites. Yet, the frequency with which the colonial state launched military expeditions before 1947, and the repeated invocation of emergency after 1947, is an indication that the lens of exception–which is present everywhere, all the time–is not analytically useful, though Agamben himself admits that exception increasingly In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault 1975b, 17-18) says: “Without wishing to boast, I think I have in fact long been 78 suspicious of this notion of ‘repression,’ and I have attempted to show you, in relation to the genealogies I was talking about just now, in relation to the history of penal law, psychiatric power, controls on infantile sexuality, and so on, that the mechanisms at work in these power formations were something very different from—or at least much more than—repression. I cannot go any further without repeating some of this analysis of repression, without pulling together everything I have said about it, no doubt in a rambling sort of way. The next lecture, perhaps the next two lectures, will therefore be devoted to a critical reexamination of the notion of "repression," to trying to show how and why what is now the widespread notion of repression cannot provide an adequate description of the mechanisms and effects of power, cannot define them.” - Page of 231 -30 Chapter 1 | Introduction shoots through its opposite, the “normal” (Agamben 1998). Moreover, in his idea of bare life, 79 there is little, if any, place for historical or contemporary dissent. Indeed, an Agambian lens inadvertently reproduces the gaze of the state it seeks to critique by writing lives as bare. Perhaps that is why, despite the prolific writings on the frontier regions of Pakistan in the post-9/11 era (particularly with US drone bombardments in FATA), there is surprisingly limited scholarship on the political histories and lifeworlds of those targeted in such moments of destruction, outside of War on Terror treatises on militant groups active in these sites. In other words, in the Agambian register, the state of exception is an empty place with empty people, which can inadvertently result in research that reifies state and legal practices productive of bare life with little attention paid to those actually being targeted in moments of violence. One can write about bombing without ever speaking about those being bombed. The turn towards subjugated histories and lifeworlds within literature on Pakistan, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border territories, and Balochistan in particular therefore constitutes a crucial intervention, which counteracts the inherent tendency to reproduce these sites as empty places with no history or politics worthy of attention (Toor 2011; Ali 2015; Qasmi and Robb 2017; Haroon 2007; Caron 2016; Shahzad and Crews 2012; Hopkins and Marsden 2011). To centre the places and peoples targeted in destruction, the dissertation begins by turning to anthropological studies in sites of violence. During long-running fieldwork among those who live in violence, anthropologists have found that the state is not just “constructed through its writing practices”–or through processes that render societies legible–but also through processes of illegibility (Das and Poole 2004, 9-10). Reflecting on Walter Benjamin’s notion of the state of exception in the context of Colombia, Michael Taussig draws out the intimate connection between order and disorder, or what he calls “ordered disorder” (quoting Bertolt Brecht surveying Germany in the 1930s, Taussig 1992, 16). He points out that the disorder so often established as the Agamben (1998, 28) does this most notably through the use of the following diagram: 79 - Page of 231 -31 Chapter 1 | Introduction necessary opposite and origin point of state power is in fact intrinsic to the state, most notably in the following quote where he reflects on the Armed Forces in Colombia: [T]he Armed Forces… have as much to gain from disorder as from order–and probably a good deal more… Indeed, in the case of the Armed Forces, disorder is surely intrinsic to its modus operandi where the arbitrariness of power is practiced as an exquisitely fine art of social control. Furthermore, what does it mean to define such a situation as exists in Colombia as chaotic, given that the chaos is everyday, not a deviation from the norm, and in a strategically important political sense is a disordered order no less than it is an ordered disorder? (Taussig 1992, 17) Here, Taussig moves away from the idea that the state is necessarily about its order-making functions; later, in The Magic of the State, Taussig (1997) augments this analysis by invoking the state’s magical (rather than rationalist) hold. Similarly, Yael Navaro (2002, 4) investigates how the state “survives analysis, critique, or deconstruction” in Turkey by arguing that “the state lives on in the fantasies of its subjects who would regenerate it and reerect it after its multiple crises.” The arbitrariness of the state as central to its rule is also emphasised in Begoña Aretxaga’s (2005, 264) essay, Maddening States, where she points out that “the power of the state is harnessed not so much from the rationality of ordering practices, as from the passions of transgression, in which the line between the legal and the illegal is constantly blurred.” Similarly, in his study of checkpoints in Sri Lanka, Pradeep Jaganathan (2004, 72) notes how this nodal point is a site where “the state performs the magic of its illegibility with… breathtaking precision.” Like anthropologists working in sites of violence, I too was alerted to how the disordering of state and society is intimately connected with its ordering, as will become particularly clear in Chapter 4, where I investigate contemporary destruction through ethnographic fieldwork. The illegibility, fantasy, magic, excess, and disorder that repeatedly emerges in anthropologies of the state and its violence are the primary analytical focus of this dissertation on state destruction in Balochistan not as an alternate to analyses connecting the state primarily with order-making, but as a complement to them. Indeed, I follow Veena Das (2004, 225) in arguing that “the state… [is] neither a purely rational-bureaucratic organization nor simply a fetish, but … a form of regulation that oscillates between a rational mode and a magical mode of being.” Das (2004, 234) goes on to argue that it is the “illegibility of the state, the unreadability of its rules and regulations… that allows the oscillation between the rational and the magical to become the defining feature of the state in such margins.” However, the dissertation differs from this anthropological insight into the state and its violence as sites of illegibility, magic, disorder, and fetish in three ways. One, it expands the notion of illegibility, which at the moment only refers to encounters with the state, to include the - Page of 231 -32 Chapter 1 | Introduction entire social world. Throughout this dissertation, I investigate how social relations were not only constructed through the order-making functions of the state, as Cohn (1996), Dirks (2001) and Mitchell (1988) remind us, but also targeted for disordering. Indeed, it is this expansion of anthropological insight which has resulted in my decision to use the broader term of destruction to refer to not just the process through which certain socialities are rendered illegible, but also how they are dismantled and dispersed. These destructive processes of dismantlement and dispersion take place, for example, when state forces destroy physical sites like study centres or hostel rooms where students meet in circles to forge relations between sangat or comrades through the articulation of a zameer, shaoor, nazriyat–a mind, consciousness, ideology–that can run counter to that of the state. Or, it took place via the infusion of suspicion among siblings, sangat, friends, and family through the state-sanctioned development of mukhbir or informant networks that penetrated and erupted into people’s social worlds whenever they discovered that someone they trusted was a state agent. Two, it historicises the process through which counter-societies are broken down, by tracing destruction not merely in the field, through ethnographic work, but in the archive, in state and movement documents. In other words, it gives destruction a history and context, especially against Taussig’s argument (implicit in his use of fictocritical writing) that the state’s illegibility must be invoked through writing similarly magical. It does this through a study of three specific moments of state violence in the colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary era, paying particular attention to moments where the state is unable to read, through the application of its own forms of knowledge, the social world, and instead resorts to mimicking the chaos that it sees. This mimicry was apparent in the colonial era, when a colonial officer described the imperial army as a jinn he could not control, and that was as much “beyond reason” as the “fanatics” that it was bombing (see Chapter 2). It was also evident during the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency campaign, where the sitting government under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto launched 80,000 troops against what one helicopter pilot who served in Balochistan called an “imagined enemy”–a made-up separatist who had yet to exist (see Chapter 3). And, it manifested itself in the widespread, circulating sensation of what one public school teacher called an andha dhund, or a blind and directionless fog, which enwrapped the worlds of those targeted in violence in the contemporary moment; unable to fit the peoples and places of Balochistan within the ideological foundations of the Pakistani state, security forces instead produced the confusion that they saw in Balochistan by constantly narrating stories of nefarious plans that could not be shared but that nevertheless necessitated extreme violence (see Chapter 4). Finally, this dissertation engages with a broader turn within studies of Pakistan and Balochistan, which seeks to centre other lifeworlds than those sanctioned by the state. Central to - Page of 231 -33 Chapter 1 | Introduction this turn, though not always explicitly articulated, has been the recurring question: Where are Pakistan’s progressive democratic movements? Studies of political possibilities pursued and unrealised is in part linked to this politically existential question reflective of a deep investment in Pakistan’s democratic futures. The centring of counter-collectivities is in part an effort to remember against state attempts at erasure; a reminder that other futures were and remain possible. To carry out this centring, the dissertation turns to Gramsci-inspired ideas of hegemony and theorisations from figures and movements similarly subject to destruction, who remind us how lifeworlds persist despite violence. Gramsci may, like Foucault, have seen a place like Balochistan as an expression of the domination of the state rather than hegemony, where there is talk of rule through coercion rather than consent (Williams 1977, 108). I follow other scholars in arguing that it makes little sense to distinguish between coercion and consent so sharply (Khalili and Schwedler 2010; Massad 2001). Instead, I investigate how coercion ensures that counter-collectivities, or alternate imaginations of sociality, are sought eliminated in order to clear the ground upon which a hegemonic consent can then be constructed. By doing so, I focus on the underside of Gramsci-inspired studies into the construction of hegemony–or, what must be cleared away in order to articulate a hegemonic order. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985) provided a corrective to the “naïve sociologism" that “takes political forms as representative of preconstituted political entities” by centring the articulatory processes that undergird all political projects (Laclau in Howarth 2005, 160; De Leon, Desai and Tuğal 2009, 200). Alongside other scholars, they reminded us that there is no subject–like the Baloch, worker, woman, Muslim–which pre- exists articulation (Brubaker 2004; Hall 1986; Omi and Winant 1994). Rather, political subjectivity must be articulated by a suturing together of various constituents of perceived and lived social forms. As De Leon, Desai and Tuğal (2009, 199) remind us in their work on political articulation: “This integrating group is not some super-subject above history, but is defined and created by the work of integration; the activity creates the subject. Conversely, society is not a self-reproducing entity but a result of the work of integration.” My analysis both agrees with and departs from this Gramsci-inspired focus on articulation so crucial to the production of democratic alternatives by centring its necessary opposite, namely the active dis-articulation of discourses that threaten state-sanctioned hegemonic order. I argue that the unraveling of counter-hegemonies– constitutive of what I call counter-societies–is not random, but rather has a pattern that must be discerned and delineated, especially if we hope to open political space for the proliferation of plural and democratic imaginations and collectivities. To do so, it deploys Yael Navaro’s (2017) insight that the process of destruction is never complete; it is this incompleteness that ensures that counter-collectives survive “in spite of all - Page of 231 -34 Chapter 1 | Introduction efforts to eliminate, bury, curb, and control.” Perhaps, no one reminds us of this more than the places and peoples from collectivities historically targeted by sovereign violence (Moten and Harney 2013; Campt 2014; Anzalduá 1987; Öcalan 2017a, 2017b). Moten and Harney’s (2013, 75) notion of the “fugitive, ambling neighbourhoods of the undercommons”–a space and time consisting of the many who “refuse to be a subject to a law that refuses to recognize” them (Campt 2014)–reminds us that there are always communities that persist despite attempts at annihilation and subjection. Gloria Anzalduá (1987, 25) similarly points to how lifeworlds persist in the form of a third world, “a third country–a border culture” despite the violence on the US- Mexican border. And, Abdullah Öcalan (2017a, 135) reminds us that “[a]ll species of living organisms have defence systems of their own. There is not a single defenceless species.” It is these defence systems, the inherent ability to live in the cracks even when under attack, that ensures that nothing is ever fully destroyed, and therefore that the possibility of politics, dissent, and democracy itself is always possible even in the most dire circumstances. “Defence is an essential function of society,” Öcalan (2017b, 55) says. “Life cannot be sustained without it.” Within 80 Balochistan itself, this is apparent in zikrs (Sufi devotional hymns) remembering young boys disappeared or dumped; in 2013, during a reporting trip in southern Balochistan, I went to a zikr khaana (literally, a house or corner of zikr) where women devoted a zikr to Reza Jahangir, the secretary general of the BSO-Azaad who was killed just a few months earlier. It is expressed in embroidery that women sew onto their dresses, symbolising sarmachars–separatist militants–who fight in the mountains. And, it is repeated in the continued expression and circulation of war ballads, handed down through generations, the circulation of rumours about past ghazis killed under colonial rule. III Studying Violence 2: Methodology To study methodologies of destruction, this dissertation carries out a close reading of three moments of state destruction: a 1918 colonial military expedition launched on northeastern Marris, Khetranis, and others who refused conscription into the Imperial Army; a 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation launched after the dismissal of Balochistan’s first provincial government, prompting the launch of an armed insurgency by a constellation of Baloch and their left-wing allies; and post-2001 harassment, disappearances, torture, kill-and-dumps, “encounter” or extra-judicial killings, and army operations–intensified after the killing of the nationalist Though he goes on to describe the importance of organising self-defence in order to ensure a democratic 80 community, the fundamental premise of his argument (that lives are protected despite attempts at annihilation) remains. Öcalan 2017a. - Page of 231 -35 Chapter 1 | Introduction figure, Akbar Bugti, in 2007–at a time when the Pakistani state is attempting to turn Balochistan into an engine of growth for the rest of the country. On the one hand, attempts to collect material for each of these moments was characterised by methodological failure, albeit a perspicacious one. I was unable to gather oral history interviews on war ballads and memories handed down through generations on the 1918 military expedition. The two attempts that were made–during visits to Marris living on the outskirts of Quetta and those living in northeastern Balochistan’s Kohlu district–failed: While the former Marris were subject to operations by the FC, the latter were working closely with the state as a militia armed by the government. It was, therefore, almost impossible to stay in these areas long enough without attracting suspicion, certainly not for the purposes of recording histories of a moment of violence that took place over a hundred years ago. Similarly, materials on the 1973-’77 counter-insurgency operation proved difficult to gather. A civil servant who encountered me in the Balochistan Archives reviewing colonial-era documents, offered to help me find materials related to the 1973 dismissal of Balochistan’s provincial government. Yet, a joint visit to relevant offices revealed that files had been sold to local vegetable-sellers to clear out space; when we managed to locate an abandoned room with sacks of documents from this period, they were strewn about, dusty and moth-eaten. The one file that I managed to locate–case documents detailing the federal government’s arrest of Balochistan’s unofficial poet laureate, Mir Gul Khan Nasir, on prostitution charges–were lost to me when the civil servant originally keen to help me was found out by his mother-in-law. The next day, she called me threatening to have me kidnapped and dumped in Kandahar with the Taliban. Finally, during my studies of contemporary violence I deliberately avoided interacting with state officials, in order to move freely around Balochistan and other places in Pakistan. The decision to prioritise the experiences of those targeted by violence rather than the narratives of those deploying it was deliberate: The former was more difficult to access than the latter, especially given current levels of surveillance. After all, the state’s position on violence was freely available in official statements. These moments of methodological failure are a potent reminder of the challenges of studying histories and experiences of state violence in a site still subject to it. Yet, what was available for study and what was possible to access also revealed the contours and content of on-going destruction: After all, the destruction of documents pertaining to the dismissal of the 1973 provincial government in Balochistan indexes both the deliberate silencing and indifferent abandonment of an important part of history in Pakistan and Balochistan. It also reveals how the state attempts to contain mobility and encounter between those from Pakistan’s centre and those from its imagined peripheries. - Page of 231 -36 Chapter 1 | Introduction On the other hand, each moment of violence is analysed through an abundant, albeit uneven, set of material. For the analysis of the 1918 military expedition, I read 3000 pages of colonial telegraphs sent to and from the office of the Attorney to the Governor General (AGG), the highest-ranking civilian colonial officer in Balochistan at the time. The material, gathered from the Balochistan Archives at the Civil Secretariat in Quetta, provides an opportunity to follow the 81 day-to-day operations of civilian and military officers engaged in the expedition for the purposes of unpacking the logics that underpinned their decisions to circumscribe, bomb, and subject Marris who had refused to be conscripted into the Imperial Army. This chapter also turns to another 3000 pages of case files detailing peoples living in Balochistan tried under the Murderous Outrages Act (MOA), in order to describe how colonial violence was not limited to moments when martial law was declared but also took place during moments of ordinary governance. For background information on the colonisation of Balochistan and the early establishment and shaping of the state, I turned to excellent work by historians and anthropologists of the Baloch, Balochistan, and other peoples and places in Pakistan’s frontier regions, including Inayatullah Baloch (1987), Shah Mohammad Marri (2015), Taj Mohammad Breseeg (2004), Naseer Dashti (2017), Nina Swidler (2014), and Benjamin Hopkins and Magnus Marsden (2011). For an analysis of the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation I combine documents issued by the Pakistani state (Supreme Court, the Government of Pakistan under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and the National and Provincial Assembly) with movement documents issued by the insurgent Pararis (later renamed the Baloch Popular Liberation Front, or BPLF), the Baloch Student Organisation (BSO), and the National Awami Party (NAP). One of the most important sources was Jabbal, an underground pamphlet issued by the Pararis/BPLF during the 1973-’77 operation to counter the narrative of the Pakistani state. State materials were primarily collected from state 82 archives in Islamabad, like the Supreme Court, the website of the legislative assemblies, and online forums featuring speeches and statements by Bhutto and his Pakistan People’s Party. Materials on Baloch movements consisted of interviews with those who took part in or witnessed the operations, as well as documents from the private collection of one participant who asked his name not to be shared. It was also gathered from Ahmed Saleem in Islamabad, a former member of NAP who has dedicated his life to archiving Pakistan’s left movements. An earlier version of this dissertation planned to study the formation and dissolution of NAP, a left-wing, multi-ethnic Thank you to Hafeez Jamali, the former director of the Balochistan Archives at the Civil Secretariat in Quetta, for 81 ensuring not only that I got access to the archives, but that I was not charged an arm and a leg for photocopying what turned out to be two suitcases full of material. Other than a recent book published by Salman Rafi Sheikh entitled The Genesis of Baloch Nationalism: Politics and 82 Ethnicity in Pakistan, 1947-1977, these pamphlets have never been a part of research on Baloch politics before. - Page of 231 -37 Chapter 1 | Introduction party that sought to wrest control from a homogenising and centralising state which cemented the dominance of Punjabis and Urdu-speakers in the military and bureaucracy respectively. Therefore, original materials, including pamphlets, minutes, speeches, letters, and more belonging to NAP and its members collected for this earlier dissertation from the Foreign Office Archives at Kew Gardens and the International Institute of Social History at Amsterdam also inform the dissertation’s investigation of the 1973-’77 campaign. The analysis of contemporary, post-2001 state violence is based on 10 months of fieldwork in and around Balochistan between January and September 2016. The material consisted of over 100 audio recordings or handwritten transcripts of formal interviews and informal conversations, as well as 750 pages of daily journal entries written over a 10-month period. Around half of those interviewed agreed to have either the full or a part of the interview recorded, the rest asked me to take notes during conversations or asked me to remember what they said. Those I interviewed were roughly split into five groups. The first consisted of politicians and political organisers of either pro-Pakistani political parties like the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-Mengal) or the National Party (NP) or separatist organisations like the Balochistan National Movement (BNM), Balochistan Student Organisation-Azaad (BSO-Azaad), and in a handful of instances members of the armed Baloch Liberation Front (BLF). More specifically, I found myself in the unexpected position of arriving in a home in Balochistan’s southern Dasht territory, where a now- assassinated camp commander had retired to spend time with his wife and his newly-born baby. The three days and two nights I spent there was an unprecedented opportunity to speak to BLF commanders; these conversations had previously been unavailable to me. The second group consisted of missing persons organisers like Mama Qadeer and Nasrullah Baloch, who were part of groups like the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), Baloch Human Rights Organisation (BHRO), and Baloch Rights Council (BRC). The third group consisted of academics, writers, students, teachers, lawyers, journalists, and other professionals who were not part of any political organisation, but because of their public activities and movements were frequently targeted in moments of state violence. The fourth group consisted of non-Baloch who had been involved in solidarity work with Baloch, or who took part in the 1973-’77 insurgency. The final group consisted of families and friends of the missing and the dead. This final group consisted of the largest number of interviews, though access to them was frequently mediated by networks of politicians and political organisers within the pro-Pakistani ethno-nationalist, separatist Baloch, and missing persons movements. I have developed these networks through my work as a journalist and as a political organiser in Pakistan between 2010 and 2014–i.e. in the years prior to the start of research for this dissertation. Of the networks that mediated access, members of the VBMP and the BSO- Azaad went out of their way. Without these mediators, I would have been completely unable to - Page of 231 -38 Chapter 1 | Introduction carry out my fieldwork; my decision to work with these mediators was a result of a concern that traveling with state security forces would have impeded my access to interviews and potentially endangered those that I was speaking to. In particular, BSO-Azaad’s 22-year old information secretary, Shabbir Baloch, coordinated several meetings with both members and non-members of his organisation; he was abducted just two months after I returned from fieldwork, and remains missing to this day. His abduction is a reminder of the conditions under which this fieldwork is carried out; indeed, since I first began to write on Balochistan in 2010, several Baloch that I came to know and spent several days with have been disappeared or killed, including Zakir Majeed of the BSO-Azaad and Dr. Abdul Manan of the BNM. At the moment, surveillance of anyone wishing to write about state violence in Balochistan is at a high; as a result, it was almost impossible to do long-term ethnographic fieldwork at any one site. Nevertheless, there were a handful of sites that I repeatedly visited over a long period of time. For purposes of security, I have excluded information on my regular meeting points around Quetta or Karachi. Otherwise, the fieldwork consisted of frequent visits to various sites targeted in violence, most notably New Kahan on the outskirts of Quetta, Kahan in northeastern Balochistan, and territories in the south that surround Gwadar Port. Most notably, I spent around three weeks traveling the southern territories, driving from Karachi to Turbat, through to Tump on the border to Iran, down through Dasht, and over to Gwadar. By the time I arrived in Gwadar, my movements had been tracked and I was taken by members of Pakistan’s intelligence services along with three other women traveling with me at the time. After an overnight interrogation in offices in Gwadar, we were transferred blindfolded in a small military plane to an unknown location. There, we were kept in a cell with 24/7 fan and light while being interrogated for several hours at a time. Four days after being picked up, we were all released. The reaction of scholars on whether I should include this information has been mixed; some have said that it must be not only included but analytically mobilised, while others have argued that it draws unnecessary attention to my person when the focus should be on the Baloch undergoing violence. Against the positivist idea that my study within the field and archive can be disembodied from my own person, I argue that it is necessary to acknowledge that the subject and object of inquiry is always entangled, often in revealing ways. Indeed, while in custody, me and the other women deployed tropes of patriarchal protection to demand better treatment; we also ascertained the time of day, otherwise kept from us, by asking which salah we should pray, scheduled as they are at different times during the day. These experiences revealed other “social truths” that those in the employ of state intelligence hold dear, namely ideas of patriarchal protection and Islam–though both co-existed with the viscerally-felt knowledge that we were women vulnerable in the face of men who had abducted us (Aretxaga 2005, 53). My interactions - Page of 231 -39 Chapter 1 | Introduction also co-existed in complex ways with the Punjabi identity I shared with those overseeing us, and the Danish citizenship that could either save me or further endanger me. In perverse ways, the experience provided another node through which I came to understand the disciplinary role of destruction and coercion in Balochistan. The unevenness of material from both the archive and the field presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity lies in what the unevenness tells us about processes of destruction. Which materials are available and which remain inaccessible is not neutral, but rather reflective of relations of power both vis-a-vis the Pakistani state, and vis-a-vis which parts of Balochistan are able to write or speak for themselves in a language that was accessible to me. Most of those I spoke to either had some level of education, especially Baloch women, or were able to speak Urdu because they had learnt it as seasonal workers in cities like Karachi or Quetta. Secondly, the places I was and was not able to enter were determined by ongoing operations as well as by my own person: As a Punjabi woman with a Danish passport, some places were more easy to enter while others remained inaccessible. What doors are open and which ones are closed says something about what is obfuscated by states and communities alike for the purposes of destruction and protection. It is also a potent reminder that researchers must come from different backgrounds precisely because different peoples and places are made available to us depending on who we are; judging from the many students from Balochistan who have contacted me about research, there is undoubtedly topics that they can attend to that will be difficult, even impossible, for me to approach. On the other hand, the unevenness of the material provided a challenge, requiring the application of different analytical tools in my studies of methodologies of destruction. Mainly having access to colonial documents of the 1918 military expedition prompted a turn to Ann Stoler (2002, 2010). Stoler argues that a dominant critical approach to colonial archives, propagated especially by Ranajit Guha (1997) and the subalternists, have advocated that one read “‘against the grain’ of imperial history, empire builders, and the priorities and perceptions of those who wrote them” (Stoler 2010, 47). The argument is that “the grand narratives of colonialism have been amply and excessively told.” (Stoler 2002, 100) Therefore, scholars of colonial archives propagate that there is a need to carry out bottom-up readings of top-down sources with the aim of “inversion and recuperation” of subjugated histories which centre the agency of colonial subjects (Stoler 2010, 47, 50). While this is a crucial enterprise, I agree with Stoler (2002, 100) that one must question the assumption that histories of the colonial state “have been amply told”; behind this argument lies the Foucauldian-inspired hypothesis that the colonial state primarily has to do with knowledge and power, and that states are driven to acquire more of the first to strengthen the latter. However, I found that a close reading of the 1918 military - Page of 231 -40 Chapter 1 | Introduction expedition revealed that the AGG and the colonial officers he was communicating with were not driven by knowledge or the desire to acquire more of it, but rather that they were frequently confounded. Indeed, where colonial logic repeatedly fell apart, stringent frames of knowing were unable to account for people who did not act like the “tribal” subjects they were supposed to be. In response, the state mimicked what it perceived as chaos. Much like Stoler (2002), I argue that such moments of discomposure indicated that it also makes sense to read top-down sources not merely with attention to subjugated histories, but also “for its regularities, for its logic of recall, for its densities and distributions, for its consistencies of misinformation, omission, and mistake– along the archival grain.” In other words, a turn to Stoler (2002, 2010) allowed me to force more out of the material I did have for all the insight it could provide me, rather than remain limited by traces of bottom-up histories obfuscated or written out, or paralysed by all the material that I could not access. Meanwhile, despite the difficulty of accessing documents, I had more capacious access to state and movement documents in and around the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation. Nevertheless, these too provided challenges; the protagonists of the event, still alive, regularly subjected narrations of the event to both rumour and silence, a point to which I will return in Chapter 3. While rumour ensured that stories of the operation were pregnant with contradictory information, making it almost impossible to ascertain what actually happened, silence resulted in punctuated impasses in the form of people who refused to meet me or information deliberately withheld in conversation. In order to address material scarce or full of silences, I attempt to piece together what Yael Navaro (2017) calls the “shards” left in the long aftermath of violence. And, to navigate material abundant with rumour–which, for instance, would over-narrate stories of those countering state violence as signs of necessary treason, romanticism, or adventurism–I suspend judgment and, instead, try to position the “shards” as part of what Dilip Menon (2018, 38, 40) calls the “entangled histories” and geographies of this time and place. In other words, instead of attaching exceptional, reductive, or unitary intention onto the actors involved in this moment of violence, I attempt to trace how they reflected the political, cultural, and affective political imaginations in this particular, Cold War period. Finally, the scattered interviews and conversations that were a result of doing fieldwork in such a highly fragmented terrain produced the repeated sensation that I was unable to get to the bottom of what was happening in Balochistan, an insight that seemed too important to leave out. To subject this sensation to analysis, I turn to theories of affect and the state. Specifically, I follow Laszkowski and Reeves (2018, 3) who argue that “emotional or affective intensities elicited by the state often risk being obscured” in ethnographic studies and that they therefore must be more central to anthropologies of the state. Instead of considering affect and emotion as “an - Page of 231 -41 Chapter 1 | Introduction instrumental mechanism of governmental power or… as epiphenomenal to the real business of rule”, Laszkowski and Reeves (2018, 3) contend that “affects and emotions are crucial in structuring political fields, imaginaries, subjects, and objects.” As Chapter 4 will illustrate, this allowed me to expand on the repeated invocation of what one public school teacher called an andha dhund or blind and directionless fog in Balochistan, namely the sensation that nothing and no one can be fully known. More specifically, theories of affect and the state allowed me to draw out what initially came across as elusive phenomena, instead unpacking the relationship between affect and the structuring of political fields. Finally, there is undoubtedly a danger that the availability of the material rather than the states themselves over-determine my conclusions. For example, I may have found evidence of confusion–a mode of destruction that I identify as key in the current moment–if I did fieldwork in 1918 and 1973-’77, an impossibility today. And, there is certainly evidence of censuring in both the colonial and contemporary period; meanwhile, army operations and incarceration techniques after 1947 indicate that the containment remains a key technology of destruction. While I acknowledge the limitation placed upon me by the material to which I have access today, I combine the specific insight gathered from the evidence available to me with broader socio- economic changes to argue that these three methodologies of destruction constituted dominant methodologies of rule at various historical moments. The most important consequence of my analysis is that counter-collectives faced different challenges at different times: A policy of containment means that the primary challenge faced by anti-colonial fighters was slipping over circumscribed borders (see Chapter 2). Censuring meant that the main goal of dissidents in early Pakistan was circulating alternate, underground pamphlets that could counter the narrative of the state (see Chapter 3). And, today, neither greater mobility nor the propagation of alternate discourses will be enough, though both are important. Instead, in the contemporary moment, counter-collectives must contend with not just containment and censuring, but attempts to confuse all incontrovertible evidence of state atrocity, through the over-production of excess information (see Chapter 4). IV Chapter Outline To investigate methodologies of destruction, this dissertation analyses three moments of state violence in Balochistan in the colonial, early post-colonial, and contemporary period, over the course of three chapters. It argues that methodologies of destruction underwent historical shifts, from policies of colonial containment of the “infection” of “fanaticism,” to post-colonial censuring of “traitors” propagating an alternate idea of Pakistan and what it could mean to belong to it, to - Page of 231 -42 Chapter 1 | Introduction contemporary confusion which attempts to obfuscate united fronts against state violence through the charge of “terrorism.”After summarising these arguments, this section brings this introduction to a close by foreshadowing the conclusion, which brings attention to the recurrent theme of the musafir or traveller in each period. Embodied in the anti-colonial rebel, the revolutionary communist, and the ethno-nationalist Baloch, this figure repeatedly moved against the anxious violence of the state. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) This chapter opens with a quote from a colonial officer who described the state as a jinn–an uncontrollable spirit wrecking havoc to counter the perceived irrationality of the “fanatics” who took up arms against the British Raj in 1918. With this quote, I segway into a discussion of the state’s mystical, magical, and haunting effect, which sits alongside its order-making functions. After arguing that the “magic” of colonial violence can be discerned and delineated, I introduce colonial Balochistan before turning to a granular study of one moment of state violence: The 1918 Marri Punitive Expedition, during which the officer described the state-as-jinn. For the colonial government, Balochistan was both strategic and marginal. Its strategic position on the British Raj’s far northwestern border meant it was a site of anxiety for the colonial state: they feared that foreign invaders would ally with frontier peoples to undermine British India. Yet, its people fell outside the immediate domain of British interests. Its institutions and infrastructure remained sparsely developed, and its residents were ruled through their “own” institutions: The British developed indirect or “tribal” rule in Balochistan, a low-cost but highly efficient mode of control. Though something akin to the “tribe” existed prior to British entry, I explain how this social formation was categorised, solidified, and institutionalised for the purposes of rule. After this short introduction, I turn to the question: How did state destruction complement construction in the colonial era? The British launched 60 punitive expeditions along their northwest frontier, of which Balochistan is a part, declaring martial law up to three times a year for several months. These legal states of exception were declared against a backdrop of everyday draconian laws like the Frontier Crimes Regulation and the Murderous Outrages Act, which e.g. collectively punished and executed without trial “recalcitrant tribesmen.” I reflect on 83 this constant state of violence, particularly as solidified in ordinary law, before turning to the 1918 Marri Punitive Expedition. Sindh to AGG Dobbs. 6 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 90.83 - Page of 231 -43 Chapter 1 | Introduction In 1918, Baloch Marris in northeastern Balochistan refused conscription into the Imperial Army during World War I, and launched raids on British outposts, railways, telegraph lines, officers, etc. What followed was a destructive policy of burning villages, crops, seizing cattle, 84 blocking access to food markets, mass arrests and clashes, and ordering the British Raj’s very first aerial bombardments on colonial populations, carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF)–a policy that was later extended to other parts of the frontier as well as colonial territories as far away as Somalia and Iraq. Several hundred Marris were killed in the process, and their houses, land, and cattle destroyed. When they were subdued, they were fined and pushed into starvation and poverty. Through a close reading of 3000 pages of telegraphs surrounding this punitive expedition, backed up by another 3000 pages on cases tried under one exemplary law outside of martial law– the Murderous Outrages Act–I argue that the British pathologised anti-colonial rebellions. Whether during martial or ordinary law, the British approached committed political resistance much like they approached tropical diseases: “through carefully managed programmes of containment or eradication.” After categorising political rebellion as pathologically “fanatical,” 85 where excess emotion was read as a sign of sickness, they proceeded to contain and erase the perceived infection. Individuals and “tribes” who had taken part in rebellion would only be considered to have rid themselves of “fanaticism” once they began to reflect, through word and action, that they were subservient to the British, the “tribe” of which they were considered a part, and the “tribal head” who had been appointed by the British. The “infection” of rebellion was seen as a sickness within the “tribal” system of rule which needed to be eradicated for the proper functioning of the colonial state. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) In the post-Independence period, the integration of Balochistan into Pakistan replaced a policy of colonial containment. In this chapter, I open by arguing that the colonial state’s destructive policies of containing the “fanatic” was replaced by a censuring of “traitors” propagating an alternate imagination of Pakistan and what it could mean to belong to it. To make this argument, I begin by introducing the state’s constructive project, before investigating destruction. In a telegraph to the Foreign Office in Delhi, the Attorney to the Governor General (AGG), the highest ranking 84 civilian officer in Balochistan at the time, said: “What they … as well as others in Balochistan need is a clear demonstration of how a tribe which misbehaves in wartime can expect to be treated and such a demonstration, I hope, they are to be given. It is hard to imagine more heinous behaviour than that of the Marris and they want a punishment which will not be forgotten for a generation, or more.” Political Agent Zhob to Attorney to the Governor General (AGG). 12 March, 1918. “Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. Records of the Attorney to the Governor General in Balochistan. Essential Records,” Balochistan Archives, Civil Secretariat, Quetta, pp. 60-61. Bhattacharya, Nandini. 2012. Contagion and Enclaves: Tropical Medicine in Colonial India. Liverpool: Liverpool 85 University Press, p. 3. - Page of 231 -44 Chapter 1 | Introduction The centralisation of political, cultural, and economic power in the federal, Urdu- speaking Pakistani state constituted the primary mode of integration. Until 1971, Pakistan was split into a western and eastern wing: One in the territory constituting Pakistan today, the other in the territory now constituting Bangladesh. East Pakistan was a demographic majority, and to counteract it provinces consisting of linguistically and ethnically diverse places and peoples in West Pakistan was fused into One Unit in 1955. Followed by military rule, it was not until 1970 that Pakistan enjoyed its first democratic elections. Yet, the electoral victory of East Pakistan was denied, prompting protests, a civil war, its separation, and the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Against this backdrop, I investigate the place of state violence in the formation of this centralised, Urdu-speaking, Pakistani state. To do so, I open with the dismissal of the first provincial government in Balochistan in 1973, just two years after Pakistan’s eastern wing separated. The dismissal of Balochistan’s provincial government was justified by the sitting prime minister because he feared foreign intervention and the weakening or break-up of Pakistan. The 86 provincial government was run by the National Awami Party, a pan-peripheral alliance of ethnic minorities that was forged precisely in opposition to One Unit and the centralising forces of the federal state. The party itself called for a reconstitution of Pakistan along multi-lingual and multi- national lines in opposition to the forces of centralisation. Its members included not just Baloch, but also Pashtuns, Sindhis, and Bengalis, as well as a number of urban communists and socialists. 87 I follow this opening with an investigation into the 1973-’77 army operation that was launched in Balochistan after supporters of the provincial government escaped into the mountains to launch an armed insurgency in protest against the dismissal. The operation included the use of fighter jets lent to Pakistan from the Shah of Iran, and ground troops. The Pakistan Army carried borrowed military intelligence on how to fight guerrillas from elsewhere, like the US in the Vietnam War. Those supporting or fighting the armed insurgency consisted of Marris from the northeast, Mengals from the centre of Balochistan, members of the Baloch In a letter to President Nixon, he wrote that he suspected Afghanistan and India to be attempting to destabilise 86 Pakistan through e.g. the Baloch, saying that ”subversive and irredentist elements ... seek to disrupt Pakistan’s integrity.” Upon news of the dismissal, they announced their indignation: “[The] National Awami Party denounces the 87 undemocratic and unconstitutional action of the President of flagrantly defying the masses of NWFP and Baluchistan by depriving them of their popular and elected Governments and installing quisling regimes in those provinces that do no enjoy the confidence of their elected representatives in the assemblies. These newly installed Governments are symbols of undue central interference in the constitutional affairs of the provinces and betray the President’s contempt for the democratic norms in the country to the extent of violating even the constitution.” National Awami Party May 1973. “Resolutions, Adopted by the Central Working Committee of Pakistan National Awami Party in its meeting held in Quetta, on 3rd and 4th May 1973.” Amsterdam International Institute of Social History. - Page of 231 -45 Chapter 1 | Introduction Student Organisation from the city of Karachi in the neighboring province of Sindh, and non- Baloch left-wing communists from Pakistan’s other ethnicities, most notably the Pashtuns and the dominant Punjabis. The various groups fighting thus transgressed divides between urban and rural, majority and minority, and ethnicity, presenting another form of unity than the one 88 demanded by the central state, namely a multi-national and multi-lingual one. Through parliamentary archives, newspaper coverage, political biographies, and oral history interviews, I argue that demands for the decentralisation of political and economic power through greater provincial autonomy and the reconstitution of Pakistan as multi-national and multi-lingual became a source of fear and anxiety, much like anti-colonial rebellions and ghazis became a source of insecurity for the colonial state. When the category of the loyal, centralised, Urdu-speaking citizen was transgressed and resisted, the violent power of the state was unleashed; these alternate imaginations were censured, its proponents accused of “treason,” and its united, multi-nationalist opposition fronts fragmented. Unlike the colonial state which contained these threats on the fringes of empire, this early post-colonial state was–despite its punitive force–committed to some version of centralised, national integration. Counter-societies consisting of various types of Baloch and left-wing revolutionaries represented a counter-vision of society to the state-sanctioned version presented by the state. I conclude by showing how these counter-societies were unravelled by the end of this period, resulting in a shift among key Baloch figures and movements towards not reconstituting Pakistan to make space for themselves and other marginalised groups, but for total separation. Chapter 4 | Confusion: State Destruction in Contemporary Balochistan (1988-present) The post-Cold War era inaugurated a period where large infrastructure projects became central to the Pakistani state’s imagination as a way through which to propel itself into the future. 89 Balochistan became a centrepiece in this plan, as a site of experimentation for the state’s plans for the future. In the early 1990s, a small fishing village on the southern coast of Balochistan was announced as a site for a deep-sea water port that could connect Pakistan into a circuit of trade spanning the Indian Ocean, and reaching the eastern coast of Africa and the Gulf. Construction The army operation and armed uprising took place among three communities of Baloch: A collective of students 88 under the leadership of Dr. Abdul Haye who is now a parliamentarian, the Mengals under the symbolic leadership of Ataullah Mengal who was imprisoned as part of the conspiracy charge, and the Marris under the symbolic leadership of Khair Bakhsh Marri who was similarly jailed. Interestingly, the armed rebels in the mountains were joined by a small group of revolutionary communists – consisting of young Pakistani students who had studied and met in the UK – later dubbed the “London Group.” Inspired by Che Guevera and his “foco theory,” they were convinced that a vanguard of far-left cadres could promote revolution from a “backward” part of the country that had anti-state sentiments. Jamali May 2014: A Harbor in the Tempest: Megaprojects, Identity, and the Politics of Place in Gwadar, Pakistan, 89 Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, p. 59. - Page of 231 -46 Chapter 1 | Introduction on supporting infrastructure, like a coastal highway, commenced, and in 2002, the building of Gwadar Port was started under Pakistan’s latest military ruler, Pervez Musharraf. In 2014, China invested $46 billion (now $62 billion) to connect and open up its southwest through “Belts and Roads” to Gwadar Port. Alongside these developments, a post-9/11 period meant rapid securitisation. Enlisted by the United States in the War on Terror, Pakistan became a recipient of sophisticated military and surveillance technology and Balochistan became a throughway for 90 NATO troops transporting goods, including arms, to Afghanistan. This chapter investigates how state violence consolidates Pakistan’s current security and economic agenda. The centrality of Balochistan in Pakistan’s future plans has meant that the province quickly became the site of sovereign violence to stem any critique of either the security state or its plans for economic growth and development. The very first disappearance in Balochistan took place in 2001–and was later extended to face-to-face “encounter” or extra- judicial killings and army raids through troops and helicopter bombings. The massive size of Balochistan means that the violence has taken place in secret. At around 2004, an armed insurgency against the Pakistani state was officially launched again, this time with a separatist agenda. To do so, the chapter builds on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork in and around Balochistan, over 100 formal interviews and informal conversations, and 750 pages of daily journal entries gathered between January and September 2016. In this chapter I take my point of departure in the overwhelming sensation that nothing and no one could be fully known. As one school teacher in Tump, a village in Balochistan bordering Iran, told me: ”This is an andha dhund, a blind and directionless fog.” A writer living in Quetta agreed, rhetorically asking: ”How can you find the bottom of sentiments?” The facts, which human rights reporters and journalists were searching for in this site of violence, was understandable but almost an impossibility. The clear lines of militant/civilian, innocent/ perpetrator were quickly blurred. E.g. the writer told me that while one of his nephews had been disappeared by the Pakistani state, the other had been killed by the militants. “We do not know what is going on,” he told me, ”but perhaps that is the point. After all, the haze has a role to play.” I unpack how this haze constitutes an “unstable interplay of truth and illusion [which] becomes a phantasmic social force.” (Taussig 1987, 121). The social force of the fog consolidates and expands the state at a time where it is establishing its power through its multi-billion dollar security and development projects. It is produced by the sensation that Balochistan is a laboratory, an army camp, and a show case for the state. During an interview, two Baloch students For more information on the transfer of military technology, see Ahmad, Mahvish; Mehmood, Rabia. Surveillance, 90 Authoritarianism and ‘Imperial Effects’ in Pakistan. Surveillance and Society, [S.l.], v. 15, n. 3/4, p. 506-513, aug. 2017. ISSN 1477-7487. - Page of 231 -47 Chapter 1 | Introduction in Quetta told me: “Sometimes we get the sense that we are not studying in a university, we are studying in a camp, a chau’ni [army camp].” Another time, during a seminar on Balochistan, the famous Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir described Balochistan and Gwadar as a “showcase.” The next day, an ethno-nationalist politician I met said that Balochistan had been turned into a laboratory where Pakistan and its allies experiment: We have made this country a laboratory for other countries tajrbāt [experience, experimentation]… In that laboratory they are mixing different chemicals, and then at the end when the blast happens, and their faces or the hair on their heads have burnt, then they will remember that no ji, let us have another tajrbāt.
 I unpack how this laboratory is experienced by those who live within it: Namely, as a fog or haze. In turn, confusion and noise in the form of a fog becomes a destructive technology of rule. I argue that the fog ensures the “social truth” of the state: namely, that Balochistan will propel Pakistan into the future as long as the army rids it of foreign-funded spies and insurgents through the unfortunate but necessary violence of the state. As one interrogator said to me: ”Do you think I like to see a mother cry? She does not know what her son is doing, where the money he brings home comes from. I have no choice, it is people like me who have to protect the country.” By “social truth” of the state, I mean a representation of Balochistan which the state understands as a truthful account of the place and the people within it. This does not mean that foreign-funded spies and insurgents do not exist. Just like ghazis and anti-colonial rebels existed in the colonial era, and state-critical sentiments existed in the early post-colonial era, foreign-funded spies and insurgents exist today. However, I argue that state anxieties over-determine their understanding about this site, prompting state violence. Through this over-determined lens, the state only sees three types of people within Balochistan: The Pakistani patriot, the Indian-funded Baloch traitor, or the Islamist insurgent. While women and children are excluded from this account–the paternalism of the state casts them as mostly innocent–they are nevertheless potential supporters or future traitors. As one young student that I met in Balochistan told me, ”I have three choices: Either I die as a Pakistani patriot, as a Baloch nationalist martyr [qom parast shaheed], or as a Muslim martyr [shahid]. The environment has become a burden [Mahaul boj ban jata hai].” Those who lived within this mahaul or environment either attempted to hide from the state, or picked a legible subject position which could render them transparent to state representatives. Those who did not position themselves within this legible social grid found themselves “falling between the cracks” into an andha dhund. This, in turn, produced what one Baloch woman called شکمشک, kashmakash, the Urdu word for struggle, strife, pulling, hauling, dilemma, perplexity, altercation, and scuffle. - Page of 231 -48 Chapter 1 | Introduction Much like the “tribal” subject in the colonial era and the loyal and patriotic Urdu- speaking Pakistani in the early post-colonial era, the forward-looking, growth-conscious Pakistani is the desirable citizen in the contemporary period. Those who do not fit into this category “fall between the cracks,” experiencing confusion and kashmakash, which in turn acts as a powerful disciplinary force. This renders brittle attempts to suture what many Baloch I spoke to called a zameer, shaoor, and nazriyat, or a mind, consciousness, and ideology, that can block and obstruct sovereign projects of military violence securing capitalist exploitation. Such confusion is, I argue, crucial in a period when the state is finally making headway in turning Balochistan into a productive engine that will unlock a turbo-charged future of economic growth and prosperity. After all, if you do not know where you are or where you are going, if you cannot trust anything or anyone, it becomes impossible to forge the solidarities, even friendships, necessary for a counter-hegemonic politics. Chapter 6 | Conclusion: Violence, the Musafir, and the Politics of Encounter In my conclusion, I take my point of departure in a suggestion offered to me by several Baloch: Against the obfuscation wrought by the state, live like a traveler–a musafir–who moves deliberately through space. It is during such moments of deliberate movement that encounters with other Baloch and other non-Baloch are made: It is through movement that movements are born. After reviewing the arguments of my dissertation–the histories of containment, censuring, and confusion, that have constituted the modes of destruction targeted at counter-identities and collectivities to that of the state–I end by proposing that the articulation of a politics that runs counter to the violence of the state requires travellers willing to encounter others at a time of the andha dhund, at a disorienting time of confusion. Only then, I argue, can brittle and fractured selves and socialities be sutured, and only then can an alternate horizon emerge. I unpack how the importance of this was brought home in a quote from an officer of Military Intelligence who said, “Why do you come here? Write what you like but stay in Islamabad.” Or perhaps, even, by Asma Jahangir, who once said, “They ask me why I go to Balochistan, I tell them this is my country, I go wherever I like.” Or Steve Biko, who in Cry Freedom says, “This is my country, I will go wherever I want to go.” Or perhaps, first and foremost, the Baloch themselves, who in 2014 marched for 100 days, over 2000 kilometres, transgressing spatial fragmentation to resist state violence. Today, another group in Pakistan subject to the same level of violence are marching in much the same way: The Pashtuns–targeted by American drones, the Pakistan Army, and Islamist militants, are marching across the country, going wherever they like. I end by considering how the life of the musafir, the traveler, may be the only way to live against the anxiety of the state. - Page of 231 -49 Chapter 1 | Introduction - Page of 231 -50 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) You have doubtless read in the Alif Laila* the story of the fisherman who found a bottle on the sea-shore sealed with the seal of the Prophet Solomon (on whom be peace). The fisherman broke the seal and there issued from it a pillar of smoke which turned into a great Jinn. The fisherman was powerless to control that Jinn; but finally by a stratagem he induced the Jinn to return inside the bottle and he sealed the bottle and threw it back into the sea, so that the Jinn came forth no more. Now I am the fisherman; and the Jinn is the army. The Marris and Khetrans forced me to unseal the bottle in which the Jinn was enclosed and now I cannot control it and have not yet discovered any means of putting it back into the bottle. — Letter from Agent to the Governor General Henry Robert Conway Dobbs to Sardar Mehrab Khan Bugti, Chief of the Bugtis * Refers to kitāb ʾalf layla wa-layla, more famously known as the One Thousand and One Nights. On 26 March, 1918, just as a military expedition had swung into full gear–with aerial bombardments, village and crop burnings, cattle round-up and seizure, and road blockages–the highest ranking civilian official in colonial Balochistan at the time, the Agent to the Governor General or AGG, Henry Robert Conway Dobbs, wrote a letter to the sardar or “tribal” chief of the Bugtis, Mehrab Khan Bugti. Unlike other sardars and “tribes” who had recently taken up arms against the British, Mehrab Khan was in regular contact with AGG Dobbs providing information and advice on the whereabouts of “rebellious tribesmen”–especially the neighbouring Marris and Khetrans–for the purposes of a British victory. In this letter AGG Dobbs describes the army carrying out operations against the “insolent and disloyal” “tribal” subjects as a jinn–an uncontrollable spirit that inhabited the British colonial state under martial law. He explains that “the Jinn is the army.” This jinn is wrecking havoc, he continues, because a seal was broken, and now he “cannot control” it. In the same letter, AGG Dobbs goes on to explain that the jinn may be enticed to go back into his bottle through a “stratagem”: Not only through the unconditional submission of the “tribal” subjects who had taken up arms but through a surrender mediated by those the British saw as the natural heads of each of the “tribes,” namely the sardars. The sardar and the “tribe”-centred governing structure set up by the colonial state, which was considered to be based on indigenous, hierarchical, traditional structures, was the only “stratagem” through which submission would be accepted. In other words, the insanity of the jinn would only be bottled up once the truth and order of the colonial state was reinstated, and other truths and orders were obliterated. - Page of 231 -51 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) Between January 1918 and May 1918, the northeastern Marris spearheaded an armed uprising against the British. They were joined by what the British defined as the sub-section of another “tribe,” the Khetranis, as well as a constellation of difficult to identify and categorise Baloch and Pashtuns from a variety of neighbouring communities. Together, they either took part in attacks on British outposts, railways, roads, convoys and officers, or provided refuge, supplies, and support to one another. Not everyone was involved in the uprising: Sardars or “tribal” leaders like Mehrab Khan, who as part of their position on the payroll of the British decided to demonstrate their loyalty, were in regular contact with the AGG, providing him with information and urging them to crack down both on the Marris and on members of their own colonially-circumscribed communities who had aided those from other “tribes” involved in the uprising. The military operation took place in Balochistan's northeastern corner (black areas in Image 2.1). It included the declaration of martial law, or the release of the jinn of violence, in order to carry out one of the first ever aerial bombardments by the British on its colonial populations, the large-scale burning of villages and crops, the round-up and seizure of cattle, and road blockages to ensure that rebellious “tribesmen” could not escape or gain access to bazaars and other villages–or food, drink, rest, and refuge. The letter from the AGG to Mehrab Khan Bugti prompts us to understand the state-as- jinn. The invocation of the jinn indicates that the havoc wrecked under colonial rule is to have a mystifying, magical, or haunting effect. Colonial historians like Bernard S. Cohn (1996), Timothy Mitchell (1988), and Nicholas Dirks (2001) have demonstrated how the colonial state identified, categorised, and reified perceived traditions to order society for the purposes of rule. Yet, the jinn enjoins us to turn to Michael Taussig (1987, 5), who thinks through “the role of terror” as “the mediator par excellence of colonial hegemony.” Taussig (1987, 5) shows how the “space of death” that results from destruction is also a “space of transformation” of the peoples and places colonised; while the order-making functions of the state that Cohn (1996), Mitchell (1988), and Dirks (2001) talk about produce subjects, this disorder-making action results in the fragmentation of other lifeworlds, clearing the space for colonial rule. However, the “strategem” that the AGG Dobbs is willing to use, in order to put the jinn back into the bottle, indicates that the havoc wrecked by the colonial state is not merely “opaque and mysterious” as Taussig (1997, 5) would have us believe, but a form of destruction that can be discerned and delineated. - Page of 231 -52 Image 2.1 | Area of 1918 Operations. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) This chapter initiates an investigation into the disciplinary effects of destruction, by beginning with the inception of the state in Balochistan by the British and in the colonial era. It follows an initial introduction to the state’s constructive projects in this period (its emergence and subsequent solidification of territory and subjects) with a close reading of one military expedition in 1918, in order to unpack the place of destruction within construction, of coercion within consent, of disorder within order. This close reading will allow us, as Taussig (1987, 10) urged, “to penetrate the veil [of colonial violence] while retaining its hallucinatory quality.” However, while it 1 will acknowledge Taussig’s powerful call for maintaining the ambiguity of colonial violence in narratives of it–apparent, most notably, in AGG Dobbs’ description of the state-as-jinn–it will also go further than Taussig did in discerning and delineating this hallucination. In other words, while the dissertation stands by Taussig’s project of pushing back against easy accounts of violence (see Chapter 1, Part II | Studying Violence 1: Debates), it will follow Michel Rolph-2 Trouillot (1995, xix) who reminds us that that while “[t]he ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge… [is] the exposition of its roots.” State destruction always produces illegibility for the purposes of dismantling and dispersing counter-societies; however, its mode is not identical across history and geography. By keeping the geography somewhat constant in this dissertation, I can trace how methodologies of destruction change over time. In the colonial era, the mode of destruction was primarily that of containment: Concerned with the rapid spread of “fanaticism,” a narrative invoked to explain why a diverse set of peoples in northeastern Balochistan transgressed colonial categories of rule by taking up arms, the state sought to contain the spread of its “infection” by cordoning off the peoples suspected of having contracted it, erase traces of it through violent practices like bombing the villages of “fanatics” or burning their corpse in attempts to obstruct the building of martyr’s shrines, and subject those left behind to the colonial order within which “tribesmen” were subservient to their “tribal” heads Italics in original.1 In Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man, Michael Taussig (1987, 10-11) powerfully argues against easy narrations 2 of violence. “[T]he mythic subversion of myth, in this case of the modern imperialist myth, requires leaving the ambiguities intact–the greatness of the horror that is Kurtz, the mistiness of terror, the aesthetics of violence, and the complex of desire and repression that primitivism constantly arouses. Here the myth is not ‘explained’ so that it can be ‘explained away,’ as in the forlorn attempts of social science. Instead it is held out as something you have to try out for yourself, feeling your way deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness until you do feel what is at stake, the madness of the passion. This is very different from moralizing from the sidelines or setting forth the contradictions involved, as if the type of knowledge with which we are concerned were somehow not power and knowledge in one and hence immune to such procedures. The political artistry involved in the mythic subversion of myth has to involve a deep immersion in the mythic naturalism of the political unconscious of the epoch.” I both agree and depart from Taussig: To maintain the hallucinatory quality of violence is necessary, yet to repeat it is to succumb to a state effect of “mistiness” that merely reproduces the power of the state rather than counters it, as Taussig also seeks to do. I argue, here and elsewhere that this counters and content of this mistiness can, at least partially, be discerned and delineated. - Page of 231 -53 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) who, in turn, were subservient to colonial rule. While policies of censuring and confusion–modes of destruction that dominate state violence in subsequent eras, as the following chapters will show–were certainly present in the colonial era, I argue that a British policy of indirectly governing Balochistan as a buffer zone marginal to British India prioritised policies of containment. As I argue in the subsequent chapters, this policy continued to condition destruction, even as new modes of destruction took precedence in the early post-colonial and contemporary era (see Chapter 3 and Chapter 4). This chapter proceeds in two parts. Part I introduces the colonial state’s constructive project, or its order-making interventions into the places and peoples of Balochistan. This section will explain the history of how colonial Balochistan was territorialised and subjected and, in turn, how it came to take up a marginal-strategic position within the calculus of the British Raj. Part II follows with the crux of this chapter: A study of colonial policies of destruction, or its disorder- making policies meant to clear the ground and path for the territorialisation and subjection of Balochistan. It opens by returning to AGG Dobbs’ invocation of the state-as-jinn, before placing the 1918 military expedition within the larger context of everyday colonial violence. This is followed by a fine-grained study of the 1918 military operations in the north-eastern corner of colonial Balochistan against the Marris and various other “tribes” that joined them in attacking British outposts, railways, telegraph lines and officers. This military operation inaugurated the use of aerial surveillance and bombardments on colonial populations in the inter-war years, and secured the notoriously difficult-to-govern north-eastern corner of the province. The operations, lasting about three months, led to hundreds of dead Baloch from a variety of “tribes,” though primarily the Marris, and is still remembered in war ballads recorded by the Marri poet, Rahm Ali Marri. More specifically, Part I argues that the construction of the state in Balochistan required the drawing of territorial boundaries and the legal categorisation of governable subjects both for the purposes of rule. It was in the colonial era that the borders of what has become Pakistani Balochistan were drawn. It was also in the colonial era that the state’s uneven relationship to this territory was first forged: The territory was differentially governed, with the northern areas and a few forcibly 3 annexed-then-leased border districts directly administered, and the rest of the territory–Kalat, 4 Las Bela, Kharan and Makran–controlled by British-approved “tribal chiefs” that had direct treaty The northern areas were directly administered to isolate Baloch tribes from their Pashtun neighbours in 3 Afghanistan and the NWFP. The question of contagion–of ensuring that wild ideas of rebellion did not spread from one ethnicity, tribe, person to another–was an obsession of British rule at the time. (Embree 1979, xvi-xvii). Chagai which borders both Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and Zhob and Lorelai bordering Afghanistan in the 4 north, alongside Nasirabad and Jacobabad in the south which bordered the British Indian province of Sindh. - Page of 231 -54 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) relationships with the British Raj. Likewise, it was in the colonial era that an undifferentiated mass of people living within these designated colonial boundaries were counted and categorised into different ethnicities and “tribes.” It was not that something akin to “tribe” and ethnicity did not already exist, but these were relatively fluid categories that were further solidified (Hopkins & Marsden 2011; Dirks 2001). In turn, these categorisations became the building bloc of colonial governance, as the British developed–in the Baloch-dominated parts of the province that are a focus of this thesis–a system of indirect rule for the very first time in its history. The system of indirect rule constituted an institutional innovation within the British Empire. Having spent several decades trying to directly rule their Indian subjects, various crises of empire–most notably the 1857 “Mutiny” that brought Hindus and Muslims into an alliance against the British as well as the Mahdi Uprising in Sudan (Mamdani 2010)–propelled an internal conversation among the British on how best to rule particularly incendiary populations, like “frontier tribes,” that were considered beyond the pale of the Raj’s civilising mission. This caused them to consider ruling at least some Indian subjects through their “own” “customs and traditions.” The process was simple: The categorised ethnicities and “tribes” had official British-sanctioned “heads” and “sub-heads.” The British ruled Balochistan through a series of British Political Agents who identified, paid, and cooperated with the head of a confederacy of tribes, or individual tribes–the khan, sardar, tumandar–and their various sub-heads–the mukaddams, waderas, motabirs–all of whom constituted the primary mediators between “tribal” subjects and the state (Baloch 1987). The system was later exported to the Middle East and Africa. In the places where it was implemented, the British had narrow interests, such as the protection of the British Raj (on the Frontier) or extraction (in Africa). Indirect rule was a low-cost but highly efficient method through which they could retain control of colonial possessions too strategic to ignore but too marginal to really matter. Since this fixing of territory and subjects is well-rehearsed in literature on colonial India, the Frontier, and Balochistan (Embree 1979; Hopkins & Marsden 2011; Swidler 2014; Nichols 2001; White 2008), Part II moves on to the main contribution of this chapter through a focus on destruction. It begins by re-visiting and unpacking AGG Dobbs’ invocation of the state-as-jinn–as a malicious, uncontrollable, magical spirit-being that wrecks havoc–to drive home both the hallucinatory quality of all violence, as well as its place in turning existing lifeworlds into rubble in order to build a new colonial order. It then goes on to discern and delineate this destruction, by arguing: While the production of territory and subjects was based on an active collection, (mis)appropriation, (mis)representation, and application of colonial knowledge of the frontier, - Page of 231 -55 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) destruction was based on an active and forced containment, erasure, and subjection of peoples and places who transgressed and resisted categories of governance set up for the purposes of rule. This destructive policy was part of the everyday colonial encounter (e.g. when the state dealt with individual attacks on British officers as exceptional cases of “fanaticism” that were legally differentiated from murder) and in exceptional cases (e.g. during protracted and longer- running battles between the colonial state and “tribesmen” where entire territories were legally declared as theatres of war operating under martial law). During destruction, the identity and social relations in Balochistan had to fall in line with the British notion of “tribe” and ethnicity: E.g. a Marri Baloch was to be loyal primarily to his or her own “tribe” and ethnic group. Identifying or having relations with people who were considered to come from a different, designated “tribe” or ethnic group usually did not register with the British. When it did, it was considered an anomaly that could either be ignored or explained away, and sometimes intervened in if it caused administrative trouble. And, when these relations were turned against the British–e.g. through seemingly cross-“tribal” and cross-ethnic alliances of armed resistance against colonial rule–the British explained them as a sign of an “infectious fanaticism” that needed to be contained (e.g. through the bombing and blockage of roads that could stop the intermingling and alliances of different people), erased (e.g. through the burning of the bodies– and thus memories–of “martyrs” who defied their designated place), and forcibly subjected (e.g. wanted armed rebels were not only to submit to the colonial government, but to submit to them in the right way, under the authority of their sardar or designated “tribal head”). Action not driven by personal or “tribal” interest, but by transgressive and collective passions to push out the British, was designated fanatical, unruly, uncivilised. In order to construct territory and subjects that could be governed by the colonial state, places and peoples that already existed, transgressing and resisting the categorisations applied and implemented by government officials, had to be destroyed. After all, “the establishment of the colonial state and its laws required the displacement of a pre-existing order, a displacement achieved without the consent of the governed.” (Kolsky 2010, 3) Of course, what was read and spoken of as “infectious fanaticism” by the British were signs of overlapping, mobile networks of individuals and collectives who were finding common cause against British rule. Individual Baloch or Pashtuns wronged by an administrative decision, traveling mullahs from Peshawar or Kandahar, Turkish spies entering the frontier to incite rebellion, and communists inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution were some of the many figures who burst forth on the margins of colonial telegraphs; in the tightly ordered taxonomy of the colonial episteme, these mobile and transgressive figures confounded the officers tasked with the - Page of 231 -56 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) expedition. Alongside these travellers, stories of ghazis, martyrs, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and anti-colonial sentiments and rebellions were circulating through word-of-mouth, war ballads, and fin-de-siècle print presses, causing considerable dismay among officers intent on clamping down on “wild rumours.” The transgressive circulation of people and ideas that had 5 reason to resist British rule in India was read as the circulation of an “infection” or a “disease.” In order to destroy this “infection” the British resorted to an extensive policy of destruction that far exceeded both the level of counter-state violence that was being exercised, and the specific peoples taking part in a rebellion. In this section I argue that the British sought to destroy past, present, and future memories and visions of the “infection” of “fanaticism” in both the worldy/secular and other- worldly/spiritual realms. E.g. officers spent a significant amount of time debating whether the corpses of ghazis should be burnt, since the “infection” of ghazi-ism was a disease like “rabies” that would spread. Shrines were regularly destroyed to ensure that there was no physical place where people could go to collectively remember past rebellions. And “tribes” engaging in rebellion were to be given a “punishment which will not be forgotten for a generation, or more.” The British 6 wanted to contain, erase, and subject those who had gone before (the dead), those currently present (the living), and those yet to come (the unborn). And, to ensure that the “infection” of rebellion did not spread, they destroyed not just families, “tribes,” and villages, but also graveyards, shrines, and corpses. I conclude by arguing that the colonial state identified coherent networks of opposition as spaces of chaos, and that they mimicked the chaos they presumed existed in their policies of destruction. The outcome of this mimetic chaos–“this anarchy of the savage episteme” in which the colonial government engage in “killing and torture [of ] the phantoms of wild disorder they had realised” (Taussig 1987, 91)–was an institutionalised social order of hierarchical tribes loyal to colonisers, considered central for the purposes of state formation and state rule. The outcome was neither deliberate nor complete. Destruction was not always consciously or instrumentally deployed, but its outcome was frequently the satisfaction of colonial officers that their reading of Balochistan was a “true” reflection of its “backwards” society. And, despite their best efforts, memories and future hopes of anti-colonial resistance survived. An anecdote shared with me during a trip to Quetta illustrates this: A Baloch told me that the British turned the site of a shrine Political Agent (PA) Bruce to Attorney to the Governor General (AGG) Assistant French. 14 February 1918. Marri 5 Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. Records of the AGG in Balochistan. Essential Records, Balochistan Archives, Civil Secretariat, Quetta (AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta), pp. 39-45. PA Zhob to AGG Dobbs. 12 March, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 6 60-61. - Page of 231 -57 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) into a gutter, where they proceeded to dump the ashes of the burnt corpse of a ghazi. “But we all knew who had been thrown there, so when the British left in 1947, we rebuilt the shrine.” I Understand, Define, Rule: Colonial Construction of Territory and Subjects Most historiographies–colonial, postcolonial, and Baloch nationalist–mark the entry of Baloch territories into the colonial state and its western borderland policies with the Siege of Kalat in 1839. As the British were returning from the First Anglo- Afghan War (1839-1842), they killed the Khan of Kalat and drove his son out of town–in the eyes of the British, the Khan had not upheld an agreement for safe passage, and “marauding” Baloch had attacked British caravans as they were traversing the province towards Kandahar in Afghanistan (see Image 2.2). It was not until the end of the 19th 7 century that all of what eventually became colonial Balochistan fell under the ambit of direct or indirect rule by the British. Roughly speaking, the northern strip of what constitutes Balochistan today was directly ruled when Balochistan became a colonial agency in 1877 (pink area in Image 2.3), and the large southern portion was indirectly ruled through treaty relations with sardars–the primary representatives of or for those who lived in these territories and mediators between them and the British (yellow area in Image 2.3). More importantly, it was not until January 1876 that the system that ended up defining the state in Balochistan was established, with the decision by colonial officers stationed in Balochistan to involve themselves more deeply with the perceived On their way to attack the Amir of Afghanistan, Dost Muhammad, to replace him with a British-supported 7 contender for the throne, groups of Baloch attacked the British caravan. As they returned from the First Anglo- Afghan War (1839-1842), the British decided to attack Kalat Town, killed Mir Mehrab Khan, chased his son out of town and handed the throne to someone else (see Image 2.2). They also annexed other parts of what became Balochistan to the new Amir of Afghanistan. Eventually, the Khan’s son was re-installed, and the British began an independent set of treaty relations with Kalat State. Baloch (1987, 127) marks this historical moment as the point at which the British stopped seeing Balochistan as a place of spying, reconnaissance and intrigue–and therefore squarely seen in a foreign or outsider domain to be penetrated by individual British officers-in-disguise–and started to treat the territory as a buffer territory first as a part of Afghanistan (1839-1841) and later as an independent ally tied through treaty relations to the British (1841-1893). - Page of 231 -58 Image 2.2 | An illustration of the British Army entering the Bolan Pass to attack Afghanistan in the First Anglo-Afghan War 1838-1842. Source: Hutchinson, Walter 1915. History of the Nations, Hutchinson & Co. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) indigenous polities and politics of the area. In January 1876, a long- standing debate about how to govern the frontier was resolved: On the one hand stood Colonel Sir William Merewether, who called for a Closed Border Policy–informally “masterly inactivity” or the “backward policy” which advocated a shut, policed border. Under this policy, warring “tribes" transgressing borders would be collectively punished. On the other hand, stood Captain Robert G. Sandeman calling for a Forward Policy based on an intimate relationship with tribes. Sandeman argued that the Forward Policy would “attempt to deal with the hearts and minds of the people and not only with their fears.” 8 According to this system local “tribes” were integrated into a system of colonial governance that turned them into “executors of their own oppression.” (Marsden & Hopkins 2012, 53) After a protracted debate, the Sandeman system–as the Forward Policy ended up being called–was established. 9 What ensued was the creation of Balochistan as an agency with Sandeman as its first AGG and Chief Commissioner in 1877. From this point on, the rule of the province took place through a series of complex processes of compromise, negotiation, and coercion. Despite the seeming Sandeman’s letter of 19 April 1891 in Thornton, Thomas Henry. [1895] 1977. Colonel Sir Robert Sandeman, Quetta: 8 Gosha-e-Adab. The debate came to a head when Sandeman, who was a Deputy Commissioner in neighbouring Dera Ghazi Khan–9 both then and now considered a part of Punjab–decided to cross the British-drawn border into northeastern Balochistan wherefrom the Marri and Bugti tribes were launching raids: His aim was to develop a working relationship with the tribes through negotiations rather than punitive action. This method was in contravention to Merewether’s policy of non-intervention. Merewether’s policy advocated not doing anything and letting the tribes fight it out in internecine battles until such a point that power was centralised in the Khan–in this, Merewether made a historical parallel with barons centralising their power under the rule of one King in Britain. In the beginning, the Government of India allowed both systems to co-exist, until eventually they backed Sandeman over Merewether. This was done at what is called the Mithankot Compromise of 1876–Mithankot was a city in southern Punjab. Both the decision at Mithankot, and the larger but creeping integration of directly and indirectly ruled territories around Balochistan, was linked both with the extension of the British Raj over most of the Subcontinent, and with the growing interest of the Raj in the northwestern corner of its empire. This interest was solidified with the Battle of Miani (1843) which led to the annexation of Sindh and the Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-1846 and 1848-1849) which led to the annexation of Punjab–both less than a decade after the Siege of Kalat and before Mithankot (Hopkins & Marsden 2011). - Page of 231 -59 Image 2.3 | Map of Colonial Balochistan. The pink areas in the north were directly ruled and the yellow areas in the south were ruled through treaty relations. Source: Meyer, W.M., Burn R., Cotton, J.S., and Risley, H.H. 1931. “Atlas: Baluchistan,” Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 26, p. 37. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) victory of a more “benevolent” system that dealt with the “hearts and minds of the people,” the system required destruction or physical, corporeal violence in order to uphold it. As I will argue later, Baloch who deviated from the abstract notion of “tribal” peoples as hierarchically subservient to their leader were met with the full punitive force of the colonial state until they re-subjected themselves to the order of the state. The constant theme of British rule in colonial Balochistan was its place as a marginal-strategic frontier zone. Swidler (2014, 1) has coined this particular form of rule “remotely colonial” arguing that such “colonisation encodes a paradox of remoteness as it is distant in some sense, while figuring centrally in the strategic interests of a metropole.” The vertical integration of this space into the hierarchical forms that define the centralised rule of a Westphalian state restructured it altogether. Though Kalat, and the sardars and areas strongly or weakly connected to it, covered large parts of colonial Balochistan, it was neither a state in the modern sense–with clearly demarcated borders and centralised control–nor did it fully encompass what 10 today is considered Balochistan (Marsden & Hopkins 2011, 58). As for the territories considered part of Kalat, which were indirectly ruled, Swidler (2014, 79-80) argues that personal networks, patrilineal, and affinal links, and ties of patronage ensured a horizontal integration that was only slightly oriented towards, and certainly not subservient to, the Khan. In fact, political space before the inception of the colonial state was relational rather than territorial. As Marsden and Hopkins (2012, 38) argue this was similar to other pre-European state-like formations in the region that stressed Islamic legal principles and older concepts of use rather than land value. “Political authority, in the main, rested on tributary, segmentary relationships better mapped “In short, Kalat did not have borders in the British sense; it had instead ill-defined tracts, zones of contestation, 10 whose inhabitants often raided neighbouring groups and where the authority of local chiefs rose whenever the Khan’s rule weakened.” (Swidler 2014, 52). - Page of 231 -60 Image 2.4 | This colonial map of Balochistan shows the one railway (blue lines) the British built – to ensure easy transport of supplies and troops for military purposes – and the position of Quetta (red dot). As is clear, this colonial territorialisation of borders, the capital, and infrastructure effectively marginalised the rest of colonial Balochistan. Source: Bartholomew, John 1909. “A general map of Indian Railways,” Imperial Gazeteer of India, vol. 25, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) through genealogical tables than cartographic descriptions.” (Hopkins & Marsden 2012, 38) As a result, areas considered to be “under” the Khan–the highland areas of Sarawan and Jhalawan in roughly the east and middle of contemporary Balochistan and the lowland areas of Kachhi and Makran on the east and south respectively–were in fact tenuously linked to Kalat with its various “tribes” and sardars in regular disagreement and battles with Kalat. For example the now infamous Gwadar Port was leased in the late 18th century by the Khan of Kalat at the time to Muscat, and remained, more or less, under its control throughout colonial rule though it did have a British Political Agent stationed there. The Gichkis in the 11 southern Makran belt and the Nausherwanis in the western part of administrative Kalat battled and disagreed both with each other and with the Khan, resulting in frequent intervention by the British (Swidler 2014, 105). The Marri-Bugti areas in the north-east, close to Kachhi, were notoriously independent, and Kalat refused to take any responsibility for their regular raids of areas considered by the British to be beyond their designated borders in Sindh and Punjab–as well as their regular uprisings against the government–in his dealings with the British. Colonial officers had to govern these two territories separately through a system that coordinated with “tribesmen” through recognised heads. Finally, Lasbela and its port town of Sonmiani in the south were independent though they had inter-marital linkages with Kalat and relatively good relations, save a few disagreements, and operated as a princely state with direct relations to the British Raj. Meanwhile, the areas that ended up being directly ruled–a strip in the north that ended up being called British Balochistan and today has significant populations of Pashtuns–were not brought into British control until late in the 19th century. This strip–the pink liver-like area in Gwadar Port was not “reverted” until 1958, when the Government of Pakistan purchased Gwadar Port for PKR 5.5 11 Billion, equivalent to US$ 1.1 billion in 2015. It was not until 1955–almost a decade after Partition and Independence– that Gwadar, the site of such massive strategic interest today, was integrated into the system of the inheritors of British rule: the Pakistanis. - Page of 231 -61 Image 2.5 | An illustration of the construction of the railway that remained the only railway built in Balochistan in the colonial era. Source: Unknown artist. “Plate-Laying of the Bolan Pass Railway.” Early 19th century. World History Archive. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) Image 2.3–was kept administratively separated from both neighboring provinces and other parts of Balochistan in order to stop the spread of a rebellion. Areas like Chagai, Zhob, Lorelai, Thal- Chotiali, Pishin, Harnai, Sibi in this northern territory were annexed after the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) when the then Amir of Afghanistan, Sher Ali, ceded territories that later became the directly ruled areas of British Balochistan under the Treaty of Gandamak in 1879. The northern Pashtun strip was brought under direct control to ensure that the Baloch territories ruled through treaty or tribal heads were kept separate from the Pashtuns and Afghans of the north. Other areas–like Nasirabad and Jacobabad, the pink kidney-shaped sliver on the right of Image 2.3–were not annexed until 1902, mainly to buffer the province of Sindh from frequent raids by Baloch “tribes,” particularly the Marris and Bugtis, and to ensure the sanctity of the Bolan Pass route from Sindh towards Afghanistan, which ran through this area. The British were, as it will become clear later, obsessed with the question of contagion: Rebellious passion against the British was seen as a dangerous infection that could quickly spread between ethnicities, “tribes,” families, and individuals, and keeping e.g. the Baloch separate from the Pashtuns, or the Baloch separate from Punjabi and Sindhi populations, was a way to ensure that rebellious attitudes did not spread when they flared up. The spectre of 1857, when a rebellion of sepoys or soldiers that rose against the British in the garrison town of Meerut spread to the rest of British India, remained with the Raj until the end of their days in India (Perusek 1992; Mukherjee 2002; Mamdani 2010). This uneven political infrastructure which mirrored colonial priorities was reflected in the colonial state’s physical infrastructure projects, which primarily served a British need to militarily protect its territories from the spectre of northwestern conquerors. The strategic interest of the 12 The importance of the north-west began to gain significance when the British entered Delhi in 1804. Up to that 12 point the British had been an eastern Gangetic power that did not worry about the place of the north-west in the larger calculus of imperial rule. However, in 1804 the British began to pay attention to stories of conquerors from the northwest who had successfully invaded Delhi, like Zahiruddin Babur who founded the Mughal Empire in 1526 or the Afghan Ahmed Shah Durrani who took over the city in 1757. These spectres of the invading northwestern conqueror were exacerbated by fears of other imperial powers, like Russia and France, invading British India from this frontier aided by the Afghan and Persian empires and through dealings with other rulers and communities in what the British understood as the places in between. - Page of 231 -62 Image 2.6 | Levies from Nushki in northwestern colonial Balochistan. Source: “Jemedar and Levies, Nushki,” United Balochi Academy Balochistan. Available at: http:// unitedbalochiacademybalochistan.blogspot.com/ 2010/03/jemadar-and-levies-nushki.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) British, namely to secure a route through the Bolan Pass to Afghanistan and establish a base close to Kandahar, meant that they urbanised a small village on the border to Kandahar, Quetta, and turned it into a capital (see red dot on Image 2.4). They also built just one railway, through the Bolan Pass, with the primary aim of connecting their colonial empire to Quetta to ensure easy transport of supplies and troops in case Afghanistan caused problems (see blue line on Image 2.4). These policies restructured the territory of colonial Balochistan, effectively centralising a far corner for their own strategic needs and marginalising the rest of the area (Swidler 2014, 81). Telegraph lines similarly bypassed most of Balochistan, only crossing through the southern port city of Gwadar (Jamali 2014). In many ways, a map of infrastructure in colonial Balochistan is more reminiscent of imperial-era maps of Africa than they are of the Subcontinent. Where railways were criss-crossing British India, maps of colonial Balochistan–and Africa–showed singular tracks purely built for the immediate demand for transporting a very small set of goods: Troops in Balochistan, slaves and minerals in Africa. As Swidler (2014, 81) points out: “In a pattern common to imperial development, there was virtually no investment in the secondary routes which could link one town to another. British infrastructural investment redefined substantial areas in Balochistan. Quetta, once marginal, was now central, despite its eccentric location vis-a- vis the rest of Balochistan, and Kalat town, the centre of the Khanate, became marginal.” This select investment extended to the development of governing institutions. The Sandeman System, as the Forward Policy was called, was based on the notion that existing traditions of rule–e.g. what the British understood as that of the “tribal” unit with a natural tribal head concentrated in a particular territory–could be repurposed and integrated into a system of colonial rule. In the attempt to reach the “hearts and minds” of the Baloch, the Sandeman System encompassed three key elements: the notion that each “tribe” had a natural head, a system of “tribal” levies (paramilitary forces of “tribesmen” recruited to serve the colonial state), and the jirga system which was a “tribal” council functioning as a governing assembly and “tribal” court (Marsden & Hopkins 2012, 57). Alonside regional jirgas the British created the body of the shahi jirga, or a sort of supra-jirga, that was regularly held in Quetta and Sibi. In order to establish this rule based on perceived tradition and integrated into the modern colonial state, colonial officers regularly carried out extensive and elaborate surveys of undifferentiated people under their rule, to create an overview of the population. In counting and categorising people, they split them into “tribes” and “sub-tribes,” drew detailed “tribal” family trees to ascertain relations between various peoples, recorded oral histories to decide who had a right over what land and in which way, and maintained extensive notes and correspondence on permanent and temporary arrangements between their defined “tribal” units (Cohn 1988). - Page of 231 -63 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) Something similar to the British notion of “tribes” existed in Balochistan prior to the colonial state, but these group identities were permeable, horizontal, and constantly changing. Postcolonial Nigerian historiographers like Kenneth Dike, Abdullahi Smith, and Yusuf Bala Usman have pointed out that “kinship” and “tribe” were neither strictly descent- based nor universal, and different group associations within the same person was a sign of diversity rather than deviation (Mamdani 2010, 104-106). Much the same can be said for Balochistan. E.g. the Marris, who figure centrally in the next section, were not always connected through blood, and frequently integrated new members, including wandering nomads. And, sardars were repeatedly unseated in the period prior to colonial rule. However, as one reads colonial documents it becomes clear that the British were obsessed with maintaining “tribal” rule even when those they governed did not act according to British notions of “tribal” tradition. So, while the AGG certainly allowed changes in who acted as the “tribal” head, he was adamant that there was always only one “natural” head. He was constantly checking to see whether levies remained at their posts. Disciplining levies to fulfil their assigned duties was difficult and challenging–and fear that they would abandon their posts or rebel was constantly present. Finally, despite the notion that jirgas were “natural” to Balochistan, the AGG was constantly sending letters to “tribal heads” reminding them that they had to show up and take part in colonial governance, and admonishing them when they failed to arrive or actively participate in ways that reflected their loyalty to the Crown and the system it had set up (Swidler 2014). II Contain, Erase, Subject: Colonial Destruction of Places and People What was the place of destruction in the territorialisation and subjection of colonial Balochistan? In this section, I investigate a singular act of state destruction–the 1918 Marri Punitive Expedition–to unpack the nimble ways that destruction forged territory and subjects. Before - Page of 231 -64 Image 2.7 | Robert Sandeman sits with Baloch sardars or tribal leaders. Jirgas took place in gatherings like this. Source: “Khan Kalat Khudadad Khan with Sir Robert Sandeman and Balochistan Sardars,” Colonial Balochistan, Available at: http:// colonialbalochistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/khan-kalat- khudadad-khan-with-sir.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) doing so, however, I introduce the broader context within which military expeditions like the one in 1918 took place, arguing that state violence was more ordinary than exceptional. Everyday forms of destruction were written into ordinary governance in Balochistan. One of the signal examples of this is the Murderous Outrages Act (MOA). Fears of “fanatical” outrages in the form of individual attacks on British officers prompted the colonial government to articulate the MOA in 1867, which was extended to Balochistan in 1881. It gave colonial officials the right to execute without trial “fanatics” who “murdered or attempted to murder servants of the Queen and other persons” that “the general law of the country [was] not adequate to suppress.” The law allowed colonial officials to detain, prosecute, and execute those considered 13 “fanatics” without trial, and if necessary burn their bodies to ensure that the spread of the “infection” of “fanaticism” was contained. At first, this law was neither regularly applied except for a few select cases, nor was it widely applicable across the northwest frontier having initially only been a legislation in Punjab. However, when it was extended to Balochistan its use increased. Between 1881 and 1905, 93 cases were registered in colonial Balochistan alone, and Condos (2016, 509) notes that many other cases may not have been documented. In 1901, the MOA became the blueprint upon which the colonial government articulated and implemented the Frontier Crimes Regulation or FCR, which allowed for collective punishments of entire families, “tribes,” and villages. Though the FCR is no longer in place in Balochistan, it is still operative in another part of Pakistan’s northwest frontier, namely FATA. The MOA was also part of a widespread codification drive that sought to regulate and bring into the sphere of law executive powers which had remained “unregulated.” Historians have shown that the MOA brought into law a practice that colonial officers already took part in, before retroactively seeking immunity (Kolsky 2015, 1221). The MOA rendered legal executive prerogatives for the explicit purposes of regulating it, though it mostly bolstered the powers of British officials to regularly declare murderers “fanatics,” carry out executions, and burn their corpses. They argue that the law was not considered exceptional by the British, but rather a “signal example of the tenderness of this Government for law and legality.” In fact, it was de jure 14 preceded by legislation like the Thugee Act in 1836, the Moplah Act in 1854 and the Criminal Act XXIII of 1867 in Punjab (India) Legislative Department. 1928. The Punjab and North-West Frontier Code: Acts of the 13 Punjab Legislature in Force in the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab. Henry Maine, who was considered one of the premier jurists of the British Empire, said this. He also added: “It was 14 quite wonderful that people should not be able to throw themselves sufficiently out of surrounding circumstances, to see that the measure was a striking example of the desire of the Indian Government to impose legal order on its officers under the most trying conditions.” Legislative Council Proceedings, 15 March 1867, IOR, V/9/10, pp. 195–96 in Condos 2016a. - Page of 231 -65 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) Tribes Act in 1871 (Condos 2016). All of these acts treated transgression and resistance as criminal, outrageous signs of a sickness that needed to be extricated from the colonial body politic. Differentiating between “fanatical” and “ordinary” violence, and in turn practicing extreme levels of violence against the former, was therefore colonial common sense. This common sense had space for some conflict and violence, e.g. between “tribes” that the state understood to have enmity between them. Resolution of conflict and violence which made sense to the colonial state could be adjudicated through existing colonial state institutions like the jirga, or through existing practices of the political agent and “tribal” heads. It was when “tribesmen” did not act within colonial common sense–e.g. reflecting personal interests or loyalty to their “tribe”–but instead were seen to have been influenced by other political narratives, like the collective passion to overthrow the British empire, that they were no longer legible through colonial common sense, and rendered fanatical. A close reading of 3000 pages of cases tried under the MOA reveals that the motivations of ghazis differed greatly, but that all of them came into contact with the narrative of the ghazi that was circulating all along the frontier at the time. For colonial state officials, personal motivations like the frustration with being impotent, the grief over the loss of a son, or–in an interesting 15 16 case trial of a female ghazi–the wish to die rather than return to an abusive husband, made sense 17 and sometimes prompted a more lenient executive decision or subsequent sentence. Meanwhile, “tribally”-motivated attacks were categorised as “guerrilla warfare” and colonial officials were asked to be careful in not confusing them with “fanaticism”: “It should be impressed upon executive officers that proceedings under the Act should be strictly limited to cases of true fanatical outrage–e.g., cases of men whose object is to gain martyrdom by killing an infidel and who seek that object by assassination–as distinct from acts of guerilla warfare, such as firing into camps, plundering convoys, etc.” Perpetrators whose motivations did not fit neatly into either 18 “tribal” or personal motivations were described as “fanatical” and sick. In the case of one attack, a colonial official concluded: “[H]e did attack the battery without provocation in circumstances which show that, unless he was actuated by religious frenzy, he must have been of so unsound a mind.” 19 Fanatical outrage committed by one Dada Silachai at Sibi and award of compensation to families of persons killed. 1899. 15 AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Murder of Guard Mr. Dicks by a fanatic named Muhammad Maharani Marri at Mach and anforeement [sic.] of tribal 16 responsibility. 1900. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Fanatical outrage committed by one Musammat Naz Khatune, her trial and sentence of transportation for ten years passed on 17 her. 1896. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Burning of bodies of fanatics in Balochistan. 20 February 1896. Secretary to the Government of India/Chief Secretary to 18 the Government of India. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Fanatical attack by one Mohenda on a party of 18 W.D R.G.G.A. on Sariab Road and enforcement of tribal responsibility. 19 1904. Letter addressed to the AGG Dobbs. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. - Page of 231 -66 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) The fear that this other sense, this “fanatical” non-sense, would spread like wildfire prompted the colonial government to have extensive conversations on how to contain, erase, and subject places and peoples who seemed to have come into contact with it. In MOA cases, officials unpack in detail the life history of the accused “fanatic”–even if the accused was already executed–to trace the people they intermingled with. The aim would be to figure out where the “fanatic” caught their infection, and whether they handed it on to someone else. This would be followed by an identification of the sources of “fanaticism” which had to be erased, and a forcible subjection of everyone else who was linked to these sources through e.g. “tribal” or family relations. E.g. in an 1899 case, where a Pashtun “fanatic” by the name of Arsilla Khan burst into the room of a colonial officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gaisford, and knifed him to death, he was immediately executed and his body burnt. However, case files show an extensive conversation on his life history, an identification of those he came into contact with, as well as an investigation into his “tribal” and family relations. In one telegraph, a political agent explains: In a fanatical crime like “ghaza” the mere hanging of the immediate offender can have little or no restrictive effect. For the crime to be checked the whole community to which a “ghaza” belongs and all connected with him must be made to feel and that severely the burden of the offence. 20 Under everyday colonial government, those who did not fit into the common sense categories of colonial rule, transgressing and resisting them instead, were thus contained, erased, and subjected–along with those who were seen to have been “infected" by their “fanaticism.” This process of colonial punishment required the state to take on a brutality that mirrored that of the “fanatic” they were intent on annihilating. A close reading of the 1918 punitive expeditions against the Marris reveals that even though it has been explained by colonial officials as exceptional it followed a very similar logic of transgressive and resistant subjects that were contained, erased, and subjected through a brutal state apparatus. Therefore, I question the need to differentiate between something like the MOA and this military expedition so sharply. E.g. if we consider the frequent punitive expeditions along the frontier–the British declared martial law or legal states of exception almost three times a year–we are reminded that constantly differentiating between the everyday and the spectacular or the normal and the exception can blind us to how the spectacularity, emergency and exception is always with us in the everyday. As Li (2017) argues, “[P]eople imagine … a clearly identifiable category of normal law whose photographic negative is emergency, exception, or the absence of Murder of Lt. Col. G Gaisford Political Agent Thal Chotiali by a fanatic at Somalian. 1899. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.20 - Page of 231 -67 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) law…” He argues that this emergency is always present, and not exceptionally so, and goes on to argue: “[I]f emergency is always already with us, it’s less clear how we harness analytical value from the concept.” I agree, or rather, I collapse and depart from a differentiation that I do not find analytically helpful. In order to show the continuities between destruction under the MOA and destruction under martial law, I turn to the 1918 military expedition in the north-eastern corner of colonial Balochistan against the Marris and various other “tribes” from the area that joined the Marris– especially the neighbouring Khetrans–in attacking British outposts, railways, telegraph lines, and officers. The expedition was neither the first British offensive in this area nor the only armed conflict between the British and presumed colonial subjects in their Indian, or other, colonies– and certainly not the first on this colonial frontier. The Marris themselves speak of the two preceding Anglo-Marri Wars in 1840 and 1880 (Marri 2015). In the period between the First Anglo- Afghan War (1839-1842)–when the state in its modern form first emerged in this territory–and Independence in 1947, the British launched over sixty punitive military expeditions all along the frontier including the northern Pashtun areas further along the Afghan border (see Image 2.8 for a photograph from one of these other military expeditions). These expeditions carried out collective corporeal punishment of entire areas and communities which, after World War I, included the use of the newly-formed Royal Air Force (RAF) to bombard congregations of sometimes hundreds of people for the purposes of “pacification”; the burning of entire villages, crops, and the rounding up and seizure of cattle; and the barring of access to roads, bazaars, neighbouring tribal hamlets, and villages to prevent access to food, drink, rest, and refuge. 21 They also frequently declared martial law, which effectively meant that various parts of the frontier region were cast into a legal state of military siege for long periods. The frequency of these military expeditions is widely known: Churchill himself served in one of the expeditions in 1898 and wrote a book about it called The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War. Like other officers serving there, taking See 1918. Marri Outbreak Files 1-17. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.21 - Page of 231 -68 Image 2.8 | An image from one of the other military expeditions in another part of the Frontier in the period after the First Anglo-Afghan War and before 1947: the Black Mountain Expedition of 1891. Source: “The Soldier’s Burden, Kaiser’s Cross. Available at: kaiserscross.com. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) part in these military expeditions played a key role in launching his career. Stories of wild, ruthless, fanatical, irrational, emotional “tribesmen” has not only served to obscure the brutality of these expeditions–they have also not allowed for much space to consider the place of this destruction in more critical ways in the formation of territory and subjects on the frontier. I return to this lacuna in the sections below. To do so, I carry out a close reading of over 3000 pages of colonial correspondence that I gathered from the Balochistan Archives in Quetta between AGG Dobbs–the highest ranking civilian officer in Balochistan at the time, with whom this chapter opened–and other British Indian civilian and military officers during the three months of the 1918 military expedition in northeastern Balochistan. Much of the story below is written from the point of view of the British as the punitive expedition took place. Rather than read summaries of this expedition–where the luxury of hindsight allowed colonial officers to present the affair in a strikingly different light–the story is pieced together from telegraphs sent as the operation unfolded. This story is colonial logic in action. Following colonial logic from beginning to end, in real time and without interruption, allows for a more supple understanding of the logics of destruction, and its place in state construction. Staying close to colonial state archives allows me to unpack the ”colonial order of things” (Stoler 2002) by reading ”along the archival grain” rather than against it, as the subalternists have done in order to excavate hidden histories of resistance (Stoler 2010, 46-51). To do so, I pay more attention to form than content, or the archive-as-subject rather than the archive- as-source (Stoler 2002). This allows me to unpack what “claims to truth are lodged in the rote and redundant” (Stoler 2002, 90) by reading “for its regularities, for its logic of recall, for its densities and distributions, for its consistencies of misinformation, omission, and mistake–along the archival grain.” (Stoler 2002, 100) More specifically, I follow Ann Stoler (2007, 4) in her exhortation to pay more attention to affect within the colonial archive, against the tendency to see the colonial state only or primarily as “a Weberian model of rationally minded, bureaucratically driven states…” I therefore pay attention to affects like frustration, confusion, and perplexity to index those moments when officers were unable to explain what was going on through established categories of governing that undergirded their rule in Balochistan. Such a reading makes it apparent that when the places and peoples of colonial Balochistan did not reproduce the truth of the state, attempting to subvert it instead, they came across as “fanatics”; in a perverse mimicry of this perceived disorder, the jinn of the state was unleashed upon colonial subjects not conforming to colonial categories. While the colonial government had space for conflict–e.g. through the institution of the jirga which regularly mediated disagreements between various identified “tribes,” or between these “tribes” and the - Page of 231 -69 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) state itself–it had no space for those refusing to play according to the rules. In fact, when peoples and places exceeded the categories through which the British perceived them, they were cast as being “beyond ordinary reason” : As “rebellious” or “fanatical” and therefore deserving of the 22 destructive arm of the state to “bring them into line” . The similarities between the common 23 sense behind the MOA and this expedition will make it apparent that the British labelled actions that transgressed their colonial categories as “fanatical” by differentiating them from conflict or disagreements considered reasonable (II.A.). They followed this by attempts to contain this rebelliousness and “fanaticism” by carefully policing the movements of “tribesmen” seen to have been infected with its “rabies” (II.B.); erase what they considered the sources of the “outbreak” (II.C.), and subject those infected into a submission that suited colonial categories of rule (II.D.). In the conclusion of this chapter, I return to AGG Dobbs’ description of the state-as- jinn to explain how it constituted “the hallucinatory quality” of violence (Taussig 1987, 10). II.A. Transgression of Colonial Categories: The Marris Go Ghazi, the British release the Jinn AGG Dobbs had been contemplating some form of punishment–though not, to start off with, a military operation–ever since the Marris had refused to furnish recruits for the Indian Army. The refusal had come after an explicit request by the Viceroy of India at the time–the Queen’s top representative in the British Raj–to Balochistan's “tribes” to provide soldiers. At first, AGG Dobbs was pleased to discover that several of Balochistan’s “tribes” happily went along with the request. However, in a letter to a colleague and friend in the British Indian Foreign Office, he explained that “the Marris … form the dark side of the picture.” 24 Just one month earlier, his district-level representative or political agent in Sibi–which neighbours the Kohlu district where the Marris are settled–had visited the Marris to ascertain the number of recruits that they would provide. Colonel McConaghey, as he was called, was instead rebuffed, and the Marri “headmen” told him that they could under no circumstances provide men. When McConaghey invited them to his neighbouring district of Sibi, they again refused to come. In a letter sent not long after McConaghey’s visit, the designated Marri “headmen” 25 PA Sibi to AGG Dobbs. 28 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 22 pp. 37-53. Lieutenant Governor General (LGG) to the Punjab to AGG Dobbs. 10 April 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 17: 14 April-18 23 April. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 17-18. In the same letter, sent in January as the recruitment drive began, he remarked that this “sudden tapping of 24 [a] practically new supply of men and the good feeling and enthusiasm which accompany it are most gratifying; and as the impulse started with the appeal made by the Viceroy at Quetta, I am sure that His Excellency will be pleased to hear of it.” AGG Dobbs to PA Denys Bray. 18 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. AGG Dobbs to Foreign Office, Delhi. 14 Feb 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/25 Quetta, p. 52. - Page of 231 -70 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) blamed their “uncivil and indiscreet” “tribesmen” for not listening to them, and rebuking their request to serve the British: We beg to state that as desired by High authorities the Pol: Agent Sibi and … [others] visited Kohlu and Kahan [the capital of Kohlu] to arrange [the] collection [or recruitment] of 300 men …. We are very sorry that the matter was totally our of our power though the Pol: Agent [and Marri headmen] … tried so far it was advisable but to no effect. The Marris are uncivil and indiscreet. They do not understand their advantage & loss. The Marris hearing the demand for men have gone up [to the] hills. They will be ready to fight if we go to bring them down and thus there will be a disturbance. … If we use any force over the Marris they are sure to fight with us. The tribal management will suffer if such oppositions continue. It is not advisable to spoil the management in such a critical time. The Marris are indiscreet and this work is out of our power. We therefore must humbly beg to request that after taking into consideration the present critical time and fear of disturbance you will kindly exempt us from this affair. At first, AGG Dobbs ordered the immediate gathering of information on the status of the Marris themselves. This included information on jagir and muafi lands (jagirs were feudal land grants and muafi lands were revenue-free land grants given in return for service to the state) ; lists of 26 their grain allowances; details of what levies were posted at various thanas or stations; and the conditions of “loyalty and good behaviour” that had been agreed with the Marris after the last 27 time they started causing “trouble,” namely in the Second Anglo-Marri War in 1880 (Marri 2015). He also asked his officers to provide information about the markets that they frequented 28 and the “tribal” feuds that they were involved in. 29 AGG Dobbs was attempting to ascertain what sort of punitive measures he could apply on the Marris–and how he could enlist other “tribes” in order to do so. Not long after gathering this information, Dobbs went to work: He stopped all allowances including pays to serving levies ; 30 began to replace thana levies with Khetranis who he assumed had a feud with the Marris ; and 31 blockaded access to bazaars or markets that the Marris regularly visited for the purposes of trade including the purchase of foodstuffs . He had decided to carry out these actions as part of a 32 General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-34.26 General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-34.27 Inqilab-e-Rus aur Baloch in Marri 2015.28 General correspondence. 13 Jan-27 Jan 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 29 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January-15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-37. AGG Dobbs to Foreign Office, Delhi. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 30 52. General correspondence. 13 Jan-27 Jan 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 31 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-37. General correspondence. 13 Jan-27 Jan 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 32 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-37. - Page of 231 -71 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) policy of joint responsibility, or collective punishment, to force the Marris to cooperate and hand over recruits. To add to these targeted punishments, he asked a colleague in the Foreign Office 33 to send along aeroplanes “for experimental show” arguing that flying aeroplanes over a jirga would allow for a “demonstration of military might” and have a “good effect.” He wanted the 34 Marris, and other “tribes,” to know that the British Empire reigned supreme. However, letters received from the Marri sardar, his tumandars (sub-heads), and other Marris (like zamindars or land-owners, and cultivators) indicated that designated “tribal” heads had little influence, and that designated “tribes” did not act as one. The sardar pointed out that no one ever listened to him. The tumandars were unable to convince those under them. The 35 zamindars and cultivators complained that the designated “tribal heads” should stop trying to force them to enlist and go fight themselves. And, in an anonymous letter, “tribesmen” 36 complained that they did not want to be sent to “the front” to fight. The mismatch between 37 colonial common sense about Baloch “tribes,” and the way people actually acted, forced one officer to note that British assumptions–that “tribal” heads have control, or that tribes operate as one–did not hold water. That meant that the punishments meted out by Dobbs did not have 38 their desired “effect,” causing him to contemplate how to enforce, or force, the recruitment drive. 39 Telegraphs began arriving that Marris were “contemplating attack.” First, stories of 40 attacks on shopkeepers and forcibly seized camels began to trickle in. But soon, the AGG’s office 41 began to receive information on protests against the district office in Kohlu –the home district of 42 AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi, McConaghey. 28 Jan 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War 33 and action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 43-44; AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi and PA Lorelai. 9 Feb 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 64-65. PA Denys Bray to AGG Dobbs. 26 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 34 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Multan to PA Thompson. 15 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 35 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. Zamindars to AGG Dobbs. 22 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 36 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 21-25. Anonymous to AGG Dobbs. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and action taken 37 against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 47-50. Punjab to AGG Dobbs. 22 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and action 38 taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. PA Bruce to AGG Dobbs. 28 January 1918. Refusal of Marris and others from furnishing recruits during the War and 39 action taken against them. File 1: 13 January - 15 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 51-57. PA Lorelai to Secretary Balochistan (AGG Dobbs Office). 10 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 40 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 3-4. General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 3-4.41 General correspondence. 12 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/42 Quetta, p. 6. - Page of 231 -72 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) the Marris–and threats issued by the sardar “and other Marri notables” to local Indian colonial 43 officers of the British that the latter should “join & march with them and not to help tahsil [district] in anyway otherwise they will bring lashkar [army unit] to loot and kill.” Stories of 44 Marris abandoning levy posts , firing , cutting telegraph lines , showing up armed in the 45 46 47 hundreds , attacking Indian soldiers , blocking passes and roads , or showing up to demand 48 49 50 the release of prisoners began to arrive. Fearful of impending attacks, Indian officers frantically 51 wired the AGG asking him for police, levies, and military re-enforcements. 52 AGG Dobbs wired Delhi to ask for further reinforcements and planes , but was told that 53 “diversions of military nature” should be avoided and that Dobbs should stop pushing for 54 recruits–the Marris were too few anyway. For Delhi, Balochistan’s marginal-strategic position 55 meant the priority was to keep it peaceful. Dobbs agreed. He was, after all, skeptical of reports coming in and was dismissing them as “exaggerated” sent, as they were, by what they judged as unreliable Indian officers. To ascertain 56 exactly what was going on, he sent his political agent in neighbouring Sibi, Colonel McConaghey, to Kohlu to see to the situation. He was not interested in turning a mountain into a molehill, and 57 agreed with his political agents that the British should not “let [the] Marris know we are noting General correspondence. 12 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/43 Quetta, pp. 12-16. General correspondence. 12 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/44 Quetta, pp. 12-16. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/45 Quetta, pp. 29-38. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/46 Quetta, pp. 22-23; General correspondence. 16 February 1918, Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 76-85. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. Records of the Attorney to the 47 Governor General in Balochistan. Essential Records, 1-15; General correspondence. 15 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 59-63. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/48 Quetta, pp. 22-23; 15 February Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 59-63; 18 February 1918, Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 93-105. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/49 Quetta, pp. 22-23. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/50 Quetta, pp. 53-63. Reports from Indian Officers. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/51 Quetta, pp. 46-51. General correspondence. 12 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/52 Quetta, pp. 7-8. AGG Dobbs to Foreign, Delhi. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 52.53 Foreign Delhi to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 69.54 Foreign Delhi to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 69.55 AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi. 12 Feb 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 9.56 Balochistan Agency to GenDiv Quetta. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 57 pp. 17-18; General correspondence. 18 February 1918, Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/ CS/Quetta, pp. 106-109. - Page of 231 -73 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) them” : They should not “frighten them” nor “let wild rumours spread.” Instead, the Marris 58 59 60 were to be told that no further action would be taken against them as long as they “do nothing further.” Concerned, however, that the Marris get too excitable, the AGG also communicated to 61 the political agent speaking to the Marris that they should not be notified of the center’s disinterest in recruitment from their “tribes.” Instead, he wanted his political agent to communicate to the Marris that he was “angry” at them for their behaviour, which would be discussed in the jirga of sardars. The British were concerned that the rumours of disturbances 62 would “get out of control” and that neighbouring “tribes” and “tribal heads” would join the 63 Marris to “commit crime.” In fact, the neighbouring “tribes”–even ones the British thought had 64 feuds–were already joining the Marris. This was a problem: The disturbances needed to be contained, the neighbouring “tribes” steadied. Of course, the British were basing their own 65 66 information on “rumours”–or what they called “information.” 67 When McConaghey arrived, he sent a sardar of a neighbouring tribe to speak to the Marris. But, after attempting to go to the Marris, the sardar returned, attacked by a Marri on the way there. Though the sardar of the Marris apologised, indications that the disturbances had grown began to gain traction, prompting one political agent to recommend that military operations were better immediately rather than later, “as evidenced by Mehsud troubles”–the Pashtun “tribe” in FATA which had similarly taken up arms. It was not long after McConaghey’s 68 arrival that the rising among the Marris was confirmed. On 19 February, 1918, the bloody battle that the Marris still remember as Jang-e-Gumbaz, or the Battle of Gumbaz, took place (Marri 2015, 98-101). It was the middle of the night–around 2am– PA Bruce to AGG Assistant French. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/58 CS/Quetta, pp. 39-45. PA Bruce to AGG Assistant French. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/59 CS/Quetta, pp. 39-45. PA Bruce to AGG Assistant French. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/60 BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 39-45. AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 73.61 General correspondence. 18 Feb 1918, Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 62 106-109. General correspondence. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/63 Quetta, pp. 39-45. Reports from Indian Officers. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/64 Quetta, pp. 46-51. Reports from Indian Officers. 14 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/65 Quetta, pp. 46-51. General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 64-68.66 E.g. in a telegraph from PA Lorelai to AGG Dobb’s office, he reports back on the rumours that he has heard.67 General correspondence. 19 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/68 Quetta, pp. 1-15. - Page of 231 -74 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) when 3000 Marris launched a “determined attack” in front of the Gumbaz Outpost in Kohlu. 69 70 The attack lasted until dawn . The moment when they went to fight is still remembered by Rahm 71 Ali Marri (1876-1933), the Marri war poet: Lo! The final hour has struck We have to leave for a decisive war this world one day, between the British determined we are that we will lay down and the Baloch. our lives for the glory of the Almighty and will be rewarded in this world There is none and the world hereafter. who will not dance at the sound We loathe the British money and glitter. of clashing swords. No one will stay behind in this final clash and the world will always Forward Ghazis and Shahids, remember our daring deeds decorate your horses. against the British This humiliating slavery we are not made for. Our God, He alone, is enough for us. 72 In his report to the AGG, Colonel McConaghey says that he “saw them coming in hordes… It was a nasty few minutes when we saw these brutes running into the Fort and along the roofs.” With 73 their 100 scaling ladders, the “hordes” got into the fort. Those waiting on the ground outside 74 knotted the sides of their shirts together to ensure, that nobody could run away and that everyone took part in the attack (Marri 2015, 98-101). What followed was several hours of battle, that left 75 three officers dead and five wounded on the British side–and 120 dead, another 50 wounded among the Marris. In another report, a British officer describes how an Indian officer at the scene was shocked at what he saw: “Wherever he walked he came across blood… Many of those carried off must have died afterwards.” At the end of his letter to the AGG, McConaghey says that he 76 hoped “the dogs of war are to be let loose.” This idea of Marris as animalistic, wild “hordes” 77 According to wounded prisoners captured by the British. Troops in Duki to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 69 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 109. PA McConaghey to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 70 87-94. PA McConaghey to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 71 87-94. Syed, Javed Haider 2007: The Baloch Resistance Literature Against the British Raj. Pakistan Journal of History & 72 Culture. pp. 77-78. General correspondence. 21 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/73 Quetta, pp. 85-107. General correspondence. 21 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/74 Quetta, pp. 85-107. Also, Dr. Shah Mohammad Marri, interview with author, Quetta, 2016.75 General correspondence. 23 February 1918. Bruce to Duki, AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 76 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 17. PA McConaghey to Quetta. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 83.77 - Page of 231 -75 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) stayed with the British–at one point, an officer reminds another that he must “remember Marris move very quickly and think nothing of covering long distances by foot.” 78 Jang-e-Gumbaz convinced McConaghey, in a letter to the AGG, that the Marris “may have gone ghazi” or “fanatic”: “[T]hey are now beyond ordinary reason until force has been 79 displayed” . The attack on Gumbaz was, after all, followed by further reports on disturbances. 80 81 “Marris are bent on fighting … it is impossible to avoid fighting.” In fact, the heavy losses of 82 Marris at Gumbaz also convinced the British that their “main object being now to kill Europeans in revenge for their losses at Gumbaz” meant that the movement was definitely “fanatical.” The 83 AGG agreed, sending a telegraph off to the Foreign Office in Delhi asking them for military reinforcements and bomber planes. He felt a “suitable punishment” was necessary. “I am 84 85 awaiting instructions as to the use of aeroplanes with bombs over Kahan. I consider that this action combined with move of the above punitive force offers the best means of bringing the Marris to reason.” 86 It was not until the end of the punitive expedition that colonial officers discovered that two months prior to Jang-e-Gumbaz the Marris had “held a meeting at Kohlu where all the headmen, including the Marri Chief, swore on the Koran not to provide any recruits.” And, that 87 a rumour had been circulating that there were no British troops left in India after World War I. 88 In fact, it was later that the British reported back that Kandahari and Peshawari Mullahs had been present in Kahan, that Ottoman spies were spreading rumours across the frontier, and that PA McConaghey to Quetta. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 83.78 PA McConaghey to AGG Dobbs. 20 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/79 CS/Quetta, pp. 16-30. PA Sibi to AGG Dobbs. 28 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 80 pp. 37-53. General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-46.81 AGG Dobbs to Foreign, Delhi. 21 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/82 Quetta, pp. 85-107. Notes of Conference with Major Harris. 2 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/83 Quetta, p. 20. “In my opinion aeroplanes should now be prepared to bomb Kahan. If approved, kindly arrange for bombs to be 84 sent to Lahore.” Quetta to Delhi Central Command, AGG Dobbs. No Date. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 74. AGG Dobbs to Dera Bugti. No Date. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 85 85-107, p. 11, AGG Dobbs to CGS. No Date. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-7.86 Miscellaneous reports. 30 May 1918. Accounts of events leading up to the Marri Rising, attacks on Gumaz on the 19th-20th 87 February, 1918 and subsequent advance of the Marri Punitive Force to Mamand and Kahan, AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. “Ostensibly, therefore the whole cause of the rising was the request for recruits. There is, I think, no doubt that this 88 was the actual spark which lit the fire. Where was the fire? This was to be found in the very strong rumour, which had got about, and had been assiduously promulgated all along this border that owing to the number of men sent to Mesopotamia and Palestine, there was a great dearth of troops in India.” 30 May 1918. Appendix (A) II. Events which led up to and the Causes of the present Rising. Accounts of events leading up to the Marri Rising, attacks on Gumaz on the 19th-20th February, 1918 and subsequent advance of the Marri Punitive Force to Mamand and Kahan, AGG/ER/BA/CS/ Quetta. - Page of 231 -76 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution had stoked “democratic intrigues” among “tribesmen.” The scattered references to overlapping networks present in Kahan, and later joining the Marris, indicate that what the British described as “going ghazi” rendered obscure mobile counter-89 societies or overlapping networks of resistance including communists, anti-colonialists, and pan- Islamists who found common cause against the British. Having rendered these counter-societies obscure–representing them as “fanatical” and being unable to account for them–meant that the British now had an “infection” they had to stop from spreading through a policy of containment. II.B. Containment: Blocking the Spread of the Infection While waiting for a reply, the AGG started to take action. He called for the sardar of the Marris to come in, “under guard … under surveillance but not handcuffed” and for Marris everywhere–90 except those living under the protection of another “tribe” and therefore connected to the collective responsibility of another unit–to be rounded up and arrested. Fearful of the 91 “infection” spreading, he wrote to his officers to tell them that they must ensure that ziarats or martyr’s shrines were not built for the Marris killed at Gumbaz ; sent off telegraphs to 92 neighbouring districts and provinces to warn them that “tribes” elsewhere “may be affected by movement” ; and wrote to sardars in the area to explain the “true situation,” prevent the spread of 93 rumours , and urge them to keep their “tribes” “in order” . Some of these “tribal” leaders, 94 95 particularly of the Bugtis, were eager to cooperate. In one letter, the Bugti sardar goes back to his lands instead of proceeding to a meeting with the British “to keep his tribe from any excitement attack on the Marris or dacoits and for this purpose he was sending men in every direction he trusted he would be able to keep his tribe in order.” 96 Despite his best attempts, however, reports were arriving that “tribesmen” were defying sardars and that people from other “tribes”–at times “tribes” the British thought were in a feud PA McConaghey to AGG Dobbs. 20 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/89 CS/Quetta, pp. 16-30. General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 100.90 General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 101; “If 91 Marris are not permanent hamsayas of Dannis and disassociated from their tribes they should be arrested immediately or frightened back into hills. Otherwise they will help as spies to help in raiding.” General correspondence. 25 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 47-62. “In consultation with Bruce please take such actions as is still possible to prevent a Ziarat being made a burial 92 place of the Marris who have been killed.” AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi at Gumbaz. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 156. In this quote he specifically refers to Baloch tribes in the Punjab. File C: 102, p. 11. Punjab answers that they will take 93 care. Punjab to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 50. AGG Dobbs to Sardars. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 164-166.94 Bugti to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-32.95 Bugti to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-32.96 - Page of 231 -77 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) with the Marris –were joining the Marris in the “rising”. Information had begun to arrive that 97 the Marris were not alone in their attacks. The Marris–though at the spearhead of the movement–were neither driven into “rising” by their sardar, who was against the decision, nor were they the only ones involved. “Tribesmen” from the Lunis, Kakars, Musakhels, Bugtis, and Khetrans–a mix of Pashtun and Baloch “tribes” close to Kohlu–were either “quietly assisting the Marris” or actively taking part in the 98 attacks. Though British reports of a spreading, infectious “fanaticism” were overstated, the fear of a growing rebellion indicated a realisation that the colonial government’s “tribal” rule may come apart at the seams. The “tribes” they had so meticulously recorded, fixed and governed could unite across “tribal” and ethnic divisions against British rule. 99 Reports began to arrive that an oath had been taken in Kohlu , at the 100 insistence of mullas from the northern city of Peshawar and Kandahar across the border in Afghanistan, and after “tribesmen” like Rahm Ali Marri, the poet, taunted his sardar and others who collaborated with the British for taking money from the colonial government. According to the statement that was later given 101 during the submission of the Marri sardar, he had “begged” other Marris not to fight the British, apparently throwing his “pugree” or turban on the ground as a sign of his disagreement –102 In one telegraph, McConaghey reports that the Lunis were “quietly assisting Marris” despite the enmity. PA 97 McConaughey to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 186. In one telegraph, McConaghey reports that the Lunis were “quietly assisting Marris” despite the enmity. PA 98 McConaughey to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 186. At one point, a Kakar sardar is asked to be kept watch on because of “possible machinations with both Marris and 99 Kakars.” General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 83. At another point, NWFP reports “no uneasinesss felt on Khost … in connection with the affair and even the local Kakars have shown no sort of excitement and indeed very little interest in the rumours.” “Rumours reached understated seriousness of affair.” General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 1. General correspondence. 23 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/100 Quetta, p. 142. The report said that Masori Bugtis and Langhanis and Thingianis were present, though later reports placed many others at the scene as well. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-27.101 Statement of Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri. 8 April 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/102 Quetta. - Page of 231 -78 Image 2.8 | Troops of the Marri Punitive Force returning through a pass in Balochistan after destroying crops. Source: “Fighting the Marris and the Khetrans: February-April 1918. The Duki Column of the Marri Field Force, Baluchistan,” The Soldier’s Burden, Kaiser’s Cross. Available at: http:// www.kaiserscross.com/304501/478822.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) though, heroic poetry about the sardar indicates that he was an active participant in the uprisings against the British. The tacit decision to organise together against the British was not one that 103 made sense to the government. In one correspondence after the other, they shared files of cases evidencing “tribal disputes” that existed between the various groups whose involvement they were hearing about. The decision to work against the explicit orders of their sardars and across “tribes” and ethnicities with apparent feuds made no sense, further entrenching the British notion that the Marris and those who had joined them were “beyond ordinary reason” or “fanatical.” In comparison, the AGG would regularly compliment his officers as exhibiting “coolness and common sense!” 104 Soon, reports that another British outpost called Barkhan was about to be attacked reached the British: “A certain amount of anxiety is felt about Barkhan” said one telegraph, 105 “imminent danger of Barkhan tahsil being attacked by Marris numbering acc[ording] to current reports about 3000 men…” said another. The fear of the rebellion spreading further, and 106 rumours of more attacks, caused the British to conclude that they could not rely “on local help” –their usual method of rule in colonial Balochistan–and needed backup. With reports of 107 more attacks arriving one officer noted that, unless back-up arrives, “the small police force we have sent will be uselessly sacrificed and this loss will further embolden revolters.” Other 108 officers chimed in, saying that “unless military assistance reaches here very prompt there will be absolute anarchy in country” and that “delay in sending help would be ruinous and might set 109 whole countryside ablaze.” It was not just the fear of cross-border raids : All of them agreed 110 111 that “any leniency now shown them over present outrageous attitude can only have deplorable effect not only on them but throughout [the] province” and that “drastic and exemplary 112 Haider, Syed Javed. 2007. “The Baloch Resistance Literature Against the British Raj.” Pakistan Journal of History & 103 Culture, p. 77. General correspondence. 22 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/104 Quetta, p. 8-36. General correspondence. 23 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/105 Quetta, pp. 116-122. General correspondence. 23 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/106 Quetta, pp. 126-151. Fort Munroe to AGG Dobbs. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 107 p. 111. Dera Ghazi Khan to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 108 63-67. Duki to AGG Dobbs. 25 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 109 pp. 71-90. Fort Munroe to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 108.110 General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 166.111 Turbat to Quetta AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 150.112 - Page of 231 -79 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) punishment” should “be awarded as promptly as possible.” The sardars who were 113 114 coordinating with the British also agreed: the Raisani sardar, whom the British wanted to send as an intermediary to bring the Marris “to reason” recommended that the AGG order planes to fly over the Marri territory to ensure a more “pliant frame of mind.” The AGG, earlier skeptical, 115 reported to Delhi that middlemen negotiating on behalf of the British would no longer work, and that it was time for action. 116 It was at this point that the AGG and his Political Agents became perplexed, wondering what could be behind the troubles. In one correspondence after the next, they tried to ascertain the “real reason” of the “outbreak” by approaching e.g. “headmen” . “Headmen” like the Bugti 117 118 sardar, however, merely exacerbated the notion of the “utterly ignorant and wild” Baloch, 119 prompting the officers to dismiss the uprising as “characteristic of oriental intrigue” . Yet, within 120 the colonial archive hints at vast cosmopolitan networks of resistance to colonial rule emerge in various moments through references of Ottoman spies, mullahs from Kandahar and Peshawar, and communists emboldened by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution criss-crossing these territories; Marri (2015) also refers to such networks in his account of the Third Anglo-Marri War of 1918. However, though references to such networks are scattered across the colonial telegraphs, the British spoke of “fear” and “exaggeration” as the key reason behind the “disquiet.” 121 Despite the fear of a spreading uprising, the Foreign Office in Delhi originally rebuffed calls for a military operation: “[W]ithout further reference to GOI [Government of India] no advance into Marri country should be undertaken except for emergent reasons … GOI cannot agree until they receive this that situation has become definitely military.” In these early stages, Delhi was also against the idea of using aeroplanes: “The risk involved in the use of aeroplanes Turbat to Quetta AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 150.113 Turbat to Quetta AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 150.114 PA Bruce to Duki, AGG Dobbs. 23 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 5: 23 February-27 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/115 CS/Quetta, p. 122. “Although Marris idea is mistaken they are now beyond ordinary reason until force has been displayed … [I] am 116 afraid Mehrullas [Raisani’s] mission would now be useless and foredoomed to failure … my information … this evening tends to show that intervention even of Syeds would not now be well-read by Marris who are bent on revenge for losses at Gumbaz.” Sibi to AGG Dobbs. 28 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 37-53. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 101, 117 104-106. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 114, 118 117. General correspondence. 24 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 119 2-7. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 9: 8 March-11 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 1-25.120 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 3: 19 February-21 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 121 47-54. - Page of 231 -80 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) would not it is considered be justified at present” they said, explaining that “conditions will not 122 allow them to operate over Marri country” . Instead, keeping Balochistan peaceful was more 123 important. With the attack at Gumbaz, however, the AGG now disagreed, and tried to explain 124 to Delhi that “clemency” would be “misinterpreted.” In fact, it was not until the Marris attacked 125 the railway–which had been such a crucial part of the British attacks on Afghanistan during the Anglo-Afghan Wars–that those in Delhi changed their mind : “That attack [on the 126 railway] alters the matter in vital manners and … time for mediation on lines proposed has gone by.” Though negotiation was still encouraged, and aerial bombardments would take a few more 127 days to be ordered, Delhi gave the instruction to form the Marri Punitive Force. 128 Another three weeks would pass, however, between the order issued by Delhi and the formal declaration of martial law. In that period, stories of “tribesmen” attacking villages and looting houses spread, as did rumours of “tribesmen” from neighbouring, sometimes rival, “tribes” joining the Marris. In early March, rumours began to spread that a Misri Khan–who had worked as a levy under the British and was the brother of the Khetrani sardar –had abandoned 129 his post and convinced a subsection of the Khetranis to fight the British. Suspecting that he had 130 almost 400 men with him during his “defection” to the Marris , the British declared that “there 131 132 is extreme unrest bordering on anarchy.” A few days later, the Khetranis attacked and looted 133 Foreign to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p 22.122 Foreign Delhi to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 69.123 Foreign Delhi to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 2: 8 February-19 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 69.124 General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 13. In one 125 correspondence, PA McConaghey says that Delhi is being “short-sighted” and that he shares the AGG’s frustration: “I am all for further punishment of Marris in their own country but one cannot always get what one wants.” PA McConaghey to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 190. “The only chance in my opinion of clamping down rising and setting railway free while military preparations are 126 in progress lies in immediate action with aeroplanes, at all events over the area of the railways.” 28 February 1918. AGG Dobbs to Foreign, Delhi. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 54. Foreign, Delhi to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 89. This 127 response comes after AGG Dobbs warns, in a letter, the following: “The only chance in my opinion of clamping down rising and setting railway free while military preparations are in progress lies in immediate action with aeroplanes, at all events over the area of the railways.” Foreign to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 6: 27 February-1 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 18. The attack on the railway was also later cited as the reason for the Foreign Office to order the creation of the Marri Punitive Force: “After the attack on the railway it was decided by Government to send a punitive force against the Marris.” PA Bruce to AGG Assistant French, Accounts of events leading up to the Marri Rising, attacks on Gumbaz on the 19-20th February 1918 and subsequent advance of the Marri Punitive Force to Mamand and Kahan, AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 139 General correspondence. 23 February 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 4: 21 February-24 February 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/128 Quetta, p. 67. “[We fear that a] levy jamadar of Rakhni who is influential brother of Khetran sardar, has gone over to Marris, that 129 other Khetrans are likely to follow his lead.” Punjab to AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 25. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 17-24; 130 General correspondence. 4 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 141. PA Lorelai Bruce/AGG Dobbs. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 105.131 Gen Div to AGG Dobbs. 7 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 144.132 Gen Div to AGG Dobbs. 7 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 144.133 - Page of 231 -81 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) another outpost, Fort Munroe , which was “burnt by a band of … Khetrans, Marris, and 134 probably Gurchanis.” As reports continued to come in, it became clear that “900 Marris and 135 1500 Khetrans have since looted Barkhan” and released its prisoners before running back into 136 the hills. “All the Khetran country is up,” one official reported, before alarmingly insisting on 137 138 striking a blow on the Marris because of the spread of the rebellion. 139 The decision by Misri Khan and his men to join the rising gave strength to another suspicion that the British had been considering: That Ottoman and German spies, along with northern Pashtun Peshawari and Kandahari mullahs, had “incited” “tribesmen” in Balochistan. Misri Khan had spent some time in Kabul in refuge , and had just returned. The Afghan Empire 140 frequently refused British overtures to turn over people in refuge, and frequently hosted communists and other anti-colonial rebels in Kabul. Rumours were also circulating that the 141 British had no troops left in India –thus the need for recruitment: “[O]wing to so many troops 142 having been despatched to Mesopotamia and Palestine, [it is believed that] India was denuded of troops.” The AGG concluded that this led those in uprising to think that Britain was “impotent” 143 and “weak” –“wild and incorrect rumours” that one political agent felt had to be 144 145 “silence[d]” . In a follow-up telegraph to the Foreign Office, the AGG wrote, “anyone with 146 frontier experience knows that rumour multiplies every gathering of this kind tenfold.” 147 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 5-7.134 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 25.135 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 151.136 General correspondence. 9 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 9: 8 March-11 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 25, 137 133. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 151.138 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 167.139 General correspondence. 4 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 9: 8 March-11 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 37; 140 General correspondence. 7 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta. p. 166. In these files, there is talk about spy activity from Turks and Germans and their conversations with Boston Khan, Mirzehan Khan, and Uijarani–some of the names identified by the British as those coordinating the uprising. Interview with Professor Waqar Ali Shah, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, February 2016. Professor Shah 141 argues that a history of Kabul as a node in vast anti-colonial and communist networks remains to be written. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 75-76142 General correspondence. 12 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 143 25, 27. AGG/Foreign. 6 Mar 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 84.144 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 142.145 PA Lorelai Bruce to AGG Dobbs. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 146 p. 81. General correspondence. 15 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 147 172. At one point, a telegraph reads: “The more I have gone into the cause of the disturbance the more convinced I am that the main reason was the almost universal belief of most of the tribes that India was denuded of troops and there is no doubt that this has been assiduously fostered by mischief makers. I am doing my best to find out who as at the bottom of this as they are the persons who require the greatest sitting on.” AGG Correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 15: 3 April-8 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 130-135. - Page of 231 -82 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) The AGG, concerned that the situation was getting out of hand, began to press the Foreign Office to make sure that the troops would come faster. “The commissioner is of the opinion that an early move of British Troops is to be desired from the point of view of moral effect,” his secretary telegraphed to the military divisions that were on their way. He also warned the Foreign Office that a delay in forces would give the impression of weakness to those in uprising. His 148 officers, witnessing the spread of the rising, agreed. One of his political officers wrote to the AGG that “defection such as shown by the Khetranis is infectious.” “What they … as well as others in Balochistan need is a clear demonstration of how a tribe which misbehaves in wartime can expect to be treated and such a demonstration, I hope, they are to be given. It is hard to imagine more heinous behaviour than that of the Marris and they want a punishment which will not be forgotten for a generation, or more.” The sardars, dependent on relationships to the British, 149 agreed. The Bugti sardar visited to prove his loyalty. Meanwhile, in a letter sent to the AGG, 150 several sardars and the Khan of Kalat himself urged the British to teach the “wily” Marris, and their allies, a lesson for “flouting sardari authority.” In a letter to the Foreign Office, the AGG 151 explained that the sardars were concerned about “democratic intrigues” spreading through the “tribesmen”: “These chiefs say that the wave of anarchy and lawlessness which originated in the revolutionary doctrines prevalent in Russia and Persia is sweeping through all their tribesmen.” 152 The fear of contagion and the importance of containment was central to the British, as the only way through which they could effectively stop the spread of the infection, and cure it through eradication. After seeing the “infection” spread like wildfire, the punitive force finally arrived. II.C. Erasure: Bombing the “Fanatics” On 16 March–about three weeks after the decision to launch a punitive operation–General Hardy marched into Balochistan and declared martial law. The Marri Punitive Force began to burn villages, destroy crops, round up and seize cattle , and block roads with the help of armoured 153 General correspondence. 6 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 148 85-105. PA Zhob to AGG Dobbs. 12 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 149 60-61. General Correspondence. 5 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 46.150 PA Bruce to AGG Dobbs. 13 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 151 89, p. 27. AGG Dobbs to Foreign, Delhi. 20 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/152 Quetta, p. 165. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 77.153 - Page of 231 -83 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) trains transporting weapons. The RAF, in the meantime, sent aeroplanes for “aggressive air 154 155 reconnaissance” and bombing . When pilots were unsure whether the people they saw were 156 157 rebellious or loyal, they merely flew low to frighten them, though an awareness of the tendency 158 to mix up “rebellious” Baloch from their uninvolved counterparts did not stop the Bugti sardar from asking the British to be careful in their bombing campaign. The aeroplanes were told to 159 carry out “as much damage as possible on KAHAN and enemy personnel” for the purposes of teaching “a lesson”–whenever the British felt like this lesson had been successfully taught, they repeatedly used the word “effect”: “good effect” , “great effect” , “excellent effect” . To avoid the 160 161 162 bombardments, people began to split into small parties, and ran off in different directions whenever they heard an aeroplane. This caused the British to use this tactic, and they ordered 163 pilots to bomb to disperse crowds of people. In attempts to push back the British, the fighters 164 rolled stones into railway tunnels , and continued to attack e.g. troops and telegraphs –or 165 166 167 basically continued to “cause mischief” . British officials were told to keep an eye on 168 neighbouring “tribes” including their continued service in e.g. levy posts and, at one point, 169 170 were encouraged to try and involve them in the military operation itself. ‘Tribes’ were also told 171 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 38-51.154 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 123-125.155 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 64.156 The places where bombing reportedly took places included Bawatta Post, Rakhni (General correspondence. No 157 date. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918, AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 28); Vitakri and Nahak (General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 29); Vitakili (General correspondence. 15 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 31); Kahan (General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 31; General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 12: 21 March-25 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 33; General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 87); Tang (General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 34); Mamand (General correspondence. 8 April 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 14: 30 March-3 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 22); Duki (General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918, pp. 97-98). General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 10: 12 March-17 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 55.158 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 107-117.159 General correspondence. 15 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 160 85. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 1-7.161 General correspondence. 17 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 162 8-53. General correspondence. 23 March, 1918. AGG Dobbs Note. Marri Outbreak. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.163 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-34, p. 164 21. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-34.165 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 31-34.166 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 57.167 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 4.168 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 40.169 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 70.170 AGG Dobbs recommended involving Lunis, Khetrans and Kakars in the military force. AGG Dobbs to General 171 Jacob. 4 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 149. - Page of 231 -84 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) to “stop and arrest any Marris attempting to enter our territories” , refuse asylum to persons 172 who had taken up arms , to refuse to shelter the communities of Marris escaping the military 173 campaign , to send back anyone who crosses into their territory , to convince them to submit , 174 175 176 attempt to stop “foolish rumours” –and were armed to ensure that British orders could be 177 carried out. In descriptions given within colonial correspondence telegraphs, the British told of 178 how they “gutted” and bombed entire villages, and bombed large congregations , once 179 180 181 reportedly up to 250 people. “I fancy the measures now being taken to commandeer their crops, 182 round up their flocks and bomb their strongholds will soon bring them into line,” one 183 telegraph said. In one battle, they reported killing 400 Marris. During another battle, a soldier 184 reported that villagers were “shaking with fright” . One report describes how 70 corpses were 185 found, dead on the ground, and carried away to be buried. Another eyewitness account 186 described how one Marri had “been cut to pieces” , another had been “shot through the head” 187 188 and a third had been found “dead & his clothes burnt.” The number of dead were so many that 189 they were “buried in very shallow ground & stones laid over them” and some “were not buried 190 at all.” Soldiers began to telegraph in to tell their superiors that they were facing no resistance 191 anymore. One pilot wrote: “I have destroyed villages in spite of the fact that since arrival at RAKHNI I have encountered no armed resistance”. Another soldier wrote: “Except for a few 192 AGG to Sardar Jogezai. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 140-141; 172 Reminder sent to Jogezai. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, 9-14. Dera Ghazi Khan to AGG Dobbs. 23 March, 1918. Marri Outbreak. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 33.173 General correspondence. 6 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 77.174 Dera Ghazi Khan to AGG Dobbs. 23 March, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 12: 21 March-25 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/175 Quetta. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 120.176 AGG Dobbs to Khan of Kalat. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 52-55. This 177 demand was specifically sent to the Khan of Kalat. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 16.178 24 March 1918. GenDiv Quetta to GenGhazi. Marri Outbreak. Records of the Attorney to the Governor General in 179 Balochistan. Essential Records, p. 33. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 148.180 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 12: 21 March-25 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 76.181 General correspondence. 24 March 1918. File 12: 21 March-25 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.182 General correspondence. No date. File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 17-18.183 GENGHAZI to GenStaff Quetta. No date. Marri Outbreak. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.184 Acton to AGG Dobbs. 3 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, pp. 185 128-129. Secretary to PA Sibi. 5 April 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 15: 3 April-8 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 31-36, r13186 Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 154.187 Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 154.188 Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 154.189 Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 154.190 Marri Outbreak. File 16: 8 April-13 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 154.191 AGG correspondence. 27 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.192 - Page of 231 -85 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) troops destroying villages no opposition has been encountered here or is likely to be encountered.” In 193 response, General Hardy wrote back: “In the order I sent to you there was nothing indefinite… The destruction you have been ordered to carry out is a military operation … In the orders I gave you in no way implied destruction only in the case of opposition.” So they continued “sweeping the 194 entire valley.” In other words, soldiers were told that it 195 did not matter that no Marris were fighting back: They had been ordered to destroy until another order was sent. One officer wrote back, indicating that he understood the order: “The only suggestion I can make is that we continue to destroy crops and villages to bring in wood and drive cattle until the tribes tender their submission.” In hearing about the on-going 196 operations, a political agent from Turbat–a district in the far south of colonial Balochistan–wrote to say that he regretted not being around to “see the fun.” Another colonial officer from 197 neighbouring Sindh sympathised with the AGG: “You must be having a strenuous time and I hope [you] will quickly reduce your recalcitrant tribes to submission.” At one point, the 198 destruction was so extensive that one military officer reported that they had destroyed “everything belonging to these that they can lay hands on…” including “all their property in this country”. The result was that everything was “absolutely deserted of inhabitants and flocks” and that Marris had “taken everything living with them.” The extent of the destruction–as well as 199 concerns of an impending and brutal summer –prompted the soldier to recommend to his 200 superiors to start discussing submission. Submission was, however, not a straightforward matter. It was not enough for individual groups of people to enter the camp and give up their weapons. They were told to return and submit to their sardar, who would then collectively submit to the British: The colonial order and truth of the state, where the sardar was superior, the “tribe” homogenous, and both loyal to the British, had to be reinstated. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 75.193 General correspondence. 27 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 194 78. General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 14: 30 March-3 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 90-95.195 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 75.196 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 7: 2 March-4 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 48.197 Sindh to AGG Dobbs. 6 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 8: 4 March-7 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 90.198 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 15: 3 April-8 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 39.199 General correspondence. No date. Marri Outbreak. File 15: 3 April-8 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 39.200 - Page of 231 -86 Image 2.9 | The sardar of the Marri tribe signs terms of submission with General Hardy. Source: “Fighting the Marris and the Khetrans: February-April 1918. The Duki Column of the Marri Field Force, Baluchistan,” The Soldier’s Burden, Kaiser’s Cross. Available at: http:// www.kaiserscross.com/304501/478822.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) II.D. Subjection: Re-establishing the “Truth” of the State and “Tribal” Rule The brutality of the operations brought several people to the territories within which General Hardy, who was leading the army, was headquartered. Rather than accepting their submission, however, they were told to return to their sardar, whose authority they had flouted, and tender their submission through him. The order to only accept submissions mediated by the sardar had been sent by the Foreign Office: “The fundamental principle is this: that each tribe should be dealt with as one whole–as far as possible–and settlement with each tribe should be effected through its recognised mouthpiece and representative, i.e. the Chief, whether he himself has been loyal or not.” Until such a time, “troops will continue to destroy…” 201 202 It was around this time that the AGG sent the letter to the Bugti sardar, telling him the tale of the fisherman and the jinn. In his reply, the Bugti sardar confirmed the place of the British in Balochistan: The story of the fisherman quoted by you applies very much to the present circumstances. The relations between you and the Military authorities are the same as given in this story. It is true that the Marris have themselves shut the door of repentance and forgiveness before them, otherwise your exalted ideas of which I had had the occasion to know while at Quetta and also which are conveyed in your letters, are no less to all of us–the subjects–than an ocean of generosity and cloud of forgiveness. But it is a pity for these people who instead of benefiting themselves and rendering services in the time of such a generous ruler are themselves throwing open the door of misfortune before them. 203 On 8 April, 1918, the Marri chief tendered his submission to General Hardy. During the submission, the Marri chief told General Hardy–truthfully or not, this is unclear–that the reason behind the revolt was the “intrigues of Political subordinates” that were attempting to “undermine his position in his tribe” leaving him with “practically no authority”. The British 204 recognised that the uprising itself undermined the authority of the sardar upon which the colonial government was dependent: “The principle ringleaders in the rising were men who have been set up in opposition to Nawab’s [sardar’s] authority. The majority of these men have now been crushed and Nawab should regain his authority if surrender is made through his hand with Foreign to GenDuki. 22 March, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 12: 21 March-25 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.201 AGG Dobbs to PA Sibi. 26 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 13: 25 March-30 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.202 General correspondence. 8 April, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 15: 3 April-8 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 47.203 Genduki to Genstaff Quetta, Foreign Simla, AGG Dobbs. 14 April, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. 204 AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 101. - Page of 231 -87 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) support of [the] government.” The reinstatement of the power of the Marri sardar in particular, 205 and the state sanctioned “tribal” leadership in general, was crucial as the British attempted to reinstate colonial order. In the months that followed, colonial documents betray an extensive debate around how to punish those who were involved. The Marris and Khetrans were not the only “tribes” who were part of the uprising. In internal reports, people considered to be a part of several “tribes” and “sub-tribes”–including the Lunis, Zarkhuns, Tarins, Hasnis, Dumars, the Musa Khels and Vanechies –were sympathetic or directly supportive of the Marris and Khetrans. Meanwhile, 206 "tribal" interest was not the main reason behind the rebellion. Overlapping networks of anti- colonial rebellion found common cause against the British, culminating in the oath taken in Kahan in December 1917. Traces of these overlapping, mobile networks are apparent in the colonial archive. There are several stories of mullahs from Peshawar and Kandahar who spent long periods with the Marris , spreading rumours of the reduction of British troops and urging 207 the Marris and surrounding peoples to rise up against a colonial government intent on undermining the Ottoman Empire. In fact, upon his submission, the Marri sardar said that his “tribesmen” refused both conscription, and urged a rebellion against a colonial government opposing the Ottomans: “The ostensible reason they gave was that these were required to fight against our co-religionists, the Turks.” One of the main “ringleaders” of the rebellion, Misri 208 Khan, was known to have spent time in refuge in Kabul prior to the uprising. Both Baloch nationalist writers and colonial documents report that Misri Khan was a communist who was inspired by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. As the British clamped down on the Marri uprising, he managed to hide with several communities that dotted the road on his way to Afghan border, where he crossed and went into refuge again. Though very little is known about Misri Khan, Inayatullah Baloch (1987) says that he attended the Soviet-organised 1920 Congress of the People's of the East in Baku. The conference was a key node that brought together Baloch ethno- nationalists–who emerged in the early 20th century as a secular and urban political movement together with other anti-colonial and nationalist struggles in places across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia. Traces of these other, overlapping networks, indicate Genduki to Genstaff Quetta, Foreign Simla, AGG Dobbs. 14 April, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. 205 AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 101. HQ of the Marri Punitive Force. 1 April 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 14: 30 March-3 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta.206 There are mentions of a Zarkun Mullah from Peshawar who spent four years with Wazirhan, Loharani, who was 207 considered “one of the firebrands of the … disturbance” according to the PA in Lorelai, C.E. Bruce. There was also talk of Mullah Painde, who was seen to play a key role in spreading rumours about the weakness of British troops in India. Mullah Mehmoud Ismail was also found to be circulating in the area and had gone to Kandahar a few months after spending time in Marri territories. General correspondence. 8 April, 1918. Marri Outbreak: File 17: 14 April-18 April 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 110.208 - Page of 231 -88 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) that what the British saw as “fanatical” was a sign of cross-“tribal,” cross-ethnic, and cross-border networks that opposed British colonial rule. III Conclusion: Modes of Destruction under the State-as-Jinn AGG Dobbs’ letter, with which this chapter began, prompts us to consider the state not merely as a rational, order-making institution, as scholars like Bernard S. Cohn (1987) point out, but as a magical, disorder-making one as Michael Taussig (1987) argues. Indeed, the state-as-jinn forces us to question the prevailing notion that “colonial statecraft was motivated and fuelled by a reductive equation of knowledge to power, and that colonial states sought more of both.” (Stoler 2002, 101) Instead, this chapter demonstrates that the colonial government, particularly in this part of its northwestern frontier, neither had full knowledge nor was necessarily invested in securing it. Instead, content in maintaining Balochistan as a strategic and marginal territory where colonial subjects were considered backwards yet vulnerable to foreign intrigue, they destroyed the “fanatic” they did not care to understand by unleashing the jinn. In his study of the jinn of Feroz Shah Kotla, a shrine in Delhi, Anand Vivek Taneja explores the rich understandings of this “separate species of being, different from and older than humans” made, as the Qur’an says, of “smokeless fire” (Taneja 2013, 140, 139). Taneja shows how the jinn became “witness to other times, to other modes of being” than the state-sanctioned subjectivities of the secular, forward-looking Indian citizen. He suggests that while memories of these other times, other modes–in which Delhi’s Muslims have a history and place in their city– are being erased by state officials in a city marred by Partition violence, the jinn are a medium that challenges what he calls the state’s “magical amnesia” of its Islamic past (Taneja 2013, 161). The 209 AGG’s invocation of the jinn points to how the colonial state invoked a far narrower, and more malicious, definition of a jinn, namely one that “augurs madness” rather than one that operates as a medium of memory and healing (Khan 2006, 248). In this invocation, the jinn does the bidding of the state which, like the government in Delhi, sought to erase “other times, other modes of being” for the purposes of clearing the ground upon which the colonial order could be built and rebuilt. This jinn, no amorphous being, is one that can be discerned and delineated. Against Taussig’s (1987) argument that one must maintain the ambiguity of violence in order to penetrate it, this chapter closely reads a moment where the jinn is unleashed to reveal its shape and actions. What emerges is that the force of the jinn was unleashed whenever colonial subjects acted in Also see Khan, Naveeda. 2006. “Of children and jinn: An inquiry into an unexpected friendship during 209 uncertainty times.” Cultural Anthropology 21 (6): 234-64. - Page of 231 -89 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) ways that did not make sense within the strict categories of knowledge built by the colonial state. According to this knowledge, “tribesmen” who took up arms against the British had turned “fanatical” and gone “beyond reason.” In his study of fanaticism, Toscano (2010, 23) notes that behind contemporary conversations of fanaticism “there often lies another theme: that of the supposed demotivation and demobilisation of liberal democracies, their passive nihilism.” I argue that behind the fear of the rebellious and “fanatic” Marri or other frontier peoples during the colonial era lay the theme of the pacification, through policies of destruction, of peoples and places for the purposes of rule. This pacification did not take place through a total annihilation of all forms of conflict or disagreement–indeed, colonial institutions like the jirga were set up precisely to encompass and address conflict within the governing institutions of the state–but rather through the disciplining and transformation of this conflict and disagreement into forms that were suitable to the colonial order. While the colonial order could both make sense of, and regulate, conflict along personal, “tribal,” or ethnic lines, they could not understand or govern conflict that transgressed these lines and resisted their rule. Whether it was the cases tried under the MOA or the 1918 Marri Punitive Expedition, the key question facing the colonial magistrate was whether the “outrage” was committed because of some personal enmity (like disputes over land, retribution for the killing of a relative or “tribesman,” or a dispute over a woman) in which case they would be categorised as murder or “tribal unrest.” However, when none of these categories fit, they became signs of the “rabies of ghazism,” particularly when the “tribesman” showed signs of animosity towards colonial officers. This final explanation constituted a gray zone that not only flattened all histories and emotional states of various accused “fanatics” into one category, but also saw no reason behind individual or collective attacks on colonial officers. Personal or “tribal” interests, not collective or political passion that transcended the unit of the individual, the “tribe,” or the ethnic group, were considered reasons that were legible as reasonable in the eyes of the colonial state. The colonial order saw a person part of such collective passions as someone “who will not change, an intransigent, incorrigible subject.” (Toscano 2010, xi) Though personal interests were always interlaced with the eruption of collective passions, they could never fully account for the collective decision by thousands of “tribesmen” to turn out in armed rising against the British. Colonial state officials were unable to make sense out of the rebellion which brought together peoples who were thought to be, in colonial records, grouped separately or at war with one another. These affective moments of frustration, confusion, perplexity within the colonial archive are breakages where colonial logic reveals that its sense of a place and its people was crude, categorical, and constructed. In order to force colonial common sense back into the centre of - Page of 231 -90 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) their relationships, they first had to do away with all that defied this common sense. This required the release of the jinn because “native unreason could only be addressed by the exercise of unreasonable violence.” (Rao & Pierce 2002, 2) 210 As is clear from the narrative in Part II, the colonial officers charged with executing the 1918 punitive expedition were obsessed with the question of “effect”: They sought to have a “good effect” , “great effect” , and “excellent effect” . This forces us to rethink Timothy Mitchell’s 211 212 213 (1988) idea of “state effects” which he associates with the emergence of seemingly transparent and objective categories and boundaries; here, the effect of the state is magical and haunting, like a jinn. However, the close reading of colonial telegraphs during the 1918 expedition also indicates that the mimetic chaos of the jinn dealt with its other, the “fanatic,” through processes of containment, erasure, and subjection. Obsessed with questions of contagion, they ensured that they first identified the length to which the “fanaticism” had spread, before following it up with the erasure or eradication of its symptoms. All the places and peoples that were left behind in its wake could then be moulded, through subjection, to the interests of the state. Though destruction through containment went alongside other modes of destruction–like colonial censorship laws and the confusion that the jinn caused–I argue that it was a dominant methodology of destruction because of the place of Balochistan as a buffer zone that was mostly marginal to the calculations of the British Raj. While this mode of destruction did not fully determine the fate of the postcolonial state that took over rule in Balochistan after 1947, the colonial state provided the building blocs and basic groundwork upon which the postcolonial state developed, and upon which it governs this site today. Rao & Pierce (2002, 2) go on to argue: “The exigencies of governing the colonized ultimately produced 210 uncomfortable similarities between the so-called barbarism of native practices and the acts of terror and violence used to contain them.” General correspondence. 15 March, 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 211 85. General correspondence. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 1-7, p. 29212 General correspondence. 17 March 1918. Marri Outbreak. File 11: 16 March-21 March 1918. AGG/ER/BA/CS/Quetta, p. 213 8-53. - Page of 231 -91 Chapter 2 | Containment: State Destruction in Colonial Balochistan (1839-1947) - Page of 231 -92 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) As colonial Balochistan passed into the rule of the newly independent state of Pakistan, the figure of the “fanatic” of Balochistan who had to be contained morphed into the figure of the “traitor” who had to be censured. Much like the category of the irrational and over-emotional “fanatic” obscured identities and collectivities that transgressed and exceeded state-sanctioned “tribes” and ethnicities organising against colonial governance, the category of the irredentist and foreign-funded “traitor” shrouded alternative imaginations of state and political belonging–or of Pakistan, and what it could mean to be Pakistani. While destructive policies of containment dominated in the colonial era, where Balochistan was a marginal buffer zone, a post-colonial imperative to integrate the peoples and places of Balochistan necessitated a shift towards destructive policies of censuring–even as containment bled into censuring, and even as the spectre of the “fanatic” haunted the figure of the “traitor.” Of course, much like the colonial state failed to annihilate that which transgressed and exceeded the colonial order–leaving behind what Navaro (2017) calls “remnants,” “shards,” “residues,” and “fragments” in tattered shrines, inherited myths, rumoured memories, or abandoned check-posts–the post-colonial state has also failed to obliterate alternate imaginations of the post-colonial state, and what it could mean to belong to it. This chapter continues its investigation of the place of destruction in the formation of state, territory, and subjects, this time in the early post-colonial period (1947-1988). To do so, it makes two arguments. First, where destruction once aimed to contain counter-identities and socialities to that of the state, the new state in its new circumstances now had to censure them. Policies of containment were central in a colonial Balochistan which was primarily a buffer zone for foreign imperial powers, formally ruled under circumscribed “tribes” and their selected “heads,” and a site irrelevant in the larger economic growth calculations of the state. While traces of this framing of Balochistan remained with the new postcolonial state of Pakistan, other priorities became important, most notably the integration of the territory of Balochistan as a fully-fledged province in its own right, attempts to transform its “tribal” subjects into citizens, and the slow but steady emergence of Balochistan as a potential site of resource extraction. New circumstances also prevailed: New modes of connectivity emerged both within Balochistan, and between Balochistan and surrounding regions. These connectivities made another kind of politics possible, prompting a recalibration of state policies of destruction from one of containment to - Page of 231 -93 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) one of censuring. So, the coming of the transistor radio led to a flowering of Balochi-language 1 programs and attempts by the state to curb the media; new road networks brought both greater 2 3 connectivity to wealthier areas and greater penetration by the central state into Balochistan–4 especially a military intent on clamping down on counter-collectives; increased educational 5 activities prompted attempts to develop and communicate, through e.g. political magazines, a 6 standardised Balochi script, language, and history, prompting attempts by the state to censor 7 such activities; and a growing urban Baloch diaspora in places like Karachi and the Persian Gulf 8 meant greater exposure to “cosmopolitan political currents” that fed into state accusations of, 9 and actions against, foreign intervention. Radical left affective, discursive, and material 10 geographies–especially via communist figures and collectivities in and around Pakistan, 11 According to Qadeer (2006, 135), new broadcasting stations were started in Quetta in the 1960s. He goes on to say: 1 “The arrival of the transistor radio carried the diffusion of radio to new heights. The popular stereotype of the 1970s that “every farmer has a radio blaring from his plough” may have been a caricature but it pointed out the spread of transistors in villages.” Balochi broadcasts were regularly run on Radio Kabul, All-India Radio, Radio Quetta, and Radio Zahedan. (Sufi 2 2016, 116; Harrison 1981, 101; Wolpert 2007, 219). This was part of a longer and wider history of attempting to gain control of the media. So, in 1959, the state’s anti-3 communist politics set the stage for the takeover of Progressive Papers Ltd. and the setting up of the National Press Trust which was financed by 24 industrialists and had the explicit purpose of “promoting the government’s viewpoint, touting an anti-progressive discourse and, at the same time, curtailing the independence of media.” (Eleazer & Khan 2016) This continued under Bhutto, who according to Sherbaz Mazari similarly attacked the press: “The press had to bear Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s determined onslaught. As soon as he attained power, he dismissed the chairman of National Press Trust (that he had vowed to abolish) and the editor of Pakistan Times. His rival from the Ayub days, Altaf Gauhar, who was then the editor of Dawn, was placed under arrest. The printer, editor and publisher of Urdu Digest, Zindgi and Punjab Punch were arrested for protesting against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's martial law, were convicted and sentenced even before the writ petitions challenging their arrests could be heard in the Lahore High Court. Shorish Kashmiri of Chataan was also sent to jail; Hurreyet and Jasarat were banned and their editors imprisoned. Mehran was banned while Iqbal Burni’s weekly Outlook was forced in to shutting down its publication.” (Mazari 1999) Finally, Pakistan’s third military ruler, General Zia ul Haq, effectively handed over the Ministry of Broadcasting and Information to the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami or JI (Eleazer & Khan 2016). Bhutto was particularly adamant that he was trying to promote economic development, for instance through the 4 construction of roads, within Balochistan (Harrison 1981, 166, 182). In his book on Balochistan, Soviet scholar Beknazar Ibragimov argued that increased transportation networks disrupted economic and social structures, led to the growth of landless agricultural labor and a significant Baloch working class, and strengthened a nationalist intelligentsia. (Ibragimov in Harrison 1981, 182). This was met, like most of the central state’s development plans, with enormous criticism. E.g. Jabbal, the bulletin of 5 the Balochistan Popular Liberation Front (BPLF) argued that the building of infrastructure required the destruction of “historical-natural democratic and social institutions of tribal society” for the purposes of easing “capitalist penetration and exploitation” with the help of the state since the “local bourgeoise” was too weak to support the process. It went on to argue that the infrastructure was also part of a larger counter-insurgency strategy. Pararis/ Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, Bulletin of the BPLF, May 1977, Vol. 1, No. 5.” These included magazines like Nadae Balochistan out of London.6 Breseeg 2004, 266-7; Harrison 1981, 182-188.7 Several famous Baloch who were behind attempts to develop standardised script, language, history, etc. were 8 regularly arrested or forced to leave. This included Mir Gul Khan Nasir, Balochistan’s unofficial poet laureate, and Umma Khan, a radio broadcaster dismissed from his post in Radio Karachi. Harrison 1981, 106. A major out-migration from Irani Balochistan took place between 1967 and 1972, when a five-year drought killed off 9 80 percent of shepherds flock in Iranian Balochistan. Vatanka (2015, 87) explains, “Things were so bad that some 200,000 Iranian Baluch were estimated to have moved to Karachi or to the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf in search of a livelihood.” For example recent trips between places like Baghdad, Moscow, Dubai, Cairo, and Damascus by politicised Baloch 10 like Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo, Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani, and Sher Mohammad Marri exacerbated suspicions that all Baloch demands were necessarily a result of foreign intrigue. Such a reading is, as will become apparent in this chapter, both tilted and narrow. See e.g. Bizenjo 2009. E.g. in Pakistan figures outside of Balochistan like Mairaj Muhammad Khan and Mir Ali Bakhsh Talpur provided 11 support for the demands for autonomy put forward by Baloch political collectives. - Page of 231 -94 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the Persian Gulf –penetrated the politics emerging from 12 13 14 these new connectivities, building on a longer-standing relationship between Baloch nationalism and socialist ideas dating back at least the 1920s. They also provided an alternate Pakistani, 15 regional, and international circuit to that of the Pakistani state–which remained primarily aligned with the US and its regional allies, like Shah-era Iran–prompting fears of Soviet-backed intervention that were frequently curbed with western support. The consequence of, on the one 16 hand, the integrationist imperative of the post-colonial state vis-à-vis Balochistan, and, on the other hand, changing connectivities and politics, meant that counter-identities and socialities could no longer be contained in a corner of the state. While the containment of “fanaticism” in the colonial era required the erasure of its “infection” and the subjection of those left behind as “tribals,” the censuring of this period required the accusations of “treason” and the fragmentation of united opposition fronts. 17 Here, the figure of the censor in Ancient Rome is perspicacious: Responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing the state’s finances, this older definition indicates that there is an inherent duality to the process of censuring. It indicates both the process of creating a census, or of identifying and accounting for the constituent parts of the body politic, and the process of censuring, namely the process through which certain parts are identified and excluded from this very same body politic as “obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” As the newly independent state of Pakistan set out to define its core 18 constituent parts, this necessarily included a process of identification, exclusion, and suppression, or a process of censuring alternate imaginations of identity and sociality to that of the The Afghan regime after the fall of Zahir Shah, and under the rule of Daoud, were especially supportive of Baloch 12 figures and groups, e.g. giving refuge to armed Baloch during the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency. (Sufi 2016, 105-330). Baghdad was a hub from which Baloch dissidents broadcast Balochi-language programs, though there is a strong 13 likelihood that Iraq did not provide weapons to Baloch armed groups within Pakistan. See Section II.B. in this chapter for a longer discussion of the infamous Iraqi Arms Case which led to the launch of the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Harrison 1981, 106.14 Baloch nationalist figures like Yusuf Aziz Magsi, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Mir Gul Khan Nasir, and Khair Bakhsh 15 Marri have referenced such ideas in their writings, speeches, interviews, and poetry. Similarly, Baloch nationalists took part in the 1922 Baku Conference organised by the Soviet Union in support of colonised anti-colonial national movements. See e.g. Toor, Saadia 2011: The State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan, Pluto Press.16 This shift is all the more clear when compared to another part of Pakistan which, unlike Balochistan, has yet to be 17 fully integrated on an equal par with other national territories and citizen subjects: the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA. Still ruled under colonial era laws, most notably the Frontier Crimes Regulation, FATA is known for being bereft of basic state infrastructure like courts, police stations, schools, and hospitals; a site in which both the Pakistani state and their foreign counterparts ‘settle’ proxy militant groups; and a site of American drone bombardments which, because of FATA operating as a legal exception under colonial era laws, can be thrown without the formal declaration of war on the Pakistani government. Tahir (2017) argues that FATA exists as a ‘containment zone’ where experimental policies of destruction are regularly exercised on this place and its peoples; this is markedly different from the contour and content of state destruction in Balochistan which, unlike FATA, quickly became politically and legally integrated into the rest of the country. Oxford Living Dictionary, “Censorship,” Accessed 7 Sep. 2018, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/18 censorship. - Page of 231 -95 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) state, as opposed to their mere containment on the fringes of empire. As will become clear in the next chapter, which looks at state destruction in the contemporary era, this mode of destruction-as-censuring is also significantly different from a contemporary mode of destruction-as-confusion–which, though present in this period, has reached new heights in the contemporary era (See Chapter 4). While remnants of earlier modes of destruction survive in each subsequent period–colonial containment in periods of early post-colonial censuring, and both of these in contemporary periods of confusion–I argue that new modes of destruction are developed to deal with new contexts and new challenges to state-making and state rule. Second, much like the category of the irrational and emotional “fanatic” obscured collective and overlapping rebellion against colonial rule to justify violence, the category of the “traitor” from Balochistan in the post-colonial era obscured a dizzyingly diverse number of counter-identities and collectivities to that of the state for similar purposes. Indeed, a closer look at those frequently and repeatedly accused of being “traitors” from Balochistan in this period reveals that they were part of historically and spatially shifting counter-alliances of ethnic minorities and urban communists propagating an alternate imagination and institutionalisation of Pakistan as multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, socialist, secular, and anti-imperialist rather than Urdu, Punjabi, capitalist, Sunni, and US-aligned. Central to these counter-alliances was a conviction that the fate of the Baloch was entangled with that of “other oppressed nationalities, classes and democratic forces in Pakistan.” This was a conviction that cut across the three primary forms 19 that these counter-collectives took: within political parties, student organisations, and armed militant groups. Indeed, as will become clear later in this chapter, the largest and longest-running political party, student organisation, and armed group–namely the National Awami Party (NAP, see Image 3.1), the Baloch Student Organisation (BSO), and the the Pararis who were later renamed the Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF)–shared the fundamental belief, throughout this period, that the liberation of the Baloch is dependent on others within and outside of Balochistan. Indeed, despite an initial call for independence, and an at times deep-seated dream Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1976. “Jabbal, December 1976, Vol. 1, No. 1,” p. 1.19 - Page of 231 -96 Image 3.1 | The headquarters of NAP, the largest-running political party in Balochistan in this period. Source: Tabqaati Jehd-o-Jehd. “National Awami Party, Balochistan.” Available at: http://www.struggle.pk/ national-awami-party-balochistan/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) of all-out independence fronted especially by the BSO, these political organisations remained skeptical both of separation and of foreign funding, fearing that their small numbers in a heavily strategic territory would lead to the Baloch becoming “dominated” by power blocs 20 like the United States or the Soviet Union, forcing the Baloch to pay the “cost in [their own] blood and tears” merely for the interests of others. 21 Many of them, like the founder of the Pararis, Sher Mohammad Marri, were also skeptical of the “bourgeois” character of traditionally nationalist and separatist movements; in a 1973 interview, he called on “Punjabi, Sindhi, Pathan and immigrant brothers” to instead forge “interdependence and unity” for the purposes of making “Pakistan a new country in the real sense of the word”, namely a “Communist society [that] will end that exploitation which is the primary cause of mutual hatred among the people”. These calls for 22 cross-cutting solidarities within the country for the formation of a new kind of Pakistan were linked to the forging of relations with political collectivities outside of Pakistan attempting to create a new kind of world. Against the US-aligned networks forged by the state, with countries like Shah-era Iran and US-supported Gulf countries, the Baloch pursued relations with non- 23 and Soviet-aligned countries like Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan, as well as mostly affective and 24 25 26 Khair Bakhsh Marri in an interview with Selig Harrison. See Harrison 1981, 50.20 Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo in an interview with Selig Harrison. See Harrison 1981, 61.21 Sher Mohammad Marri in interview published in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original 22 Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London). E.g. during the pan-Islamic conference hosted in Lahore under the leadership of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974, several 23 (though not all) of those attending were US-supported Gulf countries. This was a policy continued by General Zia ul Haq when he came into power. Similarly, all regimes in this period other than Bhutto’s took an explicitly US-line, establishing Pakistan as the primary anti-Communist and anti-Soviet ally in South Asia. See e.g. Toor, Saadia 2011: The State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan, Pluto Press. E.g. Sher Mohammad Marri visited Baghdad in 1972. Iraqi opposition to the Shah’s Iran also meant that the former 24 supported Baloch groups in Iran, strengthening the relations between Saddam Hussain and Baloch groups. E.g. two leaders of the BSO, Razik Bugti and Habib Jalib, accepted invitations to the Soviet-funded World 25 Conference of Students in Havana, though they were unable to attend because they did not receive permission from the Pakistan government (Harrison 1981). Similarly, Che Guevera, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban guerrilla movement’s foco theory provided an important strategic inspiration for the Pararis/BPLF (Interview with Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur, 23 March, 2016, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan; Interview with Ahmed Rashid, 30 June, 2016, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan). Afghanistan, especially under Daoud and after the toppling of Zahir Shah, provided refuge for fighters and their 26 families after they were forced to flee military operations by the Pakistan Army. This was strengthened after ‘Saur Revolution’ in Afghanistan, led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) against Daoud's rule in 1978. See chapter entitled Baloch Mahaaz (Baloch Front) in Sufi 2016. - Page of 231 -97 Image 3.2 | Sher Muhammad Marri (second from left) stands with members of the armed militia group he founded, the Pararis. Source: Mirza, Babar. 2014. “Sher Mohammad Marri,” The Friday Times. Available at: http:// www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/sher-muhammad- marri/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) ideological links with national liberation movements in places like Palestine , South Africa and 27 28 Vietnam. While many of these links had far older histories and genealogies–old political 29 relations and migration circuits into Afghanistan played a far larger role than newer radical networks–they nevertheless cemented affective and political relations of solidarity between Baloch and non-Baloch radicals elsewhere around the country and the world. Indeed, non- Baloch radicals ranging from elite Punjabi leftists to Pashtun students in Quetta and members of other avowedly socialist parties (like the once governing Pakistan People's Party, PPP) forged strong relations with, at times even joining, Baloch political, student, and armed groups. The crude charge of the irredentist and foreign-funded “traitor” obscured this far more expansive imagination and collectivity, justifying destructive policies of censuring, accusation, and fragmentation. Though internal fragmentation and contradiction within these groups played a key role–they were neither homogenous nor stable, and should not be viewed through romantic or nostalgic lenses–the disarticulation of pan-peripheral, socialist, and anti-imperialist politics by the end of this period was also a key result of a state attempting to crush the emergence and spread of a new imagination of political collectivity. Though this was in part a continuation of colonial policy–after all, the figure of the “fanatic” seeped into the figure of the “traitor” most notably in notions of the Baloch as backward “tribals” subservient to their sardars–it was also the product of two important shifts. One, unlike the colonial state, which was “fundamentally marked by the nonidentity of the ruled and the ruler,” the emergence of Pakistan suggested “a symbolic identity between rulers and ruled—government of the people by the people.” These key political organisations and the 30 figures within them from Balochistan constantly challenged the symbolic identity proffered by the new Pakistani state, as one constituted by a nation of Indian Muslims–first through an initial decision by colonial Balochistan’s largest self-governing unit, Kalat State, to declare itself independent, thereafter through collective attempts to redefine Pakistan, and what it could mean to be Pakistani. In turn, this repeatedly forced the state to face “the complexity of the contradictory affiliations for those who are meant to be on the ‘inside.’” 31 As will become apparent later in the chapter, a small group of Baloch members of the Pararis/BPLF trained with 27 George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This was confirmed in interviews with members of Pararis/BPLF, who asked not to be named. Also see Harrison 1981, 74, 120. Most notably, Muhammad Bhabha who took the nom de guerre of Murad Baloch, and organised non-Baloch 28 communists to join the Pararis/BPLF in the mountains, had deep links with groups in South Africa. Indeed, his father Hameed Bhabha was a former member of the African National Congress who was forced to leave South Africa and settle in Karachi (Interview with Rahim Bakhsh Azad, 24 March, 2016, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan). Vietnam, ongoing at the time, provided a key source of inspiration for several Baloch groups at the time, including 29 the BSO (Interview with Sadiq Baloch, 10 April, 2016, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan) and the Pararis/BPLF (see various copies of Jabbal). Thiranagama & Kelly 2009, 7-8.30 Thiranagama & Kelly 2009, 10.31 - Page of 231 -98 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Two, an inherited colonial fear of foreign intervention in Balochistan was augmented by a Cold War-era fear of Soviet-funded communist takeover. A combination of pressures from the US and Shah-era Iran, the links between India and the Soviet Union, and deep connections between political, student, and armed Baloch groups with communist-infused networks in the region and around the world, enhanced charges of “treason” justifying targeted, destructive policies of censuring, accusation, and fragmentation aimed at undoing these alternate imaginations and collectivities. To make this argument, this chapter will be structured much like the last one. Part I will introduce the constructive project of the new state of Pakistan between 1947 and 1988. Part II will introduce the destructive projects of the state in this same period. The crux of my argument– namely that this period marked a shift from containment to censuring, and from the figure of the “fanatic” to that of the “traitor”–will be made in the second half of Part II through a close reading of one moment of state violence: Events in and around a 1973-77 counter-insurgency operation launched on Baloch and their allies. The operation was launched because a Baloch-led constellation took up arms against the central government in protest against the dismissal of the province’s first democratically-elected government, led by NAP with Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI). This dismissal was eventually followed by the banning of NAP, the arrest and torture of its leaders, members, and those who stood by them–and their trial under the notorious Hyderabad Conspiracy Case (Part II.A and II.B). I end in Part III, the conclusion, by reflecting how memories of these alternate imaginations and collectivities are either silenced or dismissed–and yet, how they are taken up anew by counter-collectivities today. More specifically, Part I will double as an introduction of Balochistan in Pakistan’s first forty years, through a tracing of how the new Pakistani state attempted to transform a buffered territory with (mostly) indirectly ruled “tribal” subjects in the colonial era, into a bordered province of citizen subjects in the postcolonial era. As will become clear, colonial-era understandings of places and people in Balochistan continued to haunt the postcolonial state (something, as will become clear in the next chapter, it still does today). To counteract fears of “backward” “tribes” selling their loyalty to foreign states, a centralising and homogenising state dominated by a bureaucracy of muhajirs–Indian Muslims from Uttar Pradesh who settled in Pakistan after Partition–and a military of Punjabis repeatedly resisted efforts decentralise territorial power and heterogenise the definition of the Pakistani citizen as constituted not just by sameness but by difference. Part II will open with a well-trodden tale of state violence often repeated by Baloch ethno- nationalists as evidence of violent marginalisation and the Pakistani state’s practices of internal - Page of 231 -99 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) colonialism. Such a Baloch ethno-nationalist history serves as a useful signposting of moments of violence that now exist as memory, myth, tales, and propaganda. However, its cleansed narrative must–along with its patriotic Pakistani counterpart–be unravelled to reveal its complexities and contradictions. To do so, I suggest following Walter Benjamin’s exhortations in his Philosophy of History, where he reminds us that behind “the appearance of a chain of events” is “rubble upon rubble” of the other identities, collectivities, pasts, presents, futures that could have been but never came to pass. Accepting that it would be impossible to search for all the rubble behind the long historical narratives of either Baloch or Pakistani history as pertains to Balochistan, I end this introduction by explaining why a close reading of one moment of violence signposted within Baloch ethno-nationalist narratives may allow us to draw out the contours and contents of at least some shattered political lifeworlds hidden amongst the rubble. And, I explain why the events in and around the counterinsurgency operation 1973-’77, as opposed to other moments for instance in 1948, 1958-’59, 1963-’69, is particularly interesting: As an operation that took place under Pakistan’s first democratically-elected government, that of Bhutto’s PPP, it is a sign of the tenacity of the racialised and accusatory frames through which Balochistan is viewed not just under military, but also democratic, rule. I follow this short introduction and framing with a short meditation on the methodologies of writing about that which now exists as rubble–destroyed, shattered, scattered–in Part II.A. I open with an anecdote of a failed attempt to interview a camp commander involved in the 1973-’77 armed uprising against the state–and the excessive circulation of rumour around the event itself. Through insights into the process of gathering material for this chapter, I consider the high stakes of writing about a moment of violence under a postcolonial state still in power. I explain how, within Pakistan, moments of post-colonial state violence such as the counterinsurgency operation in 1973-’77, is constantly subject to silence and rumour–to under- and over-narration–presenting new methodological challenges. I end this short section by explaining how I navigated silence and rumour: Through the piecing and tracing of fragments available around the silence and through a suspension of judgments inherent in rumours. This is followed in Part II.B by an analysis of events in and around the 1973-’77 counter- insurgency operation. After a short but detailed introduction of the events that led to the launch of the operation, I map the counter-collectivities that were censured, the ways the state attempted to accuse them of “treason,” and the means through which united oppositional fronts were fragmented. To do so, I bring together state archives (speeches, court documents, parliamentary debates) with movement archives (pamphlets, speeches, interviews) of the three main oppositional fronts: NAP, BSO, and the Pararis/BPLF. Through the bringing together of state and movement archives, I delineate the alternate worldly and localised visions of political - Page of 231 -100 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) collectivity (multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist) which were imagined and pursued– and the modes and justifications through which they were sought destroyed. What emerges in this analysis is that the Baloch in the political and armed opposition front in this period articulated a vision of Pakistan in contradiction to a state under Bhutto which–while giving space to expressions of cultural difference and even some socialist policy and policies of non- alignment–continued to pursue the destruction of pan-peripheral, multi-national, and communist opposition, the exclusion of radical socialist policies, and the pursuit of support with both the US and their regional allies via ongoing relationships with countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. I end by noting how the targeting of Baloch-led political constellations ran parallel to other crackdowns elsewhere in the country. I conclude in Part III by arguing that by the end of the early post-colonial period united multi-national and left-wing oppositional fronts to a centrist, military-bureaucratic state in pursuit of capitalist growth had fragmented. Today, such united political fronts are rarely imagined and pursued within Pakistan. Memories of them having existed are either lost–or over- determined by a dismissal of these fronts as, at best, superficial or, at worst, a sign of foreign conspiracy. Among the Baloch, larger alliances–not just with other ethnic minorities and non- Baloch radicals, but also among the Baloch themselves–have fragmented and been replaced by an uncompromising separatism. This has gone hand with a decreased skepticism of global power blocs, and an open attempt to woe countries like the United States and India to intervene within Pakistan. Though a debate rages within Baloch circles on the extent to which such shifts are useful, even ideologically sound–among other through references, both bitter and hopeful, to a past form of politics among the Baloch–it reflects a broader global turn towards more exclusivist and identitarian politics witnessed elsewhere in Pakistan, South Asia, and around the world in the post-Cold War period. Indeed, the intense crackdown by the Pakistani military state has ironically intensified Baloch desires for an independent state as the only imagined solution to the violence to which they remain subject. I will argue that this turn towards a desired independent state, in its drive to establish itself as the primary political community, renders alternative ideas of collectivity stupid, adventurous, dangerous, romantic, or disloyal. Yet, I end on a more hopeful note: Much like colonial policies targeting the “fanatic” could not fully remove memories of anti- colonial struggle, the political landscape within Balochistan and Pakistan remains scattered with intellectual, political, aesthetic, poetic, and other remnants of a time when such collective political projects were both imagined and pursued. These are, I argue, now taken up anew by those attempting to not only to rewrite impoverished histories, but reinvigorate and broaden our limited imagination of future collectivity. - Page of 231 -101 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) I Centralisation and Homogenisation: State Construction in Post-Colonial Balochistan Less than a year after Partition and Independence, in June, 1948, the putative “founder” of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, arrived in Balochistan’s capital of Quetta and delivered a speech, warning residents of the city not to succumb to the “curse of provincialism.” Local attachments have their value but what is the value and strength of a “part” except within the “whole”. Yet this is a truth people so easily seem to forget and begin to prize local, sectional or provincial interests above and regardless of the national interests. It naturally pains me to find the curse of provincialism holding sway over any section of Pakistan. Pakistan must be rid of this evil. It is [a] relic of the old administration when you clung to provincial autonomy and local liberty of action to avoid control–which meant– British control. But with your own Central Government and its power, [it] is a folly to continue to think in the same terms, especially at a time when your State is so new and faces such tremendous problems internal and external. At this juncture any subordination of the larger interest of the State to the provincial or local or personal interest would be suicidal. … We are now all Pakistanis–not Baluchis, Pathans, Sindhis, Bengalis, Punjabis and so on– and as Pakistanis we must feel, behave, and act, and we should be proud to be known as Pakistanis and nothing else.32 This speech had been preceded by another famous speech just a few months earlier in Dhaka, the capital of then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. In response to demands to establish Bengali as a state language, Jinnah announced that “the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language” thus refusing a state-sanctioned position for Bengali, Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi, Punjabi, and other regional languages. There, he declared that anyone who “attempts to mislead … is really the enemy of Pakistan.” Alongside rendering suspicious “centrifugal” forces 33 34 attempting to decentralise and pluralise ideas of Pakistan, and what it meant to be Pakistani, Jinnah also identified “Communists and other agents financed by foreign help” as powers attempting to “disrupt and sabotage Pakistan” through their support of demands from Pakistan’s ethnic minorities. Against such foreign intrigues, Jinnah argued for the importance of “unity and solidarity”. 35 Jinnah, Mohammad Ali. 1948 “Provincialism: A Curse,” Reply to the Civic Address presented by the Quetta 32 Municipality. Available at: http://m-a-jinnah.blogspot.dk/2010/04/provincialism-curse-15th-jun-1948.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. Jinnah, Mohammad Ali. 1948. “Address by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Governor General of Pakistan in Dacca, East 33 Pakistan,” in Ahmad 2003, 243-258. Jaffrelot 2015, 11.34 Jinnah, Mohammad Ali. 1948. “Address by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Governor General of Pakistan in Dacca, East 35 Pakistan,” in Ahmad 2003, 243-258. - Page of 231 -102 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Jinnah’s simultaneous identification of “local, sectional or provincial interests” as “evil”, even “suicidal”, and his suspicion of “Communists”, reflected a tone which defined state policy within Balochistan under every federal regime, democratic as well as military, throughout this period–and arguably remains central today, despite the historic 18th amendment to the constitution in 2010 which, after several decades of political mobilisation, finally decentralised some power to Pakistan’s provinces. Colonial-era territorialisation and subjection certainly continued to have a “tenacious presence” in the state’s approach to Balochistan’s places and 36 peoples. This was not only through the system of indirect rule, which the new state of Pakistan addressed and eventually transformed (doing away with laws like the Frontier Crimes Regulation, or FCR, which allowed for collective punishment as well as the sardari system, in 1973, which governed through select “tribal” heads)–but also through ongoing ideas of Balochistan as a marginal territory, with a “backward” “tribal” people blinded by the authority of their sardars and susceptible to foreign powers. However, the move to post-colonial policies of centralisation and homogenisation prompted two important shifts, both of which produced new challenges for the state. Firstly, it prompted a territorial shift of Balochistan from a porous buffer zone at the edge of the imperial state to a bordered province integral to the postcolonial state’s security and economy. This attempted territorial shift unleashed a series of contestations, as a subset of Baloch–both colonially-designated “heads” as well as increasingly strong groups of left-wing ethnonationalists–initially resisted joining Pakistan, and later pushed for a united province and 37 greater provincial autonomy and self-rule, alongside demands for control over extracted resources, within the confines of the new state. They combined these calls for democratic and economic autonomy with socialist and anti-imperialist agendas, thus finding common cause both with other ethnic minorities, and with leftists from around the country and elsewhere. Against these attempts, the central state pushed policies to centralise political and economic power. Secondly, the Pakistani state attempted to realise a post-colonial desire to civilise Balochistan’s “backward” “tribal” subjects, seen to be tethered to particularist identities, through an integrationist and civilisational project that could turn them into “forward-looking” “loyal” citizens that transcended their differences and instead attached themselves to what Jinnah in his 1948 speech called the “larger interest of the State.” This was most notably attempted through 38 the abolition of indirect rule, a change first introduced by NAP in the short time that they were in Stoler 2016, 436 They were successful with this agenda; the current province of Balochistan was forged in 1970.37 Jinnah, Mohammad Ali. 1948 “Provincialism: A Curse,” Reply to the Civic Address presented by the Quetta 38 Municipality. Available at: http://m-a-jinnah.blogspot.dk/2010/04/provincialism-curse-15th-jun-1948.html. Accessed 7 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -103 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) government, and later implemented by Bhutto. It was also claimed whenever the Pakistani state 39 planned or built large infrastructure projects, most notably the Sui Gas Fields in northeastern Balochistan, which began commercial exploitation in 1955. However, the continued collaboration between the central state and former sardars, as well as the extraction of gas out of Balochistan and into the rest of the country, forced Baloch ethno-nationalists to begin to declare that they were ruled by a “reactionary, military-bureaucratic dictatorship which protects and promotes the interests of the landlord and bourgeois classes [with imperial support].” 40 This centralisation of territory and homogenisation of the citizen subject–which I review, chronologically, below–went hand in hand with the political, economic, and cultural marginalisation of Balochistan. Indeed, the state’s demands towards the Baloch to sacrifice territorial control through the subjective performance of loyalty to an Urdu-speaking, Punjabi- dominated centre was quickly dubbed to be a sign of “internal colonialism” as the new Pakistani state’s policies were rejected by vocal Baloch organisers. In 1947, the northern strip of territory dominated by Pashtuns and known as British Balochistan transferred authority to the Pakistani government in 1947, as did other indirectly ruled areas like Makran, Kharan, and Las Bela. However Kalat (which constituted the geographically largest indirectly-ruled colonial unit in the territory comprising Balochistan today) declared itself independent, citing colonial transfer rules which allowed princely states to do so. Baloch nationalist histories frequently point to a meeting of a lower and upper legislative assembly–a dar-ul-awam and dar-ul-umara–whose members unanimously voted for independence, arguing that they could share the governance of defence, currency, and foreign affairs with a central Pakistani government. Nevertheless, the Khan of Kalat signed an accession treaty in March, 1948, 41 after Jinnah (who ironically served as the Khan’s lawyer in negotiations with the British) sent troops, transferring authority to the Pakistani government. While Pakistani historians insist the signature was voluntary and legal, Baloch nationalists insist it was done at gunpoint and illegal; given the presence of troops, there is however little doubt that it was done under duress. See Bizenjo 2009.39 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, February 1977 Vol. 1, No. 3,” p. 5.40 Some of the most important forces within Kalat calling for independence were people like Mir Gul Khan Nasir and 41 Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo. Now considered the ‘poet laureate’ of Baloch nationalism, Nasir was then a staunch socialist and nationalist who worked as a civil servant in then Kalat State. Meanwhile, Bizenjo, then a member of the lower house, delivered a famous speech, where he directly questioned the underlying claim of the newly independent state of Pakistan as a home for the formerly British India’s Muslims: We are Muslims. But it is not necessary for us, due to our being Muslims, to merge ourselves into others and lose our freedoms. If being Muslim is the only criterion for merging into Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan’s Islamic Government should also merge into Pakistan. We are not ready to become part of Pakistan at all. We are threatened with death. They want us to sign the death-certificate of 10.5 million Baloch people. We cannot commit such a heinous crime of insulting the Baloch nation and then merge it into a non-Baloch nation. - Page of 231 -104 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) In fact, the accession-cum-annexation of Kalat was followed by the repeated centralisation of governance within the federal state, and a resistance to decentralising power. As Aziz (2017, 31) points out, the 1935 Government of India Act gave wide-ranging powers to the central government to “dismiss provincial governments and resort to Governor’s rule at the least provocation”–a practice they certainly indulged in with regards to Balochistan. Initially, the entire territory of what constitutes the province of Balochistan today–including formerly British Balochistan, as well as Kalat, Kharan, Las Bela, and Makran–was put under the direct administration of the Attorney to the Governor General, or AGG, who was based in Karachi. The territory then went 42 through various legislative iterations–first splitting into two sections (the Balochistan States Union which merged the four formerly princely states of Kalat, Kharan, Las Bela and Makran, and the Chief Commissioners Province of Balochistan which was comprised of the northern strip, see Image 3.3)–before central rule was strengthened with what was called the One Unit Policy of 1955, a policy finalised under Pakistan’s first military regime under General Ayub Khan (1958-’69). After 1947, Pakistan consisted of a western wing and an eastern wing–the latter is now Bangladesh. The One Unit Policy of 1955 was devised by what was then members of the West Pakistan government, and consisted of the dissolution of all separate governing units (including the Balochistan States Union and the Chief Commissioners Province) into one West Pakistan unit. Dominated by a bureaucracy of muhajirs and a military of Punjabis , West 43 44 Pakistan’s state officials were concerned about the demographic majority of East Pakistan’s Bengalis. Baloch figures and 45 groups joined other marginalised ethnicities (most notably the Bengalis, but also Pashtuns, Sindhis, and others), communists, and pro-democracy activists to simultaneously resist the One Unit Policy and Ayub Khan’s military regime (cf. Ali 2015; Khan 2009). The decentralisation of power was so important, that different constellations of Baloch launched armed rebellions twice to protest centralisation: Breseeg 2004, 259.42 Migrants of Muslims primarily from India’s Uttar Pradesh who migrated after Partition43 An ethnic group which constituted the majority in West Pakistan44 Alavi 1972.45 - Page of 231 -105 Image 3.3 | The pink sections, comprised of former British Balochistan, became the Chief Commissioners Province, while the green sections, comprised of ‘native states’ were fused to create the Baluchistan States Union. Source: Administrative map of British India's Baluchistan Agency in 1931. Survey of India 1:253k (Perry-Castenada Map Library, Univ of Texas), India 1:1M, Imperial Gazetteer of India 1:4M (Digital South Asia Library, Univ of Chicago). Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) The first time led by the octogenarian Nawab Nouroze Khan (1958-’59, see Image 3.4) and the second time led by Sher Mohammad Marri (1963-’69, see Image 3.2) who, in this period, set up the Pararis, which later became the BPLF. It was not until the One Unit Policy was finally overturned–after an anti-Ayub, anti-One Unit movement which was eventually joined by the military regime’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who turned against Ayub to form the PPP and demand the restoration of democracy–that Balochistan was finally constituted in its current form, taking part in the country’s first democratic elections in 1970. Alongside the centralisation of political power, Pakistan's first twenty years also inaugurated the centralisation of economic benefits. Unlike the colonial state, which through the control of all of India, saw little point in exploring Balochistan as a potential site of economic development, the Pakistani state began to imagine Balochistan as a site of potential resource extraction that could power the rest of the country, and started carrying out geological explorations of resources like oil, gas, and minerals potentially available within the province. The most important discovery within Balochistan was made in 1952, with the discovery of Sui Gas in northeastern Balochistan’s Dera Bugti; from 1955 until today, Sui Gas constitutes the majority of gas provided to the rest of country–indeed, in Pakistan “Sui” has become synonymous with “gas.” However, gas was never supplied to Balochistan itself, and has, most notoriously, yet to be supplied to the surrounding Sui Town from which it is extracted. The policy of centralising the fruits of economic development within provinces home to Pakistan’s muhajir-Punjabi bureaucratic-military elite was even more notoriously practiced vis-a-vis East Pakistan: Despite the fact that East Pakistan constituted more than half of the country’s population and export earnings, it was consistently deprived of even an equal share in foreign exchange earnings, government revenues, and development planning committees. Instead, economic power became concentrated, especially under the military rule 46 of Ayub Khan, who with the support of the Harvard Group of Economists centralised economic planning and adhered to a “doctrine of functional inequality.” By 1968, the chief economist of 47 Zaheer 1994, 48-49.46 Gull 2015, 5.47 - Page of 231 -106 Image 3.4 | Nawab Nouroze Khan, who led the second armed militia against the central state, in protest against the One Unit policy. Source: Hum Sub. Nawab Nouroze Khan. Available at: http://www.humsub.com.pk/ wp-content/uploads/2017/06/nawab- nauroze.jpg. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) the planning commission, Mehboob ul Haq, famously announced that 66 percent of industrial assets, 79 percent of insurance funds, and 80 percent of bank assets were controlled by just 22 families, all part of the Punjabi-muhajir elite concentrated in Karachi and Lahore. The 48 centralisation of economic power through the support of a centralised state began to provide a strengthened sense that places like East Pakistan and Balochistan were colonial outposts for a central, Punjabi-muhajir military- bureaucratic elite. Indeed, it was these observations that led to Baloch armed groups attacking development infrastructure like oil pipelines and roads, as a critique of the extractive and capitalist practices of the Pakistani state. In response, the central Pakistani state began to dub political and armed critics alike as “anti- development”–a term that began to be used around the 1970s–further exacerbating colonial-era representations of the Baloch as backward-looking rather than forward- looking “tribals” in need of civilisation. 49 The end of the One Unit period–which had marked such extreme levels of political and economic centralisation–did not mark the end of attempts by the federal government to centralise power. The 1970 elections resulted in the victory of NAP in the two border provinces of Balochistan and what was then called the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) along with JUI with whom they formed provincial governments. Meanwhile, in Punjab 50 and Sindh the PPP won; while the Awami League won in then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh, see Image 3.5). The results were, to a large extent, a result of an experience of the extreme centralisation of power that marginalised provinces further away from the muhajir-hub of Karachi and the Punjabi-hub of Lahore. These results were rejected by the PPP’s Bhutto, because they effectively gave East Pakistan’s Awami League the mandate to form a central government, and its leader Mujibur Rehman the mandate to become prime minister. In an attempt to centralise power in the city of Karachi (the capital of Sindh, and one of the main hubs for the Haq, Mahbub ul Haq March 22, 1973: System is to blame for the 22 families, London Times, March 22, 1973, Link: 48 https://web.archive.org/web/20130722001847/http://www.mhhdc.org/html/system_blame.htm. Jamali 2014, 12.49 Now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.50 - Page of 231 -107 Image 3.5 | The results for the 1970 general elections, Pakistan's first democratic vote, effectively split the country into three parts. Balochistan and NWFP went to NAP and JUI, Punjab and Sindh went to the PPP, and Bengal went to the Awami League. Source: Ravi, C. “Results of the 1970 Pakistani Election.” Commons License. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) country’s muhajir bureaucracy) and Lahore (the capital of Punjab, whose Punjabis dominated military ranks)–both areas won by Bhutto–General Yahya Khan (1969-’71), with the support of Bhutto, launched a civil war in East Pakistan. The civil war, also known as the War of Independence by Bengalis today, led to the eventual separation of East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh. More importantly for our purposes, Balochistan was subject to a similar attempt at denying democratic autonomy. Less than two years after the war, Bhutto, now prime minister, entered a series of conflicts with NAP leaders and workers which, after the discovery of arms suspected to be heading towards Baloch fighters at the home of the Iraqi military attaché in Islamabad, led to the dismissal of the NAP government in Balochistan after it had sat for only 10 months, and the launch of the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operations in Balochistan under the same general, Tikka Khan, who was accused of mass atrocities in East Pakistan. Two years later, after the murder of PPP’s Hayat Mohammad Sherpao, Bhutto charged NAP’s Pashtun leader, Abdul Wali Khan, with assassination, and proceeded to arrest and try the party’s leaders, members, and supporters (which included then former members of his own party, like Mairaj Muhammad Khan) under the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case. In response, NAP joined a series of fronts agitating against what they defined as Bhutto’s authoritarian policies, including the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). The protests against Bhutto, combined with an already powerful military, led to the unseating of Bhutto by General Zia ul Haq in 1978 and the release of opposition politicians being tried under the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case. Despite an initial hope among Balochistan’s NAP leaders that a military transition to another democratic regime would be possible under Zia, it quickly became clear that there was talk of a military coup: Negotiations that Baloch leaders of NAP began with Zia immediately upon their release–which was criticised by other Baloch, like the Pararis/BPLF and the BSO– eventually fell apart, resulting in a break among key politicised Baloch figures and groups that Balochistan could remain part of Pakistan. By the end of Zia’s rule in 1988, and the end of the period this chapter deals with, the Baloch had experienced democratic self-rule within the confines of Pakistan for only 10 months out of forty years; it took the unseating of Zia, and the end of the Cold War, before Balochistan’s first provincial government took office after the 1988 elections. It is this event–namely events in and around the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency campaign– that constitutes the moment, or case, of state destruction which will be analysing in the following section in order to unpack the place of violence in the construction of state, territory and subjects in the early post-colonial era. - Page of 231 -108 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) II State Destruction in Post-Colonial Balochistan The story of state violence and resistance to it in the post-Independence era punctuates and sutures the narrative delivered by Baloch ethnonationalists; and, remains either silenced, or associated with irredentism and foreign intrigue, i.e. “traitors,” in state-sanctioned history textbooks. Baloch ethno-nationalists regularly rehearse the story of how Prince Abdul Karim Khan, the brother of the Khan of Kalat, took up arms against the forcible military annexation of Kalat State in 1948; how the aforementioned Nawab Nouroze Khan mobilised followers to launch an armed resistance against Ayub’s One Unit Policy in 1958-‘59; how Sher Muhammad Marri forged the Pararis and launched another armed resistance both against the One Unit Policy–and to protest the construction of military bases in 1963-69; and how these same Pararis led a coalition of other Baloch and their non-Baloch left-wing sympathisers in a 1973-‘77 armed insurgency to protest the dismissal of Balochistan’s first democratically-elected provincial government. The latest punctuation within this narrative is taking place now, in the post-9/11 era, and is the subject of the next chapter: Baloch and those in solidarity with them are protesting state violence and the incursion of the federal state’s growth and development projects into southern Balochistan–and several Baloch are now, for the first time since Prince Abdul Karim Khan, calling for the separation and independence of Balochistan–a point to which I will return. State violence in each of these periods included military annexation, arrests, torture, abduction, execution, the militarisation of the province through cantonments, troop deployment, aerial bombardments, encirclement, and starvation–to name a few of the practices of violence. Around these moments– or in between them–the shadow of such practices of state violence have served to discipline this place and its peoples. 51 These moments act as signposts which can illuminate points in the past that are worth revisiting. The point that I revisit are events in and around the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation. Launched under a democratic regime (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s PPP government) and ended by a military one (Zia ul Haq’s military regime), this event forces us to ask difficult questions about the tenacity of the frame of the “traitor” which continuously justifies violence in Balochistan. In my analysis of this event, I will depart from both the prism of Pakistani and Baloch nationalist narratives: While the former invisibilises this moment at best, or renders it treasonous at worst, the latter tends to tell the story through the frame of present demands of This dissertation does not seek to re-hash each of these moments, nor discuss the pros and cons of whether 51 violence can be reduced to its most overt examples, or to only those battles that have been pointed out by Baloch ethno-nationalists. While there is certainly much reason to be vary of reducing state violence to only the moments that have been drawn out in Baloch nationalist discourse, they can also be perspicacious. - Page of 231 -109 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) separation and independence, a demand–as it will become clear–which was not made in this period. After opening with the methodological challenges faced in collecting state and movement documents (II.A.), this section turns to an analysis of the 1973-’77 operation (II.B.) II.A Studying Violence Between Silence and Rumour In the spring of 2016 an aged school teacher in Kohlu, a northeastern district in Balochistan, spent four hours avoiding questions on the 1973-’77 insurgency. Kohlu was the site of the 1918 military expedition and the home of Marris who had taken part in an armed insurgency protesting the dismissal of Balochistan’s first provincial government. I had gone there to gather oral histories on 1918, and interview those who may have witnessed, or taken part in, fighting the military campaign launched by the central government in the 1970s. I was introduced to the teacher by a local police constable; he had told me that his uncle, the teacher, had been a camp commander. A portrait of the aforementioned Sher Mohammad Marri hanging prominently in the main dining hall initially made me hopeful that I would locate several interviews (see Image 3.6). Yet, when the uncle arrived late that evening, he spent four hours reciting poetry, telling me stories of his days as a school teacher, and asking me about political philosophy. At a time when these Marris remain deeply embroiled in the current war– this time as collaborators of an accused state, which had armed them more heavily than anyone I had seen throughout my time in Balochistan–questions about an old insurgency seemed stupid, if not outright suspicious. By the time I left, I had not only failed to gather oral histories and testimonies–I had also become the subject of rumour, as those I stayed with wondered who in the world I was and what I was doing in a place like Kohlu. This vignette is a potent reminder of how the violence of the 1973-’77 insurgency continues to structure narrations of this event into the present, or perhaps how the present continues to constitute narrations of the past. Attempts to gather state and movement documents, and interviews from soldiers, insurgents, and witnesses in and around this event, repeatedly attracted silence and rumour. Silence underdetermined narrations of the violence: Manifesting itself in state documents that had been burnt in Quetta’s civil secretariat, the refusal of people who took - Page of 231 -110 Image 3.6 | A portrait of General Sheroff, much like this one, was hanging in Kohlu. Source: “General Sheroff.”Available at: http://baask.com/diwwan/ index.php? action=media;sa=media;in= 6;preview. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) part in 1973-’77 to grant interviews, or the silences that punctuated conversations with those who did speak to me (as they asked me to stop the recorder, or keep certain information off-the- record), such silences resulted in broken insights into this historical moment. While this certainly secured that some information on what exactly happened will be lost, it also reproduced an aura of inaccessibility: No matter how much I may find out, there may be something I will never locate and will never be told, as the ground truth may have a trap door leading me deeper into the events as they actually unfolded. Meanwhile, rumour overdetermined these same narrations: Stories of elite and geopolitical intrigue overlapped and contradicted one another, as such explanations insisted on the rightness and accuracy of insights contained within them as over- arching explanations of what really happened. So, while Pakistani patriots insisted that the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation was battling foreign-funded militants intent on breaking up the country, Baloch ethnonationalists narrate this period as one of a string of brave and principled armed rebellions against a colonial Pakistani government. These were compounded by judgment inherent in such over-determined narratives. So, a current Member of the National Assembly for Balochistan’s National Party told me that the insurgency was a foreign-funded farce joined by adventurist fools, and a thing of the past irrelevant in the present-day. He cited a book that was doing the rounds during my research: Juma Khan Sufi’s fareb-e-natemaam, an enticing first-hand, tell-all account of a former NAP member who, among other things, joined the Pashtun nationalist, Ajmal Khattak, in Kabul, and trained Pashtun and Baloch students in armed insurgency, among other things. These evidences of foreign funding, however, were cited as reasons to dismiss any need to map the collectives of the time, or their imaginations, given that they were for this reason compromised. Meanwhile, a prominent Pakistani academic visiting London said that the fragments of socialist symbolism I found scattered in vignettes about this period were irrelevant: NAP, of which Baloch were a part, had sold out Bhutto when they insisted on his dismissal and arrest, an event that led to the then ex-prime minister's eventual execution. Such overlapping frames of failure, disloyalty, stupidity, romanticism, adventurism over- determined narrations of the event. In other words, while the silences produced fragmented descriptions, the rumours produced totalising explanations. The analytical binary of silence and rumour–of under- and over-determined analyses, of the rich fragmented description and the superficial universal explanation–is reflective of most attempts to write histories of state violence in post-Independence Pakistan: Not just in the more notorious example of Partition or the 1971 war, the latter which led to the secession and independence of Bangladesh just two years before 1973-’77, but also at moments that are very well known (like the 1965 war with India) and those that are hardly known (like the 1948 Babarra massacre in Charsadda). In fact, such bifurcated narrations of state violence are mirrored in - Page of 231 -111 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) academic analyses: On the one hand, the macro-categories of security studies, for whom collectivities like states and insurgents are bounded entities with essential properties, produce clearly defined characters acting in somewhat predictable ways. What emerges are universalist explanations that can be applied, with some adjustment, to different areas around the world, functioning much like political rumour which pays little attention to detail and more to pre- existing hypotheses about supposed essences of human and collective behaviour. On the other hand are the critical reactions to such analyses: Prioritising micro-particularities, such reactions attempt to subvert silences through an attention to granular descriptions considered richer than more generalising universalist explanations. Three inter-linked shifts thus produce three new pressures. First, though colonial continuities run deep, the shift from the analysis of violence under a colonial state now formally out of power to a post-colonial state now in power and still invested in a statist narrative produces a social pressure that also determines what sites, peoples, materials can be accessed and what cannot. Secondly, the methodological shift from mainly state telegraphs in the last chapter, to 52 mainly movement archives in the form of underground pamphlets, interviews with witnesses and insurgents, rumours spoken and written in biographies in this chapter, limits some analytical possibilities while making others possible. Alongside the analytical pressure of an event under- and over-determined by silence and rumour, this chapter proposes a reservation of judgment inherent in existing frames through which this event–and other moments of state violence–are narrated; and the tracing of, in Dilip Menon’s (2018, 38, 40) words, the “miscegenated” and “entangled histories” and geographies of what Yael Navaro (2017) calls “remnants”–or “that which [has] remained and survived in spite of all efforts to eliminate, bury, curb, and control.” Against the tendency to reproduce the particularity, separation, and singularity of this event in fragmented details unconnected to larger, global political, intellectual, affective horizons (such as the Cold War, anti-colonial movements, or Third Worldism), and against the tendency to reduce the entire event to global, regional, or national intrigue, I focus on the “capacious connections” which conditioned this event (Menon 2018). To do so, I trace hints, traces, utterances within these “remnants” back through history and across geography to shed light on a political lifeworld–on an imagined past, present, and future political collectivity–which was targeted in a moment of state violence and which is no longer available to us today, without subjecting this to the political judgments of the present which include dismissal through charges of treason, romanticism, An short anecdote renders this apparent: During a drinks reception in Islamabad, I found myself face to face with a 52 former member of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. When he asked me what exactly I was researching I answered that I was looking at colonial violence in Balochistan. Pleased, he said it was an important topic, yet friends later told me that his opinions on ongoing operations were so violent that he had been kicked out of the intelligence services accused to be behind them. - Page of 231 -112 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) adventurism, or irrelevance. Thus, I address the temporal, methodological, and analytical 53 challenges of this particular section, in that I accept what I cannot access, work with what I have, and attempt to circumvent the stringent frames that are usually applied to this period. Thus, through this centring of the entanglements of remnants I hope to suture the uneven, overlapping frames through which this era and event is read in the long aftermath of the state violence of the past, to begin a mapping of other imaginations of subjectivity and collectivity which were sought destroyed. Though I operate on a different register from the last chapter–which approaches this question primarily through colonial state archives–as well as the next chapter–which approaches this question primarily through ethnographic fieldwork–this centring and tracing of entangled remnants belonging to collectivities sought destroyed will provide an insight into the place and mode of destruction in state-making and state rule through a delineation of what was considered a threat in the early post-colonial period. What will emerge is the centrality of censuring, the accusation of “treason,” and the fragmentation counter-collectives to that of the state. II.B Censure, Accuse, Fragment: A Case of State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan On 10 February, 1973, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's then prime minister, discovered a cache of arms at the residence of Nasir al Saud, the Iraqi Military Attaché in Islamabad. In a 54 sensational exposure, involving throngs of journalists and diplomats , Pakistani 55 officials showcased 300 Soviet sub-machine Though Navaro (2017) captures this term from the aftermath of the Armenian genocide–an event of “cataclysmic 53 violence” which in scope and intensity far surpasses the moments that I am investigating in this dissertation–her notion of “remnants”, “shards”, “residues”, “leftovers”, and “fragments” is analytically productive in making sense of the scattered traces left behind after a past moment of violence in the present. Vatanka 2015, 89. It is unclear whether the arms that were sent by Iraq were or were not a plot, and whether they 54 were or were not meant for the Pakistani Baloch. On the one hand, Iraq had close relations with the Soviet Union between 1968-73, and Baghdad served as a base of operation for Iranian communist factions opposed to the Shah, including communists groups in non-Persian minority areas. Iraqi leaders attempted to hold communist and non- communist elements united in a wider anti-Tehran campaign, and therefore explicitly promoted a “united, socialist, federal” Iran. (Harrison 1981, 109) However, there are also indications that it was a conspiracy backed by Iran, given that Nasir al Saud disappeared three days before the exposure and was later executed alongside Iraqi intelligence chief Nazir Kazzar in connection with a coup attempt against Saddam Hussain. Anti-government journalists said Al- Saud collaborated with Pakistani and Irani intelligence to stage the Islamabad arms exposure, in order to ensure the dismissal of the provincial government in Balochistan. (Harrison 1981, 35) On the other hand, Baloch leaders like Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo vehemently denied that they were involved, and pointed out that no one “bothered to reflect why NAP, which was in power in Baluchistan, would want to use such a long and circuitous route via the Iraqi embassy in far away Islamabad to smuggle so-called Russian weapons into Baluchistan, when they had the 900-mile long Makran sea coast with small ports, in addition to nearby Karachi harbour, available for safely executing such a secretive enterprise? A mind-boggling concoction, is it not?” (Bizenjo 2009, 183-184). However, there are indications that Sher Mohammad Marri, the founder of the armed Pararis took a trip to Baghdad in 1972, and that the weapons were potentially to be shared between the Pararis and the Iranian Baloch (Harrison 1981, 35-36). Siddiqi 2012, 67.55 - Page of 231 -113 Image 3.7 | Screenshot of Associated Press footage of the sensational discovery of arms at the Iraqi Embassy. Source: AP Archive. n.d. SYND 12-2-73 ARMS CACHE UNCOVERED IN IRAQI EMBASSY IN PAKISTAN. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEuWaNi_oDM. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) guns and 48,000 rounds of ammunition (see Image 3.7), prompting accusations that the Baloch were receiving arms from the Soviet Union and Iraq . In an intelligence briefing, the US State 56 Department, suspected that “the Government of Pakistan had stage-managed the incident for maximum effect” in order to justify “a clamp-down on the NAP” and to “support Pakistan’s upcoming approach to the US for military and economic support.” Indeed, the briefing 57 predicted that Bhutto saw “Pakistan as a partner in a new Asian alliance against the USSR”; the arms cache, the briefing concluded, afforded Bhutto “ammunition against domestic opposition” and supported “his key foreign policy objective.” Who the arms were really for remains unclear, 58 though most investigations suggest they were headed for Irani Baloch whom the Iraqis wanted to support in retaliation for Irani support for Iraqi Kurds–and that, if Pakistani Baloch were involved, it was done by a minority subset, the Marris, without the knowledge and cooperation of the broader political networks in which the Baloch were involved. Either way, the discovery prompted the immediate dismissal of Balochistan’s first democratically-elected provincial government and assembly, led by a primarily Baloch NAP in coalition with a mostly Pashtun JUI ; the resignation of neigboring NWFP’s NAP-JUI government; the escalation of political and 59 armed opposition against the Bhutto’s perceived excesses (most notably the mobilisation of 60 armed fronts across the province who started attacking economic, military, and political Vatanka 2015, 89.56 Department of State, United States of America 15 February, 1973: Pakistan: The Iraqi Arms Caper and the Larger 57 Picture, Intelligence Note, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, DECLASSIFIED, A/ISS/IPS, Department of State, E.O. 12958, as amended, October 11, 2007. Department of State, United States of America 15 February, 1973: Pakistan: The Iraqi Arms Caper and the Larger 58 Picture, Intelligence Note, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, DECLASSIFIED, A/ISS/IPS, Department of State, E.O. 12958, as amended, October 11, 2007. According to Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo (2009, 201-204), the governor who was deposed just a few days later, the 59 events led to an almost instantaneous reaction. The , a “mammoth protest meeting was already in progress on Jinnah Road” in Quetta when he arrived from Islamabad accompanied by the Balochistan cabinet, attended by a “highly charged slogan-chanting crowd”. Bizenjo continues: Within hours after the dismissal of the government, it became clear that a reign of terror was being let loose against the NAP leaders, workers and sympathizers, including the student activists. The worst form of political vendetta would mark the advent of the new provincial administration, one that had no public mandate or electoral legitimacy. Fearing arrests and persecution, many party activists went into hiding. Within hours, Bhutto cobbled together what Bizenjo called a “spurious ruling coalition led by the PPP, which itself did not have a single elected member in the House.” Amnesty 1976, 51, 55. In March of 1973, NAP joined the United Democratic Front, quoting the importance of uniting 60 “with the object of maintaining and strengthening the solidarity, integrity and ideology of Pakistan and for developing the democratic institutions and for restoration of a civilized norms of political conduct and behavior in the country.” Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 192. - Page of 231 -114 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) infrastructure ); and the harassment and arrests of NAP leaders, workers, and sympathisers in 61 and around Balochistan. 62 These actions were preceded by earlier tensions between the federal government and the NAP-majority provincial government: NAP had opposed the brutal military operations in East Pakistan which Bhutto had supported in 1971, and which eventually led to the secession and independence of Bangladesh, prompting their banning by the sitting General Yahya Khan. After 63 a lifting of the ban under Bhutto, and attempts at rapprochement through the signing of two 64 tripartite accords, NAP took power over the provincial government in Balochistan. However, 65 during this time, the ruling party began implementing policies seen to be parochial in their support of indigenous Baloch above and beyond “Punjabi settlers,” including attempts to replace a mostly Punjabi bureaucracy with locals and, more notoriously, the establishment and deployment of a provincial paramilitary, the Dehi Muhafaz, to replace a largely federal security force. The situation came to a head after provincial paramilitaries and armed militias clashed with federal security forces. This first happened around Pat Feeder Canal at the end of 1972, when Kahloies, tenants of Punjabis, clashed with local Marris over grazing land. The situation, 66 alongside parallel accusations that students in the BSO were harassing federal employees , was 67 further exacerbated when another clash took place in southern Las Bela. The provincial 68 government claimed that their federal counterpart had conspired with pro-regime sardars including the Raisani sardar around the Pat Feeder Canal, and Jam Ghulam Qadir in Las Bela–a charge denied by the federal government, who accused NAP of arming private militas and of 69 Unknown author. Gigantic Hoax, Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad. As Selig Harrison (1981, 34) points out, 61 Baloch guerrillas started ambushing army convoys as the military began moving in, in April 1973, but were nevertheless combat-ready; given their previous experiences with the federal state’s punitive arm, they kept their camps active and in training. This included the arrest of Sher Mohammad Marri, the founder of the Pararis, who was said to be arrested in the 62 mountains with 80 fighters. Jabbal claims that news of this arrest was false, and that he was instead arrested from his home in Kohlu in the northeastern Marri territories, and was followed by military forces who moved in to blockade the territories. It is unclear which version is accurate. Jabbal, June 1977, Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 6. Shah, Sabir. 2015. “NAP was banned twice by Yahya and Bhutto,” The News, 3 May 2015. Available at: https://63 www.thenews.com.pk/print/38435-nap-was-banned-twice-by-yahya-and-bhutto. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. Shah, Sabir. 2015. “NAP was banned twice by Yahya and Bhutto,” The News, 3 May 2015. Available at: https://64 www.thenews.com.pk/print/38435-nap-was-banned-twice-by-yahya-and-bhutto. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. In a subsequent Supreme Court case, reviewing the decision to ban NAP less than two years later yet again, sitting judges described this lifting of the 1971 ban as a sign of “good faith”. According to the case, the decision was made to “ give the Party a fair opportunity of providing its bona fides and of bringing about “national cohesion and solidarity in what was left of a dismembered and shattered Pakistan.” Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 84. In a subsequent Supreme Court case, reviewing the decision to ban NAP less than two years later yet again, sitting 65 judges described this lifting of the 1971 ban as a sign of “good faith”. According to the case, the decision was made to “ give the Party a fair opportunity of providing its bona fides and of bringing about “national cohesion and solidarity in what was left of a dismembered and shattered Pakistan.” Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 84-85. Siddiqi 2012, 66.66 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 153.67 Siddiqi 2012, 66-67.68 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 155.69 - Page of 231 -115 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) being unable to maintain “law and order.” 70 Whatever the actual situation was, the arms cache was found the day after Bhutto had deployed the Pakistan Army to Las Bela in order to “restore law and order.” This was 71 despite the cooperation of key NAP figures, like Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, in the passing of a historic 1973 constitution– indeed, Bizenjo was arrested just two days after the constitution’s promulgation on 10 August of that year, as were other leaders and members of NAP in Balochistan , 72 causing one scholar to conclude that “the federal dimension of this text was stillborn.” 73 Thus, just a few months after the discovery of the arms cache, Bhutto finally deployed four divisions, or 80,000 troops in Balochistan against a suspected 20,000 militants. Throughout 74 the period, up to 38,000 political prisoners were arrested. Though the military had already been 75 present in Balochistan at this point–because of the colonial-era deployment of troops in places like Quetta, earlier military campaigns in the 1950s and ‘60s, and in relation to the Pat Feeder and Las Bela clashes –this deployment both expanded the military’s presence, and intensified the 76 operations. It expanded the remit of the military’s operations in that it took place on a far larger territory than had been witnessed in the 1950s and ‘60s–in large part because those who took part in fighting the state were also spread over a larger area. In a map published by Andrew 77 Mascarenhas, a journalist for The Guardian who toured the area for four weeks in 1975, the operation, was concentrated in northeastern Balochistan, included the southern areas of Sarawan and Jhalawan as well as the territory stretching towards Quetta, in areas like Sibi (see Image 3.8). Meanwhile, the intensity of the operations was made possible both by the deployment of what in Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 95, 154.70 Quoted in Mascarenhas, Anthony 24 January, 1975: “Full Fledged Revolt in Baluchistan,” The Guardian.71 Harrison 1981, 36; Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, June 1977, Vol. 1, No. 6,” p. 6; 72 Amnesty 1976, 51. Jaffrelot, 2015, 3, 127.73 Vatanka 2015, 89-90.74 According to The Economist in Amnesty 1976.75 Wolpert 2007, 211-212.76 As Selig Harrison (1981, 36) says, “The fighting was more widespread than it had been during the conflicts of the 77 fifties and sixties and touched most of the Baluch population at one time or another.” This is not completely accurate, since many of the territories involved in the current conflict – around the Makran Coast and closer to the border of Iran – were mostly untouched, as is clear in Image 7. Nevertheless, it is true that the conflict led to a politicisation of the countryside and an acceptance of common nationalist leadership across rural and urban Balochistan, albeit for a time. Harrison 1981, 10. - Page of 231 -116 Image 3.8 | Map published in the 24 January, 1975 report in The Guardian showing the extent of the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation. Source: Mascarenhas 1975. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) one instance was reported to be 100,000 troops led by General Tikka Khan who was fresh out of 78 the war in former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. This was supported by US-made Cobra gunships and C-130 transport planes, provided to Pakistan by the Shah of Iran who both 79 pressured Bhutto to intervene against a growing political opposition in Balochistan , and gave in 80 to his requests for being a clearing house for US arms despite an embargo on Pakistan after the 1965 war with India . Mascarenhas recounts that despite denials by the government that the 81 “Pakistan Air Force [had] been used for bombing”, he saw “bomb craters and large fragments of bombs”–F-86 Sabre Jets, UH-1 Helicopters, along with 500 pilots with the Pakistan Air Force, took part in strafing, frequently with the help of Irani pilots. 82 Initially, the Pararis/BPLF carried out a series of successful attacks, including cutting off main roads that were linking Balochistan to surrounding provinces, blocking the transportation of coal, gas, and other minerals, attacking drilling and survey operations of “imperialist- sponsored” oil exploration. The armed movement, beginning from “liberated zone[s] or base 83 area[s]” in northeastern Balochistan, continued to grow and receive support from a panoply of 84 people. Though originally concentrated among the northeastern Marris and Mengals–and frequently assumed in most state documents and public debate to consist purely of members of these two communities–the Pararis/BPLF attracted members of rival “tribes” (including those who were thought to support the regime), Punjabis, Pashtuns, and students. Yet, as the military 85 operations continued unabated through extensive and intensive destruction, the situation had turned by the end of 1974. Indeed, despite a declaration by Bhutto that the army operations would be stopped in May 1974 , and that an amnesty would be offered for those who had fought , 86 87 reports of ongoing state violence continued arriving. In one resolution, NAP announced that in 88 spite “of the so-called ‘general amnesty’ declared by the Government” “strafing, shooting, and 89 Mascarenhas, Anthony 24 January, 1975: “Full Fledged Revolt in Baluchistan,” The Guardian.78 Pakistan was still under an arms embargo from the United States after the 1965 war with India; however, the Shah 79 of Iran acted as a middleman throughout the period that Pakistan remained under the embargo. Vatanka 2015, 89-90.80 Vatanka 2015, 92-93.81 Mascarenhas, Anthony 24 January, 1975: “Full Fledged Revolt in Baluchistan,” The Guardian.82 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 37.83 Harrison 1981, 33.84 In an article entitled Kutty, B.M. (No Date. Baluchistan and the New Imperialist Strategy, 4)–a close aide to Mir Ghaus 85 Bakhsh Bizenjo, the deposed governor–explains the composition of “those in the hills”: The composition of those who are in the hills today is very different from what it was in the 1950s-60s. Then the dominant element consisted of the followers of the arrived sardars; a substantial segment of the population remained passive. Today you find among them even the Bugtis, Raisanis, Zehris and others whose sardars are on the side of the regime. You find young students and youth, uncompromising enemies of the tribal system, participating in the movement. For the first time in the history of Baluchistan, you find Baluch women taking out processions to protest against the suppression of the democratic rights of the people of Baluchistan. Unknown author. Gigantic Hoax, Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad.86 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 160.87 See e.g. Mascarenhas, Anthony 24 January, 1975: “Full Fledged Revolt in Baluchistan,” The Guardian.88 Political Resolution. Adopted in Central Working Committee, Quetta on 6, 7, 8 of July 1974.89 - Page of 231 -117 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) beaching [of ] the innocent people of Baluchistan” continued. The bulletin Jabbal, published by 90 the Pararis/BPLF, claimed that the situation became “critical” as roads began to be “cut off, traffic suspended… after dark” and cities became “fortified by camps, night curfew, searches [and] armed patrols.” These blockages of roads were described in one alarmist NAP resolution in 1974 91 as “resulting in the total conversion of the areas into famine stricken tracts. The famished population, all skin and bones, deprived of even a morsel of bread, is greedily devouring grass and straw, of which there is [a] complete dearth.” 92 In this period, the most intense military campaign, which is still considered to have broken the back of the armed insurgency, were operations in northeastern Chamalang in September, 1974. Marris, especially women, children, and older men, had set up tents in a pasture in the area as they did every summer; to lure the guerrillas down from the mountains, the army began skirmishes in the surrounding areas before launching a “combined assault by ground and air forces.” Led by the Pararis/BPLF, guerrilla units formed a protective circle around their 93 families and livestock, and fought three days and three nights, facing artillery fire and strafing attacks by F-86, Mirage Fighter Planes and Huey Cobras. When they ran out of ammunition, they regrouped and escaped, saving some of the most important commanders; by the end of the operation, an estimated 125 guerrillas were killed, 900 captured, and thousands of livestock were seized and sold outside of Balochistan –indeed, some nationalist historians put the number at 94 Unknown author. Gigantic Hoax, Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad.90 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, February 1977, Vol. 1, No. 3,” p. 6.91 “There is,” they declared, “complete chaos and confusion, a state of pandemonium. The Government by giving the 92 people the shock of financial crisis and the dilapidation of their source of livelihood, is reducing them to such a state where they would have no moral courage and no moral conviction.” 3, 4 May, 1973. “RESOLUTIONS (Adopted by the Central Working Committee of Pakistan National Awami Party in its meeting held in Quetta, on 3rd and 4th May 1973). Harrison 1981, 38.93 Harrison 1981, 38.94 - Page of 231 -118 Image 3.9 | Hyderabad Conspiracy Case in session, which followed the dismissal of Balochistan’s first provincial government and the arrest of leaders from its governing party, the National Awami Party. The conspiracy trial prompted a broad constellation of Baloch, alongside socialist non-Baloch, to escape into the mountains and launch an armed rebellion against the Bhutto regime. Source: Kazi, Ghulam Nabi. “The Hyderabad Conspiracy Tribunal,” Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimu/1438380088. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) several thousand deaths. A current commander of the Baloch Liberation Front, or BLF, who 95 witnessed the operation in Chamalang as a child, described what he saw to me when I met him in Balochistan’s southern Dasht territories: On the first morning, as early as 4 or 5am, he “remembered that they fired something from the sky with which everything became bright as far as from the end of the earth… Mothers and sisters used their bed sheets and head scarfs to shield their children from the burning sun.” After several days of relentless attacks, with “passes covered by the army”, he recounts how his “people realised that they lost the battle. Some of the people were able to escape but on the last day, some 1660 men surrendered. They put white pieces of cloths on sticks to show the army that they are surrendering.” Throughout 1975, the operations and the situation in the rest of the country worsened. Just two years after the dismissal of the provincial government in Balochistan, Bhutto’s close ally, NWFP’s governor Hayat Mohammad Sherpao was assassinated, a death he blamed on NAP, 96 especially its Pashtun leader Abdul Wali Khan. Bhutto banned the party, arresting 55 NAP members and sympathisers. They were tried under the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case, a special tribunal set up under emergency legislation (see Image 3.9). Meanwhile, as the operations 97 continued in Balochistan, the main commander of the Pararis/BPLF, Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani, decided to finalise the move of fighters and their families to camps in Afghanistan. Under the new regime of Daoud Khan they received refuge that was further extended after Afghanistan’s 1978 Saur Revolution–or the toppling of Daoud Khan. Alongside these ongoing projects of destruction targeting oppositional political, student, and armed networks in and around the operation, the state engaged in projects of construction, through administrative and economic interventions meant to integrate the territory and subjects of Balochistan into the Pakistani state and economy. In part, these interventions were carried out by the federal government, e.g. when Bhutto abolished the colonial-era sardari system in 1976 and held it up as a sign that he was doing away with a “reactionary system which has kept the poor Baluch backward and in chains” –98 though oppositional Baloch networks pointed out that they, too, opposed sardariyat e.g. when Dashti 2017, 157.95 Sherpao was killed in the aftermath of a series of bombings that had taken place in NWFP by Pakhtun Zalme–an 96 armed group started by Ghani, the son of the famous Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan who ran the Khudai Khidmatgars or Servants of God, also known as the Red Shirts, a non-violent anti-colonial movement against the British; Ghani Khan began to counteract what he felt was the “violent undertones in the [pro-Pakistani Muslim] League’s campaign” (Gandhi, Rajmohan: Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pashtuns). Amnesty 1976, 11.97 Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali. 1976. “Abolishing Sardari System,” Prime Minister’s Speech, Quetta, April 8, 1976. Available at: 98 https://www.bhutto.org/1976_speech8.php. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -119 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) NAP themselves voted for the abolition of the system while in government. In large 99 part, however, they were carried out by the Pakistan Army which was behind the punitive operations. Indeed, the Pakistan Army’s role was described, alongside these operations, as having “a dual purpose: preservation of law and order and economic development.” The 100 “undertaking of major development projects such as the installation of tubewells and electric generators, the construction of roads, and opening of schools and dispensaries” was the mode 101 through which this dual purpose was addressed (see Image 3.10). That it was done during the military operation is a sign that these constructive projects were not possible without the destruction of all that which was already there–i.e. through a rendering of political networks as treasonous before targeting them with policies of destruction, a point to which we will return below. It was not until 1977, with the military coup of Zia ul Haq, that members of NAP, and their student and armed supporters, among other sympathisers, were released, and the operation in Balochistan was brought to a halt–albeit one that left behind military cantonments and military- led economic development projects that by now dotted the landscape of Balochistan. NAP’s Baloch leaders–including the former governor and chief minister of the dismissed NAP government in Balochistan, Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo and Ataullah Mengal–decided, along with their Pashtun counterparts, to support Zia’s promises of a military transition to democratic Several references are made to this. Read among other the following documents: Unknown author. “Baluchistan – 99 Its Tribal System – Origin & Development Up To 1977,” Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad; Pararis/BPLF. Ca. 1976. “The People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the Future,” Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad; Kutty, B.M. “Baluchistan and the New Imperialist Strategy,” Ahmed Saleemn’s Collection, Islamabad; Pararis/BPLF. 1977. Jabbal, May 1977, Vol. 1, No. 5. Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 29.100 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 29.101 - Page of 231 -120 Image 3.10 | This map was published in a White Paper on Balochistan published by the Government of Pakistan in Rawalpindi on 19 October, 1974, and was meant to assess the “situation in Balochistan.” The map was meant to showcase how the Government of Pakistan partook in addressing “socio-economic-administrative issues” rather than political ones which misconstrued what was going on in Balochistan. Government of Pakistan 1974, opposite p. 30. Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) rule following the unseating of a Bhutto regime they argued had been authoritarian and draconian. They had, by the end of this period, become part of the Pakistan National Alliance or PNA–an alliance primarily consisting of right-wing parties like their formal provincial government ally, the JUI, but one they decided to join because of its opposition to Bhutto’s policies. Their decision to do so, however, invited vociferous criticism from their supporters, including members of the BSO and the Pararis/BPLF; eventually, they failed to secure promises of military retreat and the release of all their prisoners, prompting some of them, most notably the former head of NAP in Balochistan Khair Bakhsh Marri as well as Mengal, to give up on the idea of remaining within Pakistan for good. By the 1980s, or the final decade in the period that this chapter looks at, the united front in which the Baloch had taken part alongside other minorities and socialists had fallen apart. Censuring Through Violence The 1973-’77 counterinsurgency campaign, and the events surrounding it, was actively censured both through the identification of what properly belongs to the body politic of the newly independent state of Pakistan, and through the exclusion of that which was thought to be “obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” Of course, ideas of the peoples and places of Balochistan as a peripheral territory with backwards subjects continued to shape modes of destruction, most notably through practices reminiscent of the colonial era–including economic blockages, encirclements, and clean sweeps through troop deployments and strafing by aerial bomber planes and helicopters. These were augmented by new technological capacities 102 and access to a larger variety of “foreign-trained counter-insurgency experts” sharing tactics also used in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Philipines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cuba, Chile, Congo, South Africa, and elsewhere, which meant that new capacities and tactics were available. Indeed, after Bhutto secured USD 200 million from the Shah of Iran, his troops took 103 part in training exercises with CENTO, symptomatic of the extensive support given to Pakistan for the purposes of cracking down on domestic opposition that was tied into larger communist networks. Yet, two shifts in the post-colonial period–in the condition of social life and the state–104 necessitated a shift from mere containment of counter-identities and collectivities on the edge of the state, to an active censuring of them within the state. In the early 20th century, both Baloch nationalism and socialist internationalism remained tethered to a relatively narrower set of figures, collectives, and sites. The former was Mascarenhas, Anthony 24 January, 1975: “Full Fledged Revolt in Baluchistan,” The Guardian.102 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, June 1977, Vol. 1, No. 6,” p. 7.103 Vatanka 2015.104 - Page of 231 -121 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) concentrated among civil servants of Kalat State, and a handful of elite sons of “tribal” heads; the latter was in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution in its early throes in Balochistan, similarly concentrated around those who were also professing Baloch nationalism. Changing social conditions, however, meant that political ideas circulated faster and in directions it had not gone before. First, the establishment of broadcasting stations–in Quetta in the 1960s–and the spread of the transistor radio around the same period allowed the flourishing of Balochi-105 language programs on stations from Radio Kabul, All-India Radio, Radio Quetta, and Radio Zahedan. Programs were also produced in places as far away as Baghdad, Dubai, and London. 106 Some radio presenters, like Jumma Khan and Mir Abdi Khan, became so famous that they had to leave their countries. Jumma Khan, a “producer and announcer of Baluch programs on Radio Karachi and … a president of the leading Baluch literary group, the Baluch Academy” eventually had to flee Pakistan ; meanwhile, Mir Abdi Khan left Iran in 1965 for the ostensible reason to do 107 pilgrimage in Mecca, but then settled in Dubai where he made Balochi-language broadcasts for three years. Second, the building of new roads through the province–even under the 1973-’77 108 campaign (see Image 3.10)–made possible new connections including greater access to wealthier areas, the central state, and jobs in the cities . Third, the integrationist imperative of the state 109 meant an albeit marginal investment in promoting educational activities, making possible not just the establishment and spread of political magazines like Mahtak, Makran, Graand, and Roshanal out of Iranian Balochistan; Nadae Balochistan, People’s Front, and Democratic Pakistan abroad; alongside a series of magazines within Pakistani Balochistan including Jabbal. Several famous Baloch were behind attempts to develop standardised script, language, history, etc. including Mir Gul Khan Nasir, Balochistan’s unofficial poet laureate, and Jumma Khan, the aforementioned radio broadcaster dismissed from his post in Radio Karachi for his activities. 110 Finally, increasing levels of urbanisation of Baloch, who traveled either to other parts of Pakistan or westward towards the Gulf , meant greater engagement with what Kris Manjapra and Sugata 111 Qadeer 2006, 135. The transistor radio spread through Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Qadeer, new 105 broadcasting stations were started in Quetta in the 1960s. He goes on to say: “The arrival of the transistor radio carried the diffusion of radio to new heights. The popular stereotype of the 1970s that “every farmer has a radio blaring from his plough” may have been a caricature but it pointed out the spread of transistors in villages.” Sufi 2016, 116; Harrison 1981, 101; Wolpert 2007, 219.106 Harrison 1981, 105.107 Harrison 1981, 106108 Bhutto was particularly adamant that he was trying to promote economic development, for instance through the 109 construction of roads, within Balochistan (Harrison 1981, 166, 182). In his book on Balochistan, Soviet scholar Beknazar Ibragimov argued that increased transportation networks disrupted economic and social structures, led to the growth of landless agricultural labor and a significant Baloch working class, and strengthened a nationalist intelligentsia. (Ibragimov in Harrison 1981, 182). Breseeg 2004, 266-7; Harrison 1981, 182-188.110 This was also the case with Iranian Baloch. Indeed, a major out-migration from Irani Balochistan took place 111 between 1967 and 1972, when a five-year drought killed off 80 percent of shepherds flock in Iranian Balochistan. Vatanka (2015, 87) explains, “Things were so bad that some 200,000 Iranian Baluch were estimated to have moved to Karachi or to the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf in search of a livelihood.” - Page of 231 -122 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Bose (2010) call “cosmopolitan thought zones” . These new connectivities were quickly infused 112 with radical left affective, discursive, and material geographies, in Pakistan (through figures like Mairaj Muhammad Khan and Mir Ali Bakhsh Talpur who both supported demands put forward by Baloch political collectives, the latter’s two sons were fighting with the Pararis/BPLF), Afghanistan (via the aforementioned Daud and, later, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan after the Saur Revolution), Iraq (Baghdad was a hub from which Baloch dissidents broadcast Balochi-language programs), and other places around the Gulf (Baloch nationalist figures like Yusuf Aziz Magsi, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Mir Gul Khan Nasir, and Khair Bakhsh Marri have referenced such ideas in their writings, speeches, interviews, and poetry. Similarly, Baloch nationalists took part in the 1922 Baku Conference organised by the Soviet Union in support of colonised anti-colonial national movements). In turn, this strengthened the link between nationalist and left thought, which had long roots within Balochistan from at least the 20th century. After all, as Larkin (2013: 328, 333) reminds us, such communication, transport, labor, and political infrastructures “comprise the architecture of circulation” by facilitating “the flow of goods, people and ideas” and allowing “their exchange over space.” In turn, these sorts of circulations “form us as subjects not just on a technopolitical level but also through this mobilization of affect and the senses of desire, pride and frustration, feelings which can be deeply political.” These infrastructural shifts, in other words, brought about new forms of political subjectivity. That is why in this period both the new connectivities and the politics that infused them threatened to align what Jinnah identified in his 1948 speech as threatening–namely a loyalty to “parts” with “Communists”. This alignment threatened both the integrationist politics of the post-colonial state as well as Pakistan’s positioning as an anti-Communist front within South Asia–a policy that even Bhutto, despite his professed socialism and commitment to non- alignment, maintained alongside his overtures to pan-Islamist and Third Worldist solidarities. Inherent to the state’s integrationist policy was an assumption that built on colonial-era tropes of Balochistan as not connected, but unconnected–or not part of either Pakistan or the world, but set apart from it. This, in turn, meant that the integrationist policy saw the cohabitation of Balochistan’s peoples and places as a “socio-economic-administrative issue” rather than a political one; or, an issue that could be solved with the state abolishment of “backward” social structures like “tribalism” and the sardar, the establishment and pursuit of economic growth and development projects like building roads and electricity, and the expansion In the introduction to an edited volume on this topic, Kris Manjapra defines cosmopolitan thought zones as 112 “heterotopias that call forth conversation, in which speech is not ‘desiccated and stopped’, as Foucault proposed, but is generated by the pragmatic need to get things done in communities with highly different others.” Manjapra 2010, 1 in Bose & Manjapra 2010. - Page of 231 -123 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) of a state administrative set-up like courts and government offices. Indeed, at one point, an official state document declared that the demands emanating from Balochistan–for democratic autonomy, multi-nationalism, socialism, and anti-imperialism–were not political demands that required engagement but rather a sign of the fact that: The socio-economic-administrative issue has been distorted, and the conditions for it exploited, by elements which wish neither Pakistan nor Baluchistan itself to prosper. They took advantage of Baluchistan’s lack of communications, its terrain and location and its relative insularity to launch an insurgency in the Marri-Mengal areas of Baluchistan. 113 [my italics] Those who could take “advantage” of the “lack of communications” and “relative insularity” of Balochistan were, on the one hand, alternate communities within the sovereign boundaries of Pakistan (like those tethered to particular Baloch identity or to a multi-national vision of Pakistan) and, on the other hand, the trans-geographical communities outside of it (like the internationalist networks that took Baloch figures and collectives to Baghdad, Kabul, and Moscow). In other words, it was not that Balochistan was unconnected, but rather that it was wrongly connected both within and without the borders of Pakistan. Where the colonial state could merely ensure that such “infections” or connections were contained in a corner of empire, this was not what the post-colonial state could do; instead, the new Pakistani state and those aligned with it, particularly Iran, had to actively censure the peoples and places of Balochistan so they could be brought into the fold of a more acceptable political community: One that aligned with the centralising and homogenising policies of the state, and with its anti-communist alignments, as members of SEATO and CENTO or as international collaborators with the US and the Shah of Iran. The modes of repression used around the counterinsurgency campaign therefore included large-scale arrests, torture, trials, and at times killings, of those within the opposition through most of this period not just within Balochistan, but in other parts of the country where they were suspected of showing any signs of sympathy or solidarity. Indeed, just before the counter-insurgency campaign, the 1971 war targeted another alternate connectivity: one of Bengalis with one another, and of Bengalis with other ethnic minorities and communists. The link between Baloch (and Pashtun) opposition networks and the Bengali one is what led to the banning of NAP the first time around. In turn, the fear of secession was a constant reference in Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 2.113 - Page of 231 -124 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) court cases and state documents–including the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case , the White Paper on 114 Balochistan which was published to assess “the situation in Balochistan” , and court documents 115 justifying the banning of NAP –and were deployed to justify the crackdown on these alternate 116 networks. Indeed, under Bhutto’s rule, two amendments to the constitution gave wide legal 117 scope to define anti-state activities. Other opposition networks outside of Balochistan were 118 similarly cracked down on, including those who resisted Bhutto within his own party and unions in places like Karachi. Likewise, Bhutto continued policies of censorship against the media. 119 120 Similarly, the means through which the Pakistani state was able to do this included the technologies which they received from Iran and the US. Shah-era Iran was intent on ensuring that the oppositional politics made possible within the new social conditions did not spread to Iran. Some argue that the Shah treated Pakistani Balochistan as an “Iranian protectorate,” and When caseworkers from Amnesty International visited those jailed in the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case, they asked 114 the sitting Attorney General why the case was being run in such a manner to begin with. The Attorney General answered: The case is actually the follow up of the Supreme Court’s findings that the National Awami Party and its leaders had been working against the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan. As the National Awami Party and its leaders had walked out of the Supreme Court during the hearing of the case about the dissolution of this party, therefore, it was considered necessary that these leaders and other accused may have a proper opportunity to rebut the evidence that may be brought before the Special Court in support of the findings given by the Supreme Court. Amnesty 1976, 59-60. Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974.115 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ).116 For example in Supreme Court of Pakistan (Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 117 181), the Supreme Court declares: “Indeed, it is impossible to avoid the impression that the NAP leaders are only trying to emulate the late Mujibur Rehman.” The first and third amendment to the constitution, passed on 8 May 1974 and 18 February 1975 respectively, 118 restricted the formation of political parties by subjecting them “to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan…” and extended the period of preventive detention for those accused of committing treason or espionage against Pakistan. Famously, he cracked down on striking workers at a textile mill in Karachi. See Ali, Kamran Asdar. 2005. “The 119 Strength of the Street Meets the Strength of the State: The 1972 Labor Struggle in Karachi.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 37 (1): 83–107. See note 3.120 - Page of 231 -125 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) was concerned with Baloch demands resulting in the disintegration of the country –a concern 121 that played a key role in the help provided under the operation . And, though the US did not 122 always actively support Bhutto, they continued to inflate the capacity of the Pakistani state’s punitive arm, a policy that they continue until today. At one point, Amnesty International reported that a US military attache was buying “instruments of torture for use in Pakistan … including equipment for brainwashing, electric shocks, as well as lie detectors and powerful interrogation lights.” The story prompted NAP to declare that “the government has made 123 Baluchistan the testing ground of the new torture devices improved by it from the USA. These ultra modern devices are being used upon the poor, primitive, illiterate Baluchi masses.” 124 Unlike the colonial era where destructive policies could be contained in a corner of empire, the post-colonial period’s changes within social life and the state made necessary policies of censuring. The post-colonial state, which claimed an integrationist rather than exclusionist approach towards Balochistan at a time when it positioned itself as a premier US ally, sought to destroy alternate connectivities pursuing nationalist-communist aspirations being forged between Balochistan, the rest of the country, and the rest of the world. “If Pakistan disintegrates, another Vietnam situation could develop. We must see to it that Pakistan doesn’t fall to 121 pieces. This would produce a terrible mess, an Indochina situation of new and larger dimensions. I dread to think of it,” he said in a 1973 interview to The New York Times, in the run-up to the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation. He went on to answer, to a question by the journalist, that if Pakistan falls apart: “The least we could do in our own interest would be some kind of protective reaction in Baluchistan.” In a public declaration during Bhutto’s visit a month later, he said: “We will not close our eyes to any secessionist moement–God forbid–in your country.” And, in a Newsweek article in November 1977, he said: “What could happen if what remains of Pakistan were to disintegrate? If we don’t assume the security of this region, who will do it?” (Harrison 1981, 97). The Shah’s comments were criticised by NAP in a resolution from 3, 4 May 1973, which declared that NAP “regards with indignation the recently published interview of Shahinshah of Iran in which he has not only betrayed his undue interest in the internal affairs of our country but has also invited India to do so. The Shahinshah has thereby expressed his unequivocal policy of annexing territory. … It is hardly surprising that this interview together with the utterances and activities of the American dignitaries [visiting Pakistan] have caused grave concern in the minds of the people as they lay bare the imperialist intrigues that have been going on in Baluch Gulf against the integrity of our country and for the protection of American oil interests in the area. This meeting recalls in this connexion the statements of Khan Abdul Wali Khan made earlier alleging the concentration of Iranian troops on Pakistani borders and the hostile attitude of Iran to the establishment of NAP Government in Baluchistan, but deplores that the Government has not paid heed to his warnings. This meeting demands that a meeting of National Assembly be immediately convened to discuss the issue of Iran’s involvement in the internal affairs of Pakistan and that pending the decision of the Assembly the visit of President to Iran be put off. This meeting further demands that a strong protest be lodged to Iran against the Shahinshah’s opinions as expressed in the interview, and that suitable steps be taken to safeguard the integrity of Pakistan against imperialist designs and demands that Pakistan quit military pacts like CENTO.” Bhutto indicated that the Shah of Iran put pressure on him to dismiss the 1973 provincial government.122 Amnesty 1976, 61.123 National Awami Party. 4, 5, 6 August 1973. “Central Working Committee Meeting of NAP.” The minutes went on to 124 demand that the government “scrap and publicly destroy all the torture devices in possession of the Government including the latest one recently taken from the US imperialists.” - Page of 231 -126 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Accusations of “Treason” These destructive policies of censuring, carried out in and around the 1973-’77 operation, were justified by the Pakistani state through accusations of “treason.” The “traitor” from Balochistan was cast as a separatist, foreign-funded, backwards “tribal” tethered to the sardari system. Against the “traitor” stood the citizen subject, who was loyal to the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan, forward-looking, and a modern and autonomous citizen. The figure of the “traitor” and its other, the citizen subject, simultaneously carried within it the shadow of the “fanatic” and its other, the “tribal” subject and marked a fundamental shift from the colonial era. This was reflected, in particular, in the characterisation of the “traitor” as a foreign-funded separatist and as a backward “tribal” tethered to sardariyat. Proof of it was, in turn, found both in past support for a “united India and Indian nationalism” as well as a future imagination “preaching the doctrine of four/five nationalities”. Of course, much like the 125 “fanatic” in the colonial era, the “traitor” in the post-colonial period consisted of those who transgressed, exceeded, and countered the order of the state; and, much like in the colonial era, such a reductive category shrouded a staggeringly manifold set of counter-identities and -collectivites among the Baloch and from Balochistan, all of whom offered a different imagination of what Pakistan, and the world, could be, and what it could mean to belong to it. By declaring that these other imaginations and collectivities were treasonous the state locked them out of the realm of political contestation, eventually leading key (though not all) figures and collectivities within Baloch oppositional networks to conclude that politics is no longer possible within the confines of the Pakistani state. On the one hand, colonial-era readings of the Baloch as particularly susceptible to foreign intrigue and rebellion remained in tact; however, since the territory and subjects of Balochistan had to be inside rather than outside both the borders and the body politic of the state, the consequences differed in important ways. In part, trans-border connections, which aligned Baloch oppositional networks with countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union–or to other, ongoing movements of national liberation elsewhere in the Third World including Palestine, South Africa, or Zimbabwe–were solely read through the lens of foreign funding and meddling. And, in part, the pursuit by Baloch oppositional networks of pan-peripheral alliances with other minorities and communists within Pakistan were only read as the pursuit of “the doctrine of four/five nationalities to prepare ground of the ultimate secession of NWFP and Baluchistan on the basis of the right of self-determination of the different nationalities inhabiting those Provinces” . This caused the state to conclude that there was talk of a “conspiracy” 126 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 95.125 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 95.126 - Page of 231 -127 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) consisting of irredentist designs aiming at “establishing separate State or States of Pakhtoonistan and Baluchistan” backed up by foreign funding through “seeking and receiving encouragement 127 and material help from foreign powers hostile to Pakistan” . Or, as it declared: “Here, in 128 Baluchistan, what was at stake was not any partisan interest or tribal privilege but the consolidation of Pakistan. With Baluchistan in the hands of people who have foresworn, or failed to cultivate loyalty to the country, Pakistan itself would be vulnerable to both internal fission and external attack.” Indeed, the shadow of 1971, Bengali demands for autonomy, and East Pakistan’s 129 secession haunted the state’s relationship to Balochistan. More specifically, the “traitor” who was constituted by these oppositional linkages within and outside Pakistan was not an “outsider” who, even when threatening, effectively confirmed the colonial “self” as its “other,” but rather an “insider” who threatened to unravel the post-colonial “self” as its “same.” As Thiranagama and Kelly (2012, 9) remind us: “The traitor lies not so much at the margins or beyond the nation but at its heart. She or he is not the stranger, the common enemy, but is in fact always potentially one of us.” On the other hand, colonial-era understandings of Balochistan’s territory as marginal and its subjects as “tribal” and backwards also remained in tact in the post-colonial era. However, unlike the colonial state which reified marginality–and its attendant “tribalness” and backwardness–for the purposes of rule, the post-colonial state sought to do away with it. Thus, though this particular understanding of Balochistan survived, it was not something to be accepted, but something to be actively resisted by the state. Indeed, the colonial-era trope of a Balochistan which existed separate from the world–in a “tribal” and backward space and time– fuelled the Pakistani state’s narrative that it would be the entity to connect Balochistan to the world through a transformation of its “tribal” subjects into citizen subjects, and a pulling of Balochistan from an impoverished past into a more prosperous future. In its White Paper on 130 Balochistan, the government declared that Balochistan, “more than any other region of Pakistan” is victim to a “feudal and tribal structure of society” which has “inhibited progress and development”–and asserts: “Not to demedievalize Baluchistan is to betray the province.” The 131 agent for this “demedievalization” and “progress and development” was the state itself. More importantly for our purposes, such a position fuelled the narrative that anyone who countered the integrationist (or centralising and homogenising) state and its forward-moving plans for economic development also countered this modernist imperative–and therefore wished to retain Attorney-General quoted in Amnesty 1976, 56.127 Attorney-General quoted in Amnesty 1976, 56.128 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 28. 129 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 1.130 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 1-2.131 - Page of 231 -128 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) an isolated Balochistan that was “tribal” and backwards. Thus, the state could claim that any criticism of its policies was a sign of a “resistance to change” which necessitated “a 132 confrontation, in some areas of Baluchistan, between the forces of progress and those of reaction.” 133 In order to cement the critic as a “traitor” who stood opposed to those loyal as “citizens,” the state–particularly under a populist Bhutto regime–bifurcated the people of Balochistan into sardars and “the common man” . In a speech delivered as the operation was ongoing in 1976 in 134 Quetta, to announce the abolition of the colonial-era sardari system, Bhutto condemned Balochistan's political opposition as not just foreign-funded and separatist, but also backwards and “tribalist” because of its domination by sardars. Against this, Bhutto cast himself and the state as loyal forces for freedom and change, invested in the integrity of Pakistan: The freedom I want for Baluchistan as elsewhere is the freedom of the common man.
 
 This is the difference, the diametric opposition. They talk of a free Baluchistan which will preserve and perpetuate slavery and which will be dominated by other countries. But I envision a Baluchistan in which the poor Baluch is free and in which he is not exploited. I say that the system of exploitation—the reactionary system which has kept the poor Baluch backward and in chains should be brought to an end. I want you to be free. This is our struggle, our aim that you should enjoy the fullness of freedom within Pakistan, that the shackles of these Sardars and these Jagirdars in Pakistan should be broken by us. We should remove the fetters, destroy the chains and make you free. I want the common man to be free. They want the common man to remain in bondage. 135 Hidden behind the speech was an exultation from Bhutto to “the common man” of Balochistan to recognise his bondage and free himself of it. This, too, reflected the shadow of the irrational and over-emotional “fanatic” who did not know that subservience was good for him, though this time the subservience to be established was not of the sardar but of the state. The inherent and repeated assumption from the state was that the many non-sardars who were fighting were doing Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 5.132 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 5.133 Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali. 1976. “Abolishing Sardari System,” Prime Minister’s Speech, Quetta, April 8, 1976. Available at: 134 https://www.bhutto.org/1976_speech8.php. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. Earlier in the speech, Bhutto says:
135 They were opposed to Pakistan. They were opposed not to me, nor to my group, nor to my Party. They were opposed to our State from the very beginning… They continued to remain agents of foreign interests. They did not view things from the national angle but from a foreign one. They used to say, “We are struggling for a free Baluchistan.” They were not struggling for a free Baluchistan, or for an autonomous Baluchistan. As I told you before all they wanted to do was to safeguard their own system and keep their own reactionary organization intact. They wanted to maintain this reactionary, capitalistic, feudalistic and Sardari system in its place. […] They wanted to drag Baluchistan back into slavery, the same way as they did when these Sardars led the British from Kashmore, Kundkot and Dera Ghazi Khan to Sandeman. Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali. 1976. “Abolishing Sardari System,” Prime Minister’s Speech, Quetta, April 8, 1976. Available at: https://www.bhutto.org/1976_speech8.php. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -129 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) so because they were unaware of the change and freedom awaiting them were they to put down their arms and embrace Pakistan; what was not considered was the voluntary taking up of arms not (just) in loyalty to sardars, but for another kind of freedom and change. Bhutto’s casting of Baloch oppositional networks as separatist “agents of foreign interests”, full of “reactionary” “Sardars” who want to maintain “backward[ness]” was vehemently opposed by those cast in this light. Oppositional collectives regularly dismissed and criticised such declarations as “a bogey raised by the centre to tarnish their image and deprive them of their right as the chosen representatives of the people.” I agree that the “bogey” of treason can 136 shroud a more detailed understanding of the figures and collectives subject to such accusations. In fact, each accusation–separation, foreign funding, support for sardariyat, anti-modernity or backwardness–was vehemently criticised, as is apparent in this quote from Jabbal: With the complete control and censorship exercised by the government over the press, radio, T.V., and all other mass media, and a deliberate policy of a news blockade regarding the armed struggle in Baluchistan, plus the lies and distortions spewed out daily by the Bhutto regime, the people of Pakistan have been kept in the dark or completely misinformed about the situation in Baluchistan. Thus the armed resistance of the Baluch people has been variously described in the official government controlled media as; “the resistance of a few Sardars and backward tribals to modern civilisation, progress and development;” “a foreign-backed movement to break-up Pakistan”; “a Sardari-led struggle for the preservation of the privilages [sic] of the Sardars;” and so on.” 137 So, while a look at the past certainly cements that the Baloch did not join Pakistan voluntarily, imaginations of the future were not necessarily a reflection of calls for separation even though the political possibility remained. Indeed, against the charge of separatism, counter-collectivities claimed that they had never called for separation, but rather a re-constitution of Pakistan along multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist lines. So, Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo of NAP argued that there had “to be changes in the way that all of these countries [including Pakistan] are constituted, or there will be no peace in our region.” Similarly, the Pararis/BPLF, in one of their 138 first bulletins, A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the Future, argued that “once in Pakistan, the Baluch waged their struggle from within Pakistan for their legitimate national interests–equal status within Pakistan, democratic freedoms and so on–which were persistently denied.” In 139 turn, the state questioned this imagination as is apparent in a Supreme Court ruling reviewing a ban on NAP, which says: “It is patent that if such a loose federation were to come into existence, Outlook, Karachi, 20 July 1974, 20.136 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, December 1976, Vol 1, No. 1.”137 In Harrison 1981, 54-55.138 Pararis/BPLF. “The People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the 139 Future,” Ahmed Saleem Collection, 6. - Page of 231 -130 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) the sovereignty and integrity of the State of Pakistan, as now prevailing, would no longer be there. In either view of the matter, therefore, we are of the opinion that what the demand really amounts to is a breaking-up of the existing structure of Pakistan and its remodelling, even according to the concept now being propounded by Mr Wali Khan[, the then leader of NAP].” 140 Later in the same document, it compared NAP’s demand for multi-nationalism with Pakistan’s demand for an Islamic nation, arguing: Acceptance of Islam spelled a complete rupture of closest blood relationship in a society which was then wholly tribal, and the entire gamut of human relations was organised on that basis. Any division of a Muslim society on the basis of race, language, colour or other ethnic considerations will thus be an anti-thesis of Islamic percepts as enjoined by the Holy Quran.” 141 Against this charge, Bizenjo wrote an article in 1978 that argued “that it is the advocates of a monolithic Pakistan who will be responsible if the country disintegrates.” He continued: Yesterday, those who spoke of the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ were the ones responsible for the separation of East Pakistan. Today they can become guilty of breaking up what is left of Pakistan as well. We have reached a crossroads in our history where we must refrain from the practice of making unfair attacks and allegations of ‘secessionist’ against each other. Because to me the end result of these unfair attacks could be very fatal. 142 Fundamental to Bizenjo’s critique was a conviction that colonial-era boundary-making had produced “artificial states lumping together diverse nationalities with no rhyme or reason. What we have,” he concluded, “is a new type of colonialism.” 143 Similarly, they denied accusations of foreign support, saying that they hoped “to completely demolish the edifice of lies and distortions constructed by the government and show that far from being a foreign-backed “sinister” plot as the government has tried to make out, the present resistance is a patriotic, democratic struggle which is totally self-reliant.” Later, the 144 Pararis/BPLF declared: “As all our friends and even enemies know, our struggle was not an externally inspired one. It came forth from us. It got its motivation from our history–our long sufferings, our experiences of oppression, persecution, exploitation and tyranny–from our specific conditions. It received its life blood from us.” 145 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 137.140 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 177.141 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 54-55.142 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 54-55.143 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1976. “Jabbal,December 1976, Vol 1, No. 1.”144 Pararis/BPLF. “The People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the 145 Future,” Ahmed Saleem Collection, 2. - Page of 231 -131 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Against the charge of anti-modernity, Khair Bakhsh Marri answered: “[T]hey don’t want us to carry out modernization under our own control. They want to modernize us in their own way, without listening to us.” And, against the charge that political opposition networks were 146 victims of sardariyat, B.M. Kutty, who worked closely with the deposed NAP governor Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, retorted: “It is a gross injustice to the people of Baluchistan, especially to the hundreds of thousands of ‘bazgars’ and other oppressed people who have languished in the inferno of the tribal system for centuries and also to the younger generation who entertain new hopes and aspirations, to dismiss the victory of the National Awami Party at the 1970 polls as the victory of a few sardars and nawabs.” He goes on to say that just two of NAP’s elected representatives were sardars. 147 In fact, a closer look at the three largest and longest-running oppositional networks operating among the Baloch and in and around Balochistan at the time reveals a far richer tapestry of politics than that reflected in the category of the “traitor.” The most significant political party, NAP, formed Balochistan’s first democratically-elected provincial government in 1972 alongside the Pashtun-dominated JUI, and included a broad, and usually unstable, alliance of Pakistan’s marginalised minorities, including Bengalis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, and, for our purposes, the Baloch–as well socialist Punjabis and muhajirs. It was preceded and followed by narrower political parties focused primarily on the independence or autonomy of Balochistan, for example the Kalat State National Party (KSNP) and Ustaman Gal before NAP, and the Pakistan National Party (PNP) and Balochistan National Party (BNP), which the Pashtuns did not take part in , after NAP. When it was formed in 1954–at the moment that 148 East Pakistani leftists, in particular the peasant leader Maulana Bhashani, joined–its primary goals included universal franchise; the abolition of the One Unit Policy and the reorganisation of provinces on a linguistic basis; the ending the “exploitation of Pakistan externally and its people internally”; a “non-aligned, independent foreign policy” including the withdrawal from military pacts; and, “defence of [the] sovereignty, integrity and independence of Pakistan.” As Breseeg 149 (2004, 256-6) argues, “the NAP’s position on provincial autonomy influenced the Baloch Harrison 1981, 47.146 He goes on to say: “Only two out of NAP’s 11 MPAs, 4 MNAs and 5 Senators are sardars, and they are Sardar 147 Ataullah Mengal and Sardar Khair Baksh Marri whereas among those who suffered crushing defeat at the polls were over a dozen wealthy sardars and former rulers.” Kutty, B.M. “Baluchistan and the New Imperialist Strategy,” Ahmed Saleemn’s Collection, Islamabad, 4. In 1979, the Pashtun and the Baloch sections, as well as the more left-wing sections, of the National Awami Party 148 split. The Pashtuns formed the National Democratic Party or NDP. It followed, and was followed by, a long period of fragmentation of existing alliances between Pakistan's ethnic minorities, as well as left-wing cadres. In 2002, one of the far left members of the older NAP, Ajmal Khattak, attempted to resuscitate the party; similar attempts have been made by other political parties within Pakistan like the Awami Workers Party and Balochistan-based National Party, but no party has been able to reach the broad levels of membership and support of this period. Dashti 2017, 171-172. Breseeg 2004, 265-6.149 - Page of 231 -132 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) nationalists and it brought their activities within the ambit of opposition politics in Pakistan and led to socialisation between the regional and progressive forces that had been kept at bay by an entrenched elite; and it provided a formal channel to the leftist groups for expressing their alternative view of what the Pakistani state should be.” NAP was certainly, from its inception, subject to fragmentation and break-down: Already in 1962, the Sindhi GM Syed left NAP ; in 150 1967 Bhashani’s decision to support Ayub during anti-military regime protests because of pressure from China led to the split of the party into pro-Russia and pro-China factions and–151 after events in and around 1973-’77, recounted above–the now banned party became split along ethnic lines, prompting key Baloch figures to leave their historic alliance with Pashtuns and others within NAP–a point to which we will return. Suffice it to say, that against the charge of “treason”–which held that Baloch members of NAP were foreign-funded, separatist, backwards “tribal” sardars–what actually emerges is a party that was attempting, albeit unsuccessfully, to wrest control from a state dominated by Punjabis, Urdu-speakers, and the upper classes through the formation of a united front that brought ethnic minorities and communists onto the same platform. Similarly, the most significant student organisation amongst the Baloch in this period was the Baloch Student Organisation (BSO). Originally an amalgamation of other, smaller, educational student initiatives that had begun in Quetta and Karachi (the Warna Waninda Gal or Youth Educational Forum in Quetta in 1961 and the Baloch Students Educational Organisation (BSEO) in Karachi in 1962, which was renamed BSO in 1965 ), the BSO united disparate Baloch 152 students under one umbrella at its founding congress in 1967, where it declared that its aims included the “promotion of free and secular education; [the] promotion of the Balochi language, literature and civilization; and the abolition of the one-unit policy that limited provincial autonomy.” BSO’s politics were similar to NAP, and they shared a criticism of sardars, a point 153 that has survived within the more successful factions of the BSO throughout its existence; indeed, students from BSO campaigned for NAP during the country’s first democratic elections. The 154 BSO also maintained relations with the Pashtun Students Federation (PSF), especially in Quetta, Shah, Sabir. 2015. “NAP was banned twice by Yahya and Bhutto,” The News, 3 May 2015. Available at: https://150 www.thenews.com.pk/print/38435-nap-was-banned-twice-by-yahya-and-bhutto. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. Shah, Sabir. 2015. “NAP was banned twice by Yahya and Bhutto,” The News, 3 May 2015. Available at: https://151 www.thenews.com.pk/print/38435-nap-was-banned-twice-by-yahya-and-bhutto. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. See Aamir, Adnan 2014: History of BSO, Viewpoint Online. Also see Janmahmad 1989: Essays on Baloch National 152 Struggle in Pakistan: Emergence, Dimensions, and Repurcussions, Gosha-e-Adab, p. 214; Zafar, Abdul Rahim 2011: Sang-e- Larzan, Balucea Luwazonk Publications, p. 36; Baloch, Shakeel Ahmad 2004: Balochistan Ki Pukaar, Gosha-e-Adab, p. 27. See Aamir, Adnan 2014: History of BSO, Viewpoint Online. Also see Janmahmad 1989: Essays on Baloch National 153 Struggle in Pakistan: Emergence, Dimensions, and Repurcussions, Gosha-e-Adab, p. 214; Zafar, Abdul Rahim 2011: Sang-e- Larzan, Balucea Luwazonk Publications, p. 36; Baloch, Shakeel Ahmad 2004: Balochistan Ki Pukaar, Gosha-e-Adab, p. 27. Interview with Sadiq Baloch, 10 April, 2016, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan.154 - Page of 231 -133 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) where the latter threw their support behind the decision by BSO members to join a mostly Baloch-led armed rebellion during the 1973-’77 campaigns. Indeed, one former BSO member, 155 Hakeem Lehri, once told me he would regularly sit with Pashtun friends at his university, translating radical left texts for the purposes of distribution. And, BSO leaders like Razzik Bugti 156 and Habib Jalib were tied into both Pakistani and global left networks: They both planned to attend the Soviet-sponsored World Conference of Students in Havana in July 1978, though they were unable because the Pakistani government did not grant them visas. Similarly, Bugti had “extensive connections in Karachi and Lahore leftist circles” especially the communist-sponsored National Progressive Party. In fact, under his leadership, the BSO spearheaded the creation of the Pakistan Federal Union of Students (PFUS)–a countrywide student group. Of course, BSO, like 157 NAP, was riddled with internal factions and contradictions–most notably with the departure of a minority of members who formed the BSO-anti sardar (renamed BSO-Awami in 1972) who criticised the larger body of being too closely tethered to NAP and not sufficiently critical of leading sardar members like Ataullah Mengal and Khair Baksh Marri (and to some extent, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, who, though he was not a sardar, was of sardari lineage ). Key leaders of this 158 breakaway group eventually joined the PPP , and have been blamed for being “men of [the] PPP 159 and intelligence agencies who want[ed] to breakdown [sic] BSO” . Alternately, the larger BSO 160 group was criticised of being too closely linked to NAP–though subsequent criticism by this larger group of the decision by NAP leaders to negotiate with General Zia ul Haq indicate that they may have retained an independent identity. Despite accusations of the contrary, the BSO too was tied into an alternate imaginary and network propagating a different idea of Pakistan and the world. Finally, and perhaps most importantly given the focus on the 1973-’77 military campaign, there were the Pararis/BPLF. The Pararis, renamed the BPLF in 1976 , were formed by Sher 161 Muhammad Marri in the 1950s and ‘60s to protest Ayub Khan’s One Unit and constructions of military cantonments throughout the province; once the operations ended after the unseating of Ayub Khan in 1969 and his replacement by Yahya Khan, Sher Mohammad Marri maintained camps (or what he called “liberated zone[s] or base area[s]” ) under the leadership of Mir Hazar 162 Sufi 2016, 116.155 Interview with Hakeem Lehri, 2013, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan.156 Harrison 1981, 86.157 Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo was considered too young when his father, the sardar of the Bizenjos, died, so the sardariyat 158 passed to his cousin. He was, however, a member of the sardar khel, meaning a member of the “sub-tribe” among the Bizenjos who were usually named sardars. Bizenjo 2009. Zafar 2011.159 Aamir, Adnan. n.d. “History of BSO.” Accessed September 4, 2018. http://www.adnan-aamir.com/2014/06/history-160 of-bso.html. Harrison 1981, 74.161 Harrison 1981, 33.162 - Page of 231 -134 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Khan Ramkhani, especially in northeastern Balochistan. The Pararis spoke both of Baloch nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, explicitly rejecting alignment with either Russia or China. Though they did not constitute the only armed group fighting at the time–there were reportedly six to seven other armed groups in Balochistan, that “went into the hills” spontaneously after 163 the 1973 dismissal of NAP–they did constitute the largest and the longest-running one, with many others putting down arms particularly around the time of Bhutto’s declaration of amnesty in 1974. Contrary to a dominant notion that the group was constituted primarily by members of the “tribesmen” belonging to the Marris and Mengals–both of whose sardars, Ataullah Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri, were NAP’s two “tribal” leaders–a closer look at the membership reveals a far broader constellation. During visits to their refugee camps in Afghanistan between 1977 and 164 1989, the American journalist, Selig Harrison reported that the Pararis/BPLF consisted of a total of 7500 fighters, 2700 of them in Afghanistan; moreover, while 60 percent of the fighters were Marris, 40 percent were “younger, detribalized nationalists from a variety of different tribes, many of them recent college graduates.” These “detribalized nationalists” included “an educated 165 166 youth belonging to the powerful, left-oriented student organisation” , the BSO, and included 167 prominent members like Hakim Lehri and its chairman, Khair Jan Baluch. In turn, many of 168 these members included young Baloch whose “tribes and … chiefs have cooperated fully” in 169 helping the government’s plans of “socio-economic development and … effective and integrated administration” . Indeed, another pamphlet declared that “men of the tribes of those tribal 170 sardars who owed total allegiance to the Federal Government, also went into the hills against the command of their “tribal” chiefs”. Finally, a small group of left radical non-Baloch–most 171 notably the infamous “London Group” which consisted of young men from elite families in Punjab and Sindh–also joined the Pararis/BPLF for several years. Their “ringleader,” Muhammad Bhabha (whose nom de guerre was Murad Khan) was the son of a wealthy Karachi import-export Unknown Author: Balochistan: A Political Analysis, 1977, 2.163 In a bulletin entitled A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the Future, splits those fighting into six groups: 164 leftists who wanted a socialist Pakistan and nationalists who wanted a democratic Balochistan with close relations to India, Afghanistan, and the USSR; those “shocked” by the NAP dismissal; those with “bitter memories of crimes by Ayub in the 1960s” and angry at the “tension and fear whipped up systematically by the Federal Government and its stooges in the province”; Baloch “traditionalists” who responded to calls from the likes of Ataullah Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri; “simple and innocent tribal loyalists” who joined out of ‘tribal’ loyalty; and “self-seekers and anti- social elements.” (Pararis/BPLF. “The People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the Future,” Ahmed Saleem Collection, 8) Harrison 1981, 74-75,165 Harrison 1981, 74-75,166 Kutty, B.M. “Baluchistan and the New Imperialist Strategy,” Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad, 2167 Unknown Author. 1977. Balochistan: A Political Analysis, Islamabad: Ahmed Saleem Collection, 2; Pararis/BPLF. “The 168 People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on the Future,” Islamabad: Ahmed Saleem Collection, 8. Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 5.169 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 5.170 Unknown Author. 1977. Balochistan: A Political Analysis, Islamabad: Ahme.d Saleem Collection, 2.171 - Page of 231 -135 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) magnate; his father had moved from South Africa after involvement with anti-Apartheid activity, and had settled in Karachi. In turn, Murad developed contacts with national liberation movements in places like Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Palestine–indeed, he even organised some 40 members of the BPLF to train with George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Beirut in 1973. 172 Central to the Pararis/BPLF was a call for unity among the Baloch, and between the Baloch and others–or the belief that the emancipation of Balochistan’s places and peoples was tied up with the liberation of all. On the one hand, the Pararis/BPLF argued that “British colonialism and its Pakistani inheritors” had “tried to keep the Baluch atomised and backward so that they could not unite and become a powerful nation known for its bravery and historic resistance to subjugation.” Mirroring the discourse of the Pakistani nationalist state–of the 173 Baloch as unconnected and behind–they then offered another vision of what it could mean to look towards one another, and look forwards towards the future. So, the Pararis/BPLF sought to “unite” the “people,” by giving a “united command, with guerrilla forces for the defence of the people’s rights, lives, and property, and guidance to achieve the long cherished goals of national liberation from the yoke of exploitation and oppression by the fascists.” Indeed, this became 174 especially possible, they argued, because of the war itself: “A new structure, the product of war, is gradually overshadowing the traditional tribal structures.” On the other hand, and perhaps far 175 more interestingly, the Pararis/BPLF argued that Baloch emancipation was dependent on that of others, and that others liberation was dependent on the Baloch. In an interview, Sher Mohammad Marri argued that “the power structure in Pakistan could be overturned only if other minorities joined the Baluch in waging simultaneous and coordinated armed struggles to win their demands for regional autonomy.” He was convinced that it was the only way to pluralise a 176 state that was so dominated by “Punjabi capitalists” and those who worked with them, whether 177 they were “Punjabi, Sindhi or Baluchi.” “Pakistan,” he was convinced, “is a country of several 178 nationalities. Communism is the only solution for the structure of a state which has a plurality of nationalities.” He ended by announcing: 179 Harrison 1981, 74, 120. The other members included Rashid and Asad Rehman, the sons of Justice SA Rehman; 172 Najam Sethi of the multimillionaire Sehgal family; Ahmed Rashid, a Cambridge graduate; and Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur and his brother, both sons of Mir Ali Ahmed Talpur who became defence minister under Zia. Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 6.173 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 7.174 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, January 1977 Vol. 1, No. 2.”175 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 72.176 Interview in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in 177 October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London), p. 38. Interview in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in 178 October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London), p. 38. Interview in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in 179 October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London), p. 38. - Page of 231 -136 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Pakistan is inhabited by several nationalities. The country will only begin to prosper when there is interdependence and unity among them. But this unity cannot be realised until all Pakistanis feel that they are equal and no one should rob them of their fundamental human rights. A Communist society will end that exploitation which is the primary cause of mutual hatred among the people. Our rulers are trying to split the masses so that they can continue their malpractices and exploitation. The responsibility for the mutual hatred among the immigrants, Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, and Pathans falls on our selfish leaders and the decadent system under which Pakistan is being run. 180 Indeed, for Sher Mohammad Marri, it was precisely this call for unity, and communism, that set the Pararis/BPLF apart from other “bourgeois [nationalist] movement[s]” like that “Sheikh Mujib in Bengal.” His members, in Pararis/BPLF’s bulletin, Jabbal, declared that it was this sort of 181 united front that would give “renewed hope to all the peoples of Baluchistan and Pakistan that there IS an alternative to the Bhutto-Tikka regime; that there is an alternative to the government of the bureaucratic-bourgeoise and feudalists; that there is an alternative to the dependence on Imperialism … and [for] the oppressed nationalities of Pakistan.” Indeed, as Ahmed Rashid, 182 one of the non-Baloch leftists who worked with the Pararis/BPLF, observes, many of these relations already existed: “We had Marri areas mostly surrounded by Pashtuns in the north. And we had very close relations, and good relations. They didn't necessarily fight with us, but they helped us especially with supplies and food and stuff like that. So there was none of the sort of tension that exists today, there was much closer cooperation between the Baloch.” 183 In turn, the Pararis/BPLF believed that the site of revolution was marginal, rural, and state- critical areas like Balochistan–and that the time was whenever “the armed struggle … itself create[d] the necessary conditions” –which in this case was that present moment. Frustrated 184 with what they called the “defeatist” attitude of other Marxists, who were waiting for “objective and subjective” conditions to develop, they found inspiration in movements from “Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, etc.” Most notably, they were 185 inspired by what the French intellectual, Régis Debray, coined foco theory: a term introduced in Debray’s analysis of Che Guevera and the Cuban Revolution, made possible because of his exclusive access to some of its main leaders, in his book, Revolution in the Revolution. The theory 186 held that cadres of small, fast-growing paramilitary groups can establish themselves in rural Interview in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in 180 October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London, 39. Interview in Pakistan Forum, May-June 1973, pp. 38-39. Translation of original Urdu interview by Ahmed Shuja in 181 October 1972, first half published in Urdu in Jid-o-Jahad (London, 39. Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, December 1976, Vol 1, No. 1.”182 Interview with Ahmed Rashid, 30 June, 2016, Lahore.183 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 3.184 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 4.185 Newsweek dubbed the book “a primer for Marxist insurrection in Latin America.”186 - Page of 231 -137 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) areas with anti-state sentiments to provide a “focus” for popular discontent against a sitting regime, leading to a general insurrection. Indeed, in the very first issue of Jabbal, the Pararis/BPLF announced: "The first shots of the democratic revolution have been fired in Baluchistan, which now constitutes a reliable base area for the liberation struggles throughout the country.” For 187 them, Balochistan was a key site to launch a revolution not just for a different kind of Pakistan, but for a different kind of world; they argued (ironically, much like the Shah of Iran elsewhere ) 188 that Balochistan was “the next area of major conflict in Asia after Vietnam.” Thus, the mode 189 through which this was then done was by the creation of a “small nucleus” that would unite “all the different factions and clans, the BPLF has developed a secure and large zone in which BPLF forces move quite freely.” To have a “mass-based nucleus of the true democratic and 190 revolutionary movement” the Pararis/BPLF attempted to set up a parallel system–including 191 education and health services. Though the 1973-’77 military campaign made the running of this 192 system difficult, there is some indication that it functioned; most notably, Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur, who joined the Pararis/BPLF from Hyderabad, is still remembered through his nom de guerre, Ustad Arshoo, by Marris who live on the edge of Quetta, and whom he healed as a medic and taught as a school teacher. As the Pararis/BPLF argue at one point: “The task of 193 revolutionaries is to go deep into the remote areas where there is room to grow and manoeuvre out of each of the enemy’s repressive forces and to turn these backward rural areas into advanced political, economic, cultural, ideological and military bastions of the revolution.”194 This call for a unified armed front–among the Baloch and between the Baloch and others–for the purposes of a general insurrection was not just ideological but also a pragmatic political position. Balochistan’s small population in a heavily strategic territory prompted the Pararis/BPLF (and, for that matter, others like them) to conclude that if they went for separation they believed they would come under one or the other power bloc, exacerbating rather than ameliorating their situation. At the same time, they concluded that the Pakistani state they were fighting–which they found to be a “reactionary, military-bureaucratic dictatorship which protects and promotes the interests of the landlord and bourgeois classes”–only existed because of foreign support. As they argue in one issue of Jabbal: Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, December 1976, Vol 1, No. 1,” p. 2.187 In the New York Times in early 1973, in an interview with CL Sulzberger, the Shah of Iran said: ““If Pakistan 188 disintegrates another Vietnam situation could develop. We must see to it that Pakistan doesn’t fall to pieces. This would produce a terrible mess, an Indochina situation of new and larger dimensions. I dread to think of it.” Quoted in Harrison 1981, 97. Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, January 1977 Vol. 1, No. 2,” p. 2.189 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 3.190 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March-April 1977, Vol. 1, No. 4,” p. 3.191 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, January 1977 Vol. 1, No. 2.”192 Based on conversations with Marris living in New Kahan on the outskirts of Quetta.193 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, June 1977, Vol. 1, No. 6,” pp. 13-15.194 - Page of 231 -138 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Without Imperialism’s direct and indirect assistance it is difficult to imagine the continued existence of the essentially neo-colonial state of Pakistan in its present condition. Imperialism and the oligarchy are united on the issue of maintaining the most backward and reactionary social structures, maintaining the centuries old rule of the landlords over the peasantry, and oppressing the minority nationalities. Imperialism is the counter- revolutionary prop of all that is most backward and reactionary in our society and impedes its historical development by maintaining the structure of metropolitan dependence and internal exploitative class relations. Even capitalism in our country develops partially, lopsidedly, unevenly and as a dependent adjunct of the world capitalist economy. 195 In other words, vertical alliances with “Imperialism” were alliances engaged in by the state that they were fighting; against those sorts of alliances, the Pararis/BPLF sought horizontal alliances. Indeed, in a bulletin put out around 1976 they say: We don’t want tanks, we don’t want aeroplanes, we don’t want massive, gigantic guns. What we need are small, almost imperceptible things. […We] do want help from friends, small help for a big cause, for a noble cause. We are inspired by the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people that triumphed in the face of more stupendous odds. We are inspired by the great struggle of the Palestinians. We are inspired by the triumphant struggle of the African people, the most recent victorious struggle of the Angolan people. We know we can win, because we know how to fight, because we have now a clear goal, because we have a nation behind our struggle, because our struggle is for a noble, righteous cause– for freedom, liberty, peace, democracy and socialism. … We need help from friends. We are fully aware that our friends have their own considerations and limitations to go by and the international implications involved. That is why we say that our needs are simple and limited and can be met without attracting attention. We know how to make the best use of them without involving or implicating our friends. 196 Though the Pararis/BPLF were similarly subject to splits–e.g. between “largely uneducated tribesmen” and “younger detribalised nationalists” –it nevertheless focused (or located and took 197 its departure) from marginalised state-critical sites with longer and more sedimented histories of anti-state rebellion, combining them with imaginaries of anti-imperialism and anti-centrism circulating in Balochistan (though NAP and BSO), Pakistan and the world. The aim was to force open new sorts of imaginations and collectivities of political community. Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, February 1977 Vol. 1, No. 3,” p. 5195 Pararis/BPLF. Ca. 1976. “The People’s Armed Struggle in Baluchistan: A Short Review with a Special Emphasis on 196 the Future,” Ahmed Saleem’s Collection, Islamabad, 17, 20. Harrison 1981, 74, 75197 - Page of 231 -139 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) As I argue in II.A, a suspension of judgment on these three oppositional networks allows a more nuanced appreciation of the imaginations and collectivities they were proffering. Indeed, as networks charged with conspiracy, it is telling that to conspire literally means “to breathe together”. This forces the question: In which ways were these groups seeking to breathe–and in 198 which ways were their breathing within the realm of the political choked and throttled through the accusation of “treason”? The charge of “traitors,” and their positioning as a “diametric opposition” to Pakistan placed this figure outside the realm of political life–perhaps, in an attempt to strangle them out of political life. The accusation of “treason” was thus “to make a 199 claim to power, to try to police the boundaries of permissible politics, and to exert authority in the face of constantly shifting affiliations.” After all, the call for a multi-nationalism, even a 200 socialist and anti-imperialist one, threatened the political order through a “disintegration of the existing State” –and thus, in the eyes of the state, the very conditions through which the realm 201 of the political is made possible. This placing of counter-identities and -collectivities outside the realm of the political justified actions that exceeded the realm of law and government. What is telling is that the Pakistan Army is usually not subject to the charge of “treason.” As an 202 institution that exists outside of law and government (an exceptional power invoked to ensure the sovereignty and integrity of the state) it takes a position as the “other” of all those attempting to engage the political–especially (though not only) the Baloch of this time, who via their demands for multi-nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism threatened to undo a Punjabi-dominated, US-aligned, and capital-oriented state. The root con means “together” while the root “spirare” means “to breathe”. See Online Etymology Dictionary, 198 “Conspire,” Accessed 8 Sep. 2018, https://www.etymonline.com/word/conspire. Indeed, in the introduction to the 1974 White Paper on Baluchistan Pakistani state officials declared precisely this, 199 when they began in their first paragraph by stating that the “situation in Baluchistan” though a “central concern” was not “primarily [a] political but [a] social, economic and administrative” problem.
 The document goes on to explain this position: 
 “2. It is not political in the sense that there is any difference between the status of Baluchistan and that of the other three provinces of the Federation. Baluchistan enjoys the same degree of provincial autonomy as the Punjab, Sind or the North West Frontier Province. Nor is it political in the sense that the constitutional process has been suspended in Baluchistan or an alien regime foisted on it. 3. It is social because, more than in any other region of Pakistan, the feudal and tribal structure of society in Baluchistan has inhibited progress and development. No Government can pretend to any concern with the welfare of the people in Baluchistan unless it resolutely aims at releasing them from their feudal shackles. Not to demedievalize Baluchistan is to betray the province. 4. The issue is economic because Baluchistan has been relegated to backwardness for centuries. Its problem is that of an under-developed part of a developing country. No Government can claim to have fulfilled the popular mandate unless it seeks to remove the disparity between Baluchistan and the other regions of the country. It is roads and electricity, schools and hospitals rather than any constitutional change for which the people of Baluchistan hunger. 5. The issue is administrative because, unlike the provinces of Pakistan, Baluchistan has not enjoyed the amenities of justice and civil administration. The pre-requisite of any progress, however oriented, is the building of an administrative infrastructure.”
 Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Balochistan, 1974, 1-2. Thiranagama & Kelly 2010, 3.200 Supreme Court of Pakistan 1976. Islamic Republic of Pakistan v. Abdul Wali Khan (Hamoodur Rahman, CJ), 118.201 Though individual soldiers and officers have certainly been accused of conspiracy against the state, for instance 202 during the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. - Page of 231 -140 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Though the oppositional networks charged for “treason” and reviewed above attempted to expand the realm of the political, the violence that followed the accusations proved effective: In denying politics to those deemed “traitors,” the state produced the “traitor” not just definitionally but by pushing those who wished to engage politics to the conclusion that politics is no longer possible within Pakistan–and that a new national territory and subject must be formed. This played a key role in the fragmentation of counter-collectives and identities to that of the state. Fragmentation of United Fronts In an interview with Economic and Political Weekly’s Lawrence Lifschultz in May of 1983, the official sardar of the Mengals, Ataullah Mengal, formally announced a “Declaration of Independence” which he made clear had “been forced upon the Baluch in order to ensure their mere survival as a nationality.” Once the chief minister of Balochistan’s first democratically-elected provincial government, formed by NAP with the JUI, Mengal said: “[W]e have tried our best over all these years to find a solution to the issue within the framework of Pakistan. It is the reason why we have been fighting for provincial autonomy and democracy at the national level. Little did those in power know or comprehend that by advocating provincial autonomy we in fact were calling for the solidarity of Pakistan.” In an interview two years prior in February of 1981, with a London- based Urdu monthly, Neda-e-Baluchistan, one of the first places where he announced his departure from the idea of a Balochistan within Pakistan, he stated: There was a time when we lived under the illusion that the Baluch could live like a dignified people within Pakistan. But, thanks to the rulers in Islamabad, they insistently tried to remind us: ‘No. In this country you can live only as third class citizens. And the secret of your existence lies in the fact that you can live only to fortify your slavery’. Their efforts have at long last proved to be fruitful. Today, not only I but no other self-respecting Baluch – whether he confesses it or cannot confess it due to various compulsions–can deny the fact that he has come to the conclusion that there is no room in Pakistan for the Baluch to live like respectable citizens. And, when any person with an iota of self-respect arrives at such a conclusion, he is left with no option but to either strive to emancipate himself or pray for it. 203 Despite his conviction that separation was the only path left for the Baloch within Pakistan, not all Baloch figures and networks agreed with him. Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, who served as governor of Balochistan alongside Mengal, continued to call for a solution within Pakistan. Yet, at one point even he was suspected of including the “right to secede” in an anti-Zia alliance he It was a shift from an earlier position; indeed, when Mengal was first released, he told BSO students angry at the 203 violence of the years that preceded that they can “take the responsibility for the blood bath that a struggle for independence would involve. I can’t take the responsibility for leading you in that direction.” Harrison 1981, 66. - Page of 231 -141 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) sought to include his PNP in. By the end of the 1970s, separation was firmly on the agenda in a 204 way that it had not been since Kalat State first declared independence, and Prince Abdul Karim launched the first insurgency to protest the annexation. Even non-Baloch socialists, who had provided political and armed support, supported this turn in events. Meanwhile, Ataullah 205 Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri, two main Baloch NAP leaders, took voluntary exile in Europe in November 1979–which is when the former gave the interview above, and the latter reflected, “If you are going to suffer in any case, why be simple enough to ask for something small?” In an 206 interview with Harrison (1981, 48-49) he continued: It’s taken for granted that we Baloch must be with someone else. … We are expected to accept the idea of Baluch here, Baluch there, scattered in a sort of international triangle. But what is the harm of the Baluch wanting to put themselves together? … [Until recently] there were many who didn’t think of Greater Baluchistan, but as a result of their armed encounters with Pakistan, the Baluch have learned a little more every time. There has been a certain escalation in each stage of our struggle, and this has produced a clearer recognition that what we confront is nothing less than slow death as a people. There are scars that remain from the things that have happened in the past, the guns, the killing, the rape, and they can’t erase them with a smile. This shift from seeing the emancipation of others within and outside of Pakistan as a condition of Baloch liberation was both political and pragmatic. The disarticulation of multi-nationalist, socialist, and anti-imperialist united fronts was the result of intractable internal differences– which are the subject of much silence and rumour–but also a sign of a destructive policy of censuring and accusation having its desired affect: The fragmentation of counter-hegemonies that threatened the power of the state. Indeed, a series of fissures–among Baloch groups, between Baloch and Pashtuns, and between Baloch and the urban left–began to disperse the threat facing the state. In turn, a combination of these fragmentations, and regional shifts–most notably with the 1979 Iranian Revolution–meant that the Baloch began to consider new political solutions to their violent marginalisation. The willingness by NAP leaders to negotiate with Zia and trust a military-administered transition of democratic rule, as well as the NAP leadership’s involvement in the PNA, prompted criticism from other Baloch groups, most notably the Pararis/BPLF and the BSO. The negotiations were meant to ensure the release of all political prisoners from Balochistan, amnesty for fighters, the cessation of operations, the retreat of the military, compensation for the violence, changes in the administration, and constitutional guarantees for autonomy. Instead, subsequent He was negotiating an alliance between the PNP and Air Marshal Asghar Khan's Tehreek-e-Istiqlaal. Harrison 204 1981, 58. Harrison 1981, 81.205 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 48.206 - Page of 231 -142 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) negotiations with Zia ul Haq ended up failing. Zia was “as unresponsive to Baluch demands as previous Pakistani leaders had been.” In negotiations following the release with prominent and 207 arrested Baloch leaders like Khair Bakhsh Marri, Ataullah Mengal, and Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Zia was as adamantly against the decentralisation of power as those before him. “I simply cannot understand this type of thinking. We want to build a strong country, a unified country. Why should we talk in these small-minded terms? We should talk in terms of one Pakistan, one united, Islamic Pakistan,” he said in one interview, in response to questions about Baloch demands for decentralisation. Other demands, like that the military should pull out of Balochistan, 208 similarly passed unaddressed. Though the military ceased operations, the cantonments built within Balochistan remained as did the soldiers who were stationed there; meanwhile, amnesty was not extended to fighters and families who had taken part in the armed insurgency between 1973-‘77, and they remained in Afghanistan where they had fled after the Chamalang Operation of 1974–not leaving until the Taliban forced them out when they took over Kabul in 1998. Indeed, it was not until Zia’s military regime ended with his death in 1988, that something akin to a separate and somewhat autonomous provincial government in Balochistan was elected into power at the end of the 1980s. And it was not until the 18th amendment in 2010 that a formal and far more expansive decentralisation of power took place, though some Baloch politicians says the Pakistan Army still makes key decisions. The BSO expressed their revolt against the NAP leadership at 209 their biannual convention, while Mir Hazar Ramkhani of the Pararis/BPLF opined that the “agreement [with Zia] would collapse within four or five years.” The Pararis/BPLF went on to 210 criticise the decision by the PNA, of which NAP was a part, to negotiate behind closed doors, turning the people into “passive observers”–and pointed out that despite the promises of the army that they would cease operations, the army now sat in fortresses “in which are barracks full of full 3 divisions (60,000 men).” Many of the old NAP leaders–the party, now defunct, 211 effectively did not exist in its prior form–as well as the alliance of which they were a part (including the PNA) were accused of exposing themselves as “army puppets” and what ensued, 212 according to the BPLF, was an “inter-factional struggles between rival sections of the ruling classes.” The “ruling classes,” BPLF criticised, “who till yesterday refused to accept the fact of 213 the presence of the army in Balochistan for any other purpose except for ‘road building and other development projects’, are openly admitting today that regular troops have been sent into Quoted in Harrison 1981, 40.207 Quoted in Harrison 1981, 150-151.208 This is based on interviews with Members of the 14th Provincial Assembly in Balochistan, who I will not name for 209 security reasons. Harrison 1981, 39-40.210 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, July 1977, Vol. 1, No. 7,” p. 3.211 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, October 1977, Vol. 1, No. 10.”212 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, November 1977, Vol. 1, No. 11,” p. 1.213 - Page of 231 -143 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Balochistan to deal with the political situation with military might.” In an 1978 essay entitled, A 214 view from the mountains in Jabbal, they reported that there was no withdrawal of the army from Balochistan, but rather a continuation of their building of military roads, surveilling and drilling of oil, and the presence of them in their cantonments. Indeed, the 1980s and 1990s was so 215 fragmented and full of internecine battles within Baloch movements–including within the BSO, the PNP and other offshoots of NAP, and the BPLF (which saw the exit of most of its non-Baloch sympathisers), that one Baloch nationalist historian, Naseer Dashti (2017), coined the “1980s-1990s” the “Period of Political and Intellectual Confusion.” 216 Similar sorts of splits took place between the Baloch and Pakistan’s other major ethnic minority, the Pashtuns. Internal disagreements of course played a role: When Baloch and Pashtun leaders sat down to draw up a new party, the NDP, the Pashtun Wali Khan wanted to ensure a closeness to the new general, Zia, and insisted on calling Pashtuns and Baloch “distinctive cultural and linguistic entities” rather than “nationalities” differing with the Baloch on questions of autonomy. Indeed, Wali Khan’s overtures to Zia further distanced him from the Baloch section of NAP, in the end resulting in a split: “Amid angry recriminations, the Baluch abruptly walked out, called a separate convention, and formed the PNP.” According to Janmahmad (1989, 285), 217 this “accelerated the process of alienation between the two peoples.” As the 1980s began, and Zia began a policy of proxy militancy with the use of covert US funding to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, tensions between Baloch and Pashtuns, particularly in Quetta, rose: A large influx of Afghan refugees began to change the demographic make-up of the capital and, as a result, the larger province of Balochistan. Today, the question of demographic make-up within 218 Balochistan, and the subsequent balance of powers in the form of places in the civil administration, police force, university places, and more, constitutes one of the most significant sources of disagreement between Baloch and Pashtun populations within Quetta. Though 219 attempts were made to resuscitate united fronts (e.g. Ataullah Mengal left for London and started a Sindhi-Baloch-Pashtuns Front in 1985 ) the lose alliance that existed between Pakistan’s ethnic 220 minorities in the first three decades of Pakistan’s existence has not re-emerged. 221 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, November 1977, Vol. 1, No. 11,” p. 1.214 Pararis/Baloch Popular Liberation Front (BPLF). 1977. “Jabbal, March 1978, Vol. 2, No. 3.”215 See Dashti 2017, 169-190.216 Harrison 1981, 89217 Harrison 1981, 181.218 See Ahmed, Maqbool, Ghulam Dastageer, Sher Ali Khan, Mahvish Ahmad. 2016. “A Numbers Game: Is Census 219 Delayed Justice Denied?” Herald Magazine, May 23, 2016. http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153406. Dashti 2017, 173.220 In a sharp observation, Janmahmad (1989, 287) quotes Lawrence Ziring saying the following: “Clearly, Pathan and 221 Baloch claim some of the same territory, and this makes them suspicious of one another and often brings them into conflict. Transcending these narrower nationalisms, however, has been attempted more by local people than by the Pakistan government, which has over the years gained some advantage from these tribal rivalries.” - Page of 231 -144 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) Similarly, though a significant number of non-Baloch (and non-minority) leftists were either members or sympathisers of NAP–including former PPP members like Mairaj Muhammad Khan and Mir Ali Muhammad Talpur who were tried under the Hyderabad Conspiracy Trial–the urban left mostly remained skeptical of Baloch oppositional networks, a split which has resonance today as the urban left is accused of being a mirror of the state in its domination by Punjabis and muhajirs. This split was intensified after the NAP leadership’s initial support of Zia, which was followed by the hanging of Bhutto, prompted much of the urban left to blame ethnic minorities for the execution of albeit an authoritarian, but nevertheless democratically- elected, prime minister. The fact that Zia’s decade-long rule included the strengthening of the very right-wing forces that were part of alliances in the NAP provincial government as well as in the PNA exacerbated the charge that Baloch and Pashtun minorities were guilty of feeding into the militarisation of the Pakistani state. That the Baloch, Pashtun, and other oppositional political prisoners held under Bhutto had to be released by Zia pitted potentially progressive political forces against one another, clearing the way for the army–a point which Bizenjo sharply pointed out, it is famously recounted, in his warnings to his Pashtun colleague Wali Khan when he told the latter to steer clear of Zia. 222 For this entire period, despite the accusations of foreign funding, most of the Baloch political networks had been heavily suspicious of power blocs. In an interview, Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo recounted that it was better to be a “buffer state, with the concurrence of the superpowers, than achieve our independence through alignment with one or the other of them. The cost in blood and tears would certainly be much less for us.” Similarly, in another 223 interview, Ataullah Mengal reviewed the various big powers that could be helpful, only ending by dismissing them all and saying: “I would ask my brothers to wage their struggle without depending on assistance from any power. This struggle must continue because we are left with no option but to fight for the termination of our slavery and for our liberation.” Yet, with the 1979 224 Iranian Revolution, and the violent experience of a US-supported Pakistani military, they began to wonder whether it may be necessary to compromise and work with power blocs in order to ensure separation. In an interview in 1978, Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani announced, “We would welcome help from any side, from any government, and if any government helps those who oppress us, we will be against them.” Today, alongside the emergence of an uncompromising 225 Baloch separatism, Baloch groups are notorious for demands for intervention by the likes of See Bizenjo, Mir Ghaus Baksh 2009: In Search of Solutions: An Autobiography of Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo. Edited by 222 B.M. Kutty. Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi, Pakistan Labour Trust Karachi. Harrison 1981, 61223 See English Translation of Interivew given by Sardar Ataullah Mengal, former Chief Minister of Baluchistan, to 224 monthly Nada-e-Baluchistan” (Urdu) February 1981, London. Harrison 1981, 80.225 - Page of 231 -145 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) NATO, India, and the United States, frequently citing it as their only choice in a time of such violence. III Conclusion In the autumn of 2013, during one of my first reporting trips to earthquake-hit southern Balochistan, members of the Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad (BSO-Azaad) told me they wanted to talk about Jean Paul-Sartre, and his introduction to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. This was the first of many such references to anti-colonial and left-wing texts, figures, and ideas that lay scattered, several decades after they were published, lived, or circulated: Red portraits of “Che” Baloch were etched on the walls of Quetta’s Bolan Medical College; a young organiser with the BSO-Azaad in Karachi told me she dreamt of holding political meetings in her nightie, like Leila Khalid; and one of the leaders of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), Dr. Manan, once spent several evenings trying to convince me that the Baloch were inherently communist: “Look around,” he would say, “no one person owns anything, we all own everything together, share everything.” Of course, these references to socialist aesthetics, dreams, and communities circulated alongside references to nationalist myths, war ballads, and figures: These included references to Mir Chakar Rind, a 16th century Baloch ruler considered the first to unite Baloch lands; the war ballads of Rahm Ali Marri, who regularly taunted Baloch sardars refusing to fight British colonial rule; and early 20th century figures like the unofficial Baloch “poet laureate” Mir Gul Khan Nasir and Sher Muhammad Marri. However, while the latter, nationalist discourses are regularly considered indigenous to politics within Balochistan, the former socialist discourses are regularly considered cosmetic, superfluous, and epiphenomenal. This is despite the fact that Baloch nationalism emerged in the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, namely in the early 20th century, because of the political interventions of middle- class Baloch who actively identified as communists and who worked in the civil service of Kalat State. In my eight years of writing on Balochistan, the sharing of stories that indicate an interpellation of political forms considered local (like Baloch nationalism) with political forms considered global (like socialism), tend to be met with incredulity, even dismissal. The incredulity that Pakistani radicals could have been both physically and intellectually enmeshed with their political moment, with “entangled histories,” has prompted many scholars of Pakistan to inadvertently reproduce the exceptionalism of Pakistani history. Much like a crude Marxist analysis assumes all political action is a reflection of a structural position in society, much liberal, geo-political analysis assumes all action is a result of the intervention of foreign powers. The - Page of 231 -146 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) frameworks of nativist purism, success/failure, means that all other inspirations are somehow dirty and corrupted, the result of outside agents. The immediacy of the Supreme Court case in writing off NAP and its politicians mirrors this nativist purism–to ask for an alternative is necessarily to be puppeteered by outside forces. Yet, the simultaneous historical establishment and circulation of both socialism and Baloch nationalism–the former after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the latter in the early 20th century–betrays how both of these discourses, collectivities, and future imaginations were mutually constituted. In fact, the entanglement was not just on the level of ideas–in that Baloch nationalism emerged contemporaneously with the circulation of socialism and communism–but also reflected the material circulation of political pamphlets, aesthetics, guerrilla training, weapons, and arms. This reaction to such stories indicates that the state’s destructive policies of censuring, accusation, and fragmentation not only resulted in the disarticulation of counter-hegemonic fronts within this period, but also continue to structure our understandings of them after this period, and into the present. Indeed, the fracturing that came in the wake of the movements above continues to structure political debate within Pakistan’s “progressive” political forums, where the “national question” remains a site of vociferous debate among those calling for the prioritisation of questions of class. This reflects a deeper split between those espousing a politics of identity versus those espousing a politics of class. The interpellation of socialist with nationalist discourses at the moment of their emergence within Balochistan is a reminder that, historically, these two lineages of thought have always been entangled with one another, and that the separation of them is not just a consequence of destructive policies of censuring, accusation, and fragmentation, but an abstract exercise unrooted in a far more knotted and entangled historical experience. Indeed, as states like Pakistan received support from anti-communist alliances to target communist-infused fronts, especially in South America, Africa, and Asia where the Cold War was actually a violent, “Hot War,” it is a reminder that contemporary debates about whether identity and class is predominant (in e.g. Honneth & Fraser 2003; Chibber 2017) obscures that their lineages have frequently been entangled, especially in the Global South, and that their separation is a consequence of the violence of states backed, frequently, by an anti-communist US and its allies. As Heonik Kwon (2010, 40) reminds us: “The racial and ideological color lines coexisted for much of the twentieth century across territories, colluding in various ways and sometimes becoming practically indistinguishable.” He goes on, quoting Douglas Field, by pointing out that “the containment of racial [or sub-nationalist] conflicts and the containment of communism are - Page of 231 -147 Chapter 3 | Censuring: State Destruction in Early Pakistani Balochistan (1947-1988) two sides of the same coin … despite the fact that they are often treated as separate subjects in existing literature.” 226 That the multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist politics of the Baloch were not just disarticulated, but are now not even thought as part and parcel of similar lineages of political collectivity and thought, is a sign of how effective the state’s destructive policies of censuring, accusation, and fragmentation–with the support of anti-Communist western powers–has been in disarticulating a united political front. Yet, given that the post-colonial state, much like the colonial one that preceded it, was unable to completely destroy all traces of this former politics, a younger cohort is picking up on the remnants left behind, making them part of the oppositional politics of today. Perhaps, the way to live against the destructive aftermath of this period, and the fragmentation that it led to, is to recognise the future possibility of such a politics through a recognition that it has already existed–and that it follows a lineage that was articulated and practiced before. Kwon 2010, 41.226 - Page of 231 -148 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Chapter 4 | Confusion: State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) This is an andha dhund, a blind, directionless, indiscriminate fog.
 – Master Bilal, Tump, Balochistan The haze has a role to play.
 – Dr. Shah Mohammad Marri, Quetta, Balochistan At the end of a final, three-week field trip around southern Balochistan, I drove through a ghost town. Out in the middle of what seemed to be an abandoned, sandy desert, hundreds of kilometres away from any major city, this town had 500 to 700 houses, but not a single soul as far as the eye could see. Judging from the fragmented stories gathered from witnesses during the trip, scattered news reports a few weeks prior to this final tour, and my knowledge of ongoing army operations in this territory called Dasht, I estimated that this ghost town once housed up to 2500 people, and was cleared out by the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) and the Pakistan Army as part of a series of displacements making way for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the $46 billion (now $62 billion) investment that had 1 been finalised by the Chinese in 2014. Yet, when I asked interrogators later that day, who would pick me up and keep me for four days, they denied the accusation. “How can you be sure of something you have never seen?” one of them said. He proceeded to blame me of being biased for thinking that state-led displacements were the reason behind the abandoned town–or, worse, of being deceitful, deliberately attempting to spread untruths about Pakistan. Later, in newspaper articles, the ostensible reason given for the ghost town was clashes between militants and state forces. What actually led to the abandonment of so many homes remains somewhat of a mystery, and an almost impossible truth to uncover at a time when journalists have so little, if The value of the investment has increased to $62 billion. Siddiqui, Salman. 2017. “CPEC investment pushed from 1 $55b to $62b,” The Express Tribune, 12 April 2017. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1381733/cpec-investment- pushed-55b-62b/. Accessed on 28 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -149 Image 4.1 | This image was shared by Balochistan Times. The website says that it is picture of a home burnt down by security forces in Dasht. Such images of state violence are frequently shared on Baloch social media. Source: News Desk. “Hundreds Flee Balochistan’s Dasht Area as Military Raids Continue,” Balochistan Times. Available at: http://balochistantimes.com/ hundreds-flee-balochistans-dasht-area-military- raids-continue/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) any, access to the area (see Image 4.1). The ghost town and the narratives surrounding it is one example of the andha dhund or blind and directionless fog that enwrapped the state and its violence in Balochistan throughout my time there. The sensation of the andha dhund was everywhere present. In Tump, on the border to Iran, a school teacher said, “This is an andha dhund, a blind, directionless, indiscriminate fog.” At a seminar held on CPEC in Islamabad, the human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir challenged the audience to give a full account of the state’s activities in Balochistan. “I bet you, that even the prime minister does not have a full sense of everything, nor of the repercussions.” Somewhere in southern Balochistan, at a moment when the car I was traveling in got stuck in sand dunes, a young man on a motorbike crossed our path in haste, running from the vague sensation that the state was out to get him. “The army wallahs do not leave you alone out here.” While arrested, my interrogator told me that his name was Mr X and that him and his colleague lived in “the shadows of the state.” “You will never see us again,” I was told, “so you do not need to know our names.” And, in Quetta at his pharmacy, the Baloch writer and public intellectual, Dr Shah Mohammad Marri, asked me, “How can you find the bottom of sentiments?” Or, how could I figure out the “ground truth,” approximate the true intentions of any one person, in a place so wrapped up in “a fog, a haze.” The foggy sensation that one could not quite make sense of the state was compounded by the randomness that attached itself to its material presence in the form of schools, hospitals, cantonments, government functionaries, levies, and soldiers. More specifically, this randomness materialised through the scattered and eruptive presence of the state in Balochistan. Some constructions of the state, like the school, frequently appeared in scattered, far-flung locations, unsupported by the urbanised infrastructure–of sewage systems and electricity or - Page of 231 -150 Image 4.2 | Images from a trip to Awaran in southern Balochistan in 2013. A public school stands empty with the insignia of the Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad. The pictures were taken in 2013. Source: Ahmad, Mahvish 2014. “Home Front: The Changing Face of Balochistan’s Separatist Insurgency,” The Caravan, 1 July 2014. Available at: http:// www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/home- front-changing-insurgency-balochistan. Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) teachers and schoolbooks–that are needed to ensure that they fulfil their stated purpose. Other constructions, like cantonments, existed like islands of plenty cut off from the surrounding environment. The dotted and scattered presence of the state made them potential sites of engagement with those seeking to critique it. During a 2013 reporting trip to Awaran in southern Balochistan, I came across an abandoned public school building that had been scrawled with the insignia of the separatist Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad (BSO-Azaad, see Image 4.2). In the summer of 2016, another abandoned school was a nodal point of rumour, as a young woman showing me around the town of Tump recounted how the sarmachar –separatist militants–had 2 forced out Punjabi teachers that the state had sent to the area, and how the school had subsequently stopped functioning. And, hair-raising hearsay about men who disappeared into army cantonments were shared with me by a young man I met at a missing persons camp outside the Quetta Press Club. He told me how he avoided the securitised islands of the state manifested in cantonments and checkpoints; friends would regularly come pick him up from a main road, so he could avoid them, and cut through the in-between places that the state had yet to order through infrastructure. Meanwhile, the state had a tendency to suddenly erupt in sites and in people where it was unexpected, or where it did not bear its outward, visible markers. While traveling through southern Balochistan in the summer of 2016, buildings announcing themselves as a school had been taken over by the FC and transformed into security checkpoints. Rumours of “death squads” or state militias, and of a vast network of mukhbirs or informants, meant that people did not know whether their brother, aunt, cousin, friend, neighbour could turn around and suddenly announce themselves as representatives of the state. Rumours of mukhbirs inter-mingled, sometimes enhancing, gendered tropes: One girl recounted how the aunt of a slain fighter was suspected of “lying with the soldiers” while informing them of suspect militants. During a return trip from a hamlet of huts on the outskirts of Quetta, I discovered that a temporary checkpoint had been opened up by the FC on a route that had been clear of security forces a few hours earlier. For the soldiers of the FC, it was easy to open this checkpoint: They parked their jeeps in the middle of the road, disembarked, and started stopping cars and asking for ID cards. Multiple stories of unannounced and violent night raids meant that many people did not know if the state could suddenly erupt within the confines of their home, blurring even the socially constructed boundary of public and private. The full force of this eruption came home to me when I was picked up: Feeling safe inside my car on a motorway in the southern port city of Gwadar– accompanied by a mother and her daughter, a female student, and a driver–I suddenly found Sarmachar literally means “those who are willing to sacrifice their heads.”2 - Page of 231 -151 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) myself being pulled out, blindfolded, and hand-cuffed by a civilian-clad officer in a white shalwar kameez who announced himself as a representative of Pakistani intelligence. The purpose of this chapter is, much like the rest of the thesis, to investigate the disciplinary function of state violence and its place in contemporary projects of state-making and state rule. That is why I take my point of departure in the sensation of fogginess that loomed large during my fieldwork, in and around the places and peoples who lived amidst violence. To do so, this chapter stays with the affect of the andha dhund not to reproduce its opacity, as Taussig (1997) seeks to do in Magic of the State, but rather to discern and delineate it in order to unpack what it tells us about the state, by following Ann Stoler’s (2002) exhortation in her essay, Affective States. In the essay, Stoler (2002, 6) rejects those who treat “the affective as a smokescreen 3 of rule, as a ruse masking the dispassionate calculations that preoccupy states, persuasive histrionics rather than the substance of politics, the moralizing self-presentation of the state as itself a genre of political authority.” Instead, this chapter holds that affects like the andha dhund are not merely “an epiphenomenon of political life–an outcome of state practice or a consequence of particular techniques of governance–but … constitutive of the political itself.” (Laszczkowski & Reeves 2018, 7) Indeed, “affects and emotions are crucial in structuring political fields, imaginaries, subjects, and objects” (Laszczkowski & Reeves 2018, 3). If the political is the “ever present possibility of antagonism”–a reminder that “things could always have been otherwise and [that] every order is predicated on the exclusion of other possibilities” (Mouffe 2005, 7; 2008, 3)–this chapter investigates the “work” done by the andha dhund in constituting the dimension of the political. It demonstrates that the andha dhund–the disorienting sensation that nothing and no one can be fully known–is a technology of rule which reproduces and sediments the hegemonic order of the state, consisting of a patriotic body politic of forward-looking and growth-conscious Pakistanis. This is because the andha dhund confuses, producing what one Baloch woman in Karachi called شکمشک, kashmakash, an Urdu word for struggle, strife, pulling, hauling, dilemma, perplexity, altercation, and scuffle. This foggy sensation that no one understands you, and you understand no one, renders brittle attempts to suture what many Baloch called a zameer, shaoor, and nazriyat, or a mind, consciousness, and ideology, that can block and obstruct sovereign projects of military violence securing capitalist exploitation. Such It holds that finding the “the underlying logic that will make sense of the chaos” (Taussig 2003, 17-18)–or what Dr. 3 Marri called the “bottom of sentiments” in a site of fogginess–is crucial to account for and counter state-ordered violence. That is why the practice is not only common among positivist social scientists, but also decisive for political organisers, human rights activists, and reporters. That I can stay with the andha dhund within this dissertation indexes the analytical and political contribution that academia can play, because of the time and space it gives which is not possible for those in the more urgent vocations of journalism and political organising. - Page of 231 -152 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) confusion is crucial in a period when the state is finally making headway in turning Balochistan, with its long coast-line to the Indian Ocean and its gas, minerals, and other resources, into a productive engine that will unlock a turbo-charged future of economic growth and prosperity. After all, if you do not know where you are or where you are going, if you cannot trust anything or anyone, it becomes impossible to forge the solidarities, even friendships, necessary for a counter-hegemonic politics. While I do not deny that the sensation of fogginess may have been present during the 1918 military expedition (which I investigate in Chapter 2), or during the 1973-’77 counter-insurgency operation (which I investigate in Chapter 3), I argue that it is constitutive of, and produced by, the post-1988 Pakistani state. Unlike the colonial state, which primarily aimed to contain Baloch “fanaticism” in order to secure the region as a buffer zone, or the early Pakistani state which sought to censor “traitors” propagating other imaginations of collective belonging to solidify a centrist and homogenous state and identity, the contemporary state’s attempt to speed up Pakistan’s economic growth and propel the country into a more prosperous future (through mega-projects like ports, roads, railways, and gas pipelines) necessitates violence in the form of harassment, disappearances, displacements, torture, and kill-and-dumps that generate confusion through the deployment of the trope of the “terrorist.” Colonial containment and early post- colonial censuring continues to structure destructive processes into the present, as is apparent in the mass incarceration of suspect Baloch, the cordoning off of areas around CPEC, and extensive attempts to muzzle reporting of army atrocities within Balochistan. However, widespread circulation of evidence on Baloch social media and the proliferation of private media outlets– which have intermittently reported on state destruction in Balochistan–means that news of violence spreads faster and further then ever before. It is the availability of undeniable evidence of sovereign destruction that has necessitated the deployment of destruction-through-confusion; to unravel counter-hegemonic discourses, the political terrain is flooded with contradictory noise from fake social media accounts, circulating rumours, tropes, sensational seizures of arms, and more. The post-9/11 trope of the “terrorist” is particularly useful in such efforts. As a stereotype that circulates widely within Pakistan–attaching itself more resolutely onto Pashtuns–it is qualified with the spectre of the “traitor” within Balochistan. Indeed, unlike groups like Jamaat- ud-Dawa or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who seek to solidify Sunni majoritarianism within a state already sympathetic to it, even claiming Islam as its justificatory ideology, the secular and territorial goals of Baloch separatists constitutes a direct threat to the Pakistani state. As both “traitor” and “terrorist,” the Baloch are doubly-stereotyped by the state’s policies of destruction-through- confusion. - Page of 231 -153 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Fogginess in a site of violence evokes the concept of the “fog of war,” a term usually attributed to Carl von Clausewitz and the long line of military practitioners and theorists, like Robert McNamara. Frequently, von Clausewitz ([1832] 1976, 101) is quoted as saying: War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth. The assumption inherent in both this quote, and much of the literature on “fog of war,” is that fogginess is natural to a site of war and violence–but one that “a skilled intelligence” can cut through to “scent out the truth.” The rapid expansion of the military and surveillance state, especially after Pakistan entered into another military alliance with the US, has solidified both the notion that fogginess is natural, and the belief that the state has exceptional insight into a true state of affairs. Against this, I argue that it makes sense to consider the fog not as organic to sites of war and violence that the state, in turn, cuts through, but rather as a sensation that is actively produced by and productive of state-making and state rule. It is produced by the state in that the sensation of fogginess flows through the interior self, as well as through the social body, as a result of the scattered and eruptive presence of the state in everyday lives within Balochistan. And, it is productive of the state in that fogginess obfuscates alternate identities and socialities, ensuring the hegemony of state-sanctioned subject and society within Balochistan. This runs against dystopian images of a hyper-omniscient sovereign saddled with sophisticated military and surveillance technology, most famously reflected in popular culture through the production of series like Black Mirror or through rumours of the all-seeing, everywhere-present state which always knows what everyone is doing. Similarly, chaos and confusion in a time of rapid economic growth has long been argued by scholars of capitalism and neoliberalism. They have described how the cycles of destruction- construction are a necessary component of the forward march of capital. While critics have lamented the destruction part of the equation, proponents have lauded the innovation and opportunity that comes in its wake. The curious life of the term “creative destruction,” coined by Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 publication, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, to describe how capitalism will design its own demise, exemplifies the broad consensus between critics and proponents on precisely this point. The term has since become unattached from its original purpose as a critique of capitalism, first taken up by the libertarian Austrian School (which included one of Thatcher’s favourite thinkers, Friedrich Hayek) and now excitedly used by business schools and innovation consultants to describe the forward march of capital growth - Page of 231 -154 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) (like Mark Zuckerburg, who once encouraged staff to “move fast and break things.”) For these scholars, it should come as no surprise that the post-1988 emergence of Balochistan as the jewel in the crown of the Pakistani state’s plans to leap into the future has entailed a similar process of “creative destruction.” In fact, the only difference between critics and proponents of capitalist and neoliberal growth is in their willingness to pay the cost. So in Pakistan, critics denounce the violence in the wake of Balochistan’s growth and development projects, while proponents see this violence as an unfortunate, but necessary, price. I take from these scholars their insight into the expansion and acceleration of capital in places like Balochistan, to shed light on a parallel swelling and intensification of the sensation of fogginess. In fact, since I first began to report on the violence in Balochistan in 2010, this felt fogginess has only grown. This corresponds to the increased centrality of Balochistan within the Pakistani state’s economic plans: In 2014, the Chinese signed a $46 billion agreement to invest in the economic corridor, CPEC, running from its southwestern Xinjiang province to Gwadar Port on the Makran coast in southern Balochistan. Just three years later, the investment increased to $62 billion. As the Zapatistas from southern Mexico remind us with their symbol of the caracol or the snail, people move very slowly, frequently obstructing the speed of a voracious economy. This confrontation between capital and people provides one interpretive frame through which to understand the presence of fogginess. Having said that, I depart from such analyses in two ways. Firstly, it was my ethnographic field site, rather than a predetermined idea of neoliberalism and the “chaos and confusion” it results in, that led me to the overwhelming and increasing sensation of fogginess that envelopes Balochistan today. As a result of the first departure, I secondly begin from this felt fogginess rather than pre-existing notions of state and society in sites of war, to unpack how destruction- through-confusion forges state-sanctioned subject and society. In this chapter, I follow the implicit recommendation of the Baloch public intellectual, Dr. Marri, who at the end of an interview said: “The haze has a role to play.” Or, to put it another way, I follow the fog. In Part I and Part II, I trace how and where it emerges. In Part III, I investigate how it moulds state-sanctioned subjectivity and society. The first two parts roughly correspond to the structure of the previous two chapters: Part I focuses on the state’s constructive project, and Part II focuses on the state’s destructive project. Sections A of each part give a background to construction and destruction, respectively, before moving onto Sections B, which unpacks both these processes at their point of effect in the field. In Part III, I unpack the disciplinary effects of fogginess more specifically, by arguing that it seeks to generate confusion, alienation, and docility. I begin by laying out how the contemporary period in Balochistan, which I date from 1990 to the present, marked a major shift in the state’s constructive project within Balochistan (I.A.). I - Page of 231 -155 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) begin with a metaphor frequently employed by those I met to describe Balochistan: As a laboratory, a camp, and a showcase. I then immediately turn to how contemporary Balochistan in the post-1990 period has become a testing ground (laboratory) for national dreams of economic growth and prosperity that must be militarily secured under all circumstances (like an army camp), and showed off as an example of Pakistan’s potentially prosperous future (as a showcase). This has specifically been done through a series of mega-projects conceived in the early 1990s under the government of Nawaz Sharif–who is notorious for associating development and growth with the building of motorways–and solidified under the military rule of Pervez Musharraf, who took power in 1999 in a coup. The post-9/11 period has enhanced the capacity of the state to pursue these mega-projects, and to secure them through military and surveillance technology transferred by western allies like the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2014, China took the place as the premier foreign funder of both mega-projects and their securitisation within Balochistan. What emerges is a site that is imagined as being both a possibility, and a threat. I then turn to my own research, to unpack these constructive projects at their point of effect, and argue that the existential centrality of Balochistan to Pakistan is viscerally felt in Balochistan today (I.B.). The high stakes of the state’s current plans over-determines the lens through which this place and its people are viewed and approached: As either friends or enemies of Pakistan. The state which began to know, categorise, and represent the places and peoples of Balochistan as “fanatic” in the colonial era, re-producing it through the trope of the “traitor” in the early post-colonial era, now has technologies to capture “terrorists” that give it the sensation that its territories and citizen subjects are hyper-legible. Meanwhile, those who feel they are being watched, experience the ground constantly shifting under their feet. Only particular forms of subject positions–that of friend or enemy of the state–are legible to the state, as these positions become what Begoña Aretxaga (2005, 53) calls the “fabrication of social truths.” Baloch I spoke to said they either hid from the state and their peers, or picked and performed a side. The alternative was to be seen, and risk being misread and misunderstood, because they did not fit the iron grid of friend or enemy. In the second section, I shift away from a focus on the state’s constructive projects to its destructive ones (II.A.). I open with Nasrullah and Mama Qadeer, the faces of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), the missing person’s movement with which this dissertation began (see Chapter 1, Part I). More specifically, I return to their Kafka-esque, at times lethal, search for justice so productive of the sensation of brokenness and humiliation, or تل(ذ, zalālat. I follow this with a short historical introduction to contemporary violence, which augments the evidence presented in the introduction by recounting the events that led to the situation prevalent today (see Chapter - Page of 231 -156 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) 1, Part I.A). At this point violence by the state is well-recorded in documentation by friends and relatives of those targeted; Baloch, Pakistani, and international human rights groups; journalists; and international organisations like the UN; and even in a handful of court cases, investigations, and admissions by official Pakistani sources including through the set-up of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED). Yet, doubt about the violence sticks to the stories that emerge from Balochistan within Pakistan. Though attempts to censor news on state violence in Balochistan through repression is certainly a factor, I propose that the state also censors this news not by blocking information, but by producing excess information. This, in turn, produces a surfeit of noise, which obfuscates otherwise clear evidence of state atrocities. This is, perhaps, one of the clearest example of how the “fog of war” is not natural, but actively produced, in this site of violence. I follow this by turning again to my research, where there was a sense that in between the loudly defined, gridded, subject positions of friend and enemy where most people lived were large gaps, fissures, and silences (II.B.). Having spoken about the state’s belief in the hyper- legibility of all peoples and places in Balochistan as either friend or enemy, in line with its projects of growth and security in I.B., I spend this section investigating the affects and effects of being what Rosemarie Garland Thompson (2011, 593) calls “misfits” or “square pegs in round holes”–namely, the sensation of not living up to the figure of the normative Pakistani citizen, or of “falling between the cracks.” Both the living and the dead fell between the cracks: The living, unable to position themselves fully on one side of the friend/enemy divide, constantly found themselves exceeding and transgressing existing subject positions. Meanwhile, many of the dead, dumped by the state, were either never retrieved by loved ones who feared being abducted themselves, or were so unidentifiable that families and friends did not know if it was really them. I argue that the gaps, fissures, and silences is productive of شکمشک, kashmakash, the Urdu word for struggle, strife, pulling, hauling, dilemma, perplexity, altercation, and scuffle. In the third and final section, I return to my initial theme of fogginess, with which I have opened this chapter, to investigate its place in state-making and state rule (Part III). At this point, the high-stakes environment which over-defines the social terrain of Balochistan will have become clear (in Part I), as will the wide, gaping gaps within which people frequently find themselves, in a state of kashmakash, when they do not snap into line to perform the role of friend or enemy (in Part II). The combined effect of the sensation of an allegedly hyper-omniscient state that is always watching, and the experience of constantly falling between the cracks, into a state of kashmakash, produces the over-arching sense of the andha dhund or blind fog. In this final section, I begin by arguing that this is no amorphous fog: Rather, it is actively produced by state - Page of 231 -157 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) officials and unevenly distributed across the places and peoples of Balochistan. I unpack how this haze constitutes an “unstable interplay of truth and illusion [which] becomes a phantasmic social force.” (Taussig 1987, 121). To do so, I share three vignettes from the field, that unpack how this fog produces confusion, alienation, and docility through the reproduction of the state’s “social truth” (Aretxaga 2005, 53; III.A., III.B., III.C.) I end by arguing that this production of confusion- alienation-docility fragments both what many I spoke to called zehen, shaoor, zameer–mind, awareness, consciousness–as well as socialities that exceed that of iron gridded subjectivities, like of the family or friendship, as well as alternate ones that run counter to the state, like that of the sangat or comrade. The result is depression, fractured sociality, and loneliness. This clears the way for state-sanctioned subjectivity and society: the growth-minded citizen and a patriotic society (III.D.). I conclude by reflecting on how contemporary state destruction continues a project of social fragmentation that was visible in the colonial and early post-colonial era, though in new ways and with other consequences (IV). While state destruction in the colonial era aimed to isolate different groups–or what were perceived as different warring families, “tribes,” interests– from one another in order to categorise them and better rule them, state destruction in the post- colonial era aimed to fragment a pan-peripheral alliance of ethnic minorities and urban leftists. In both cases, state destruction aimed at breaking counter-hegemonic political alliances: The anti-colonial rebellions of the early 20th century, and the internationalist, multi-national left movements of the mid-20th century. In the contemporary era, the Pakistani state attempts to break relationships among Baloch who have currently allied across class, “tribe,” gender, and locality to push back on the state’s over-reach. The state has also attempted to break alliances of solidarity between targeted Baloch and non-Baloch both within and outside Pakistan, most famously through the shooting of the famous TV anchor, Hamid Mir, many believe for his coverage of missing persons in Balochistan. Some also point to the killing of social activist Sabeen Mehmud after she hosted a debate on the disappearances at her cafe, T2F, in Karachi. More 4 generally, this is done through limitations on both non-citizens and Pakistanis to tour and report on Balochistan and now, increasingly, to even speak or write about it. These are just some of the examples of direct attacks on “a solidarity between people who reside in the colonial heartland– places like central Punjab and Karachi–with people who reside in colonised spaces, especially Though Saad Aziz, the alleged murderer, confessed to killing Sabeen Mehmud, he has not been prosecuted for lack 4 of evidence; journalists and activists in Pakistan continue to suspect the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence services because of her decision to host an event on Balochistan’s disappearances. See Kohari, Alizeh and Laila Husain 2016. “Revisiting a confessional jigsaw: Is Saad Aziz guilty as charged? The Herald Magazine, 25 September, 2016. Available at: https://herald.dawn.com/news/1153213/revisiting-a-confessional-jigsaw-is-saad-aziz-guilty-as- charged. Accessed 10 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -158 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Balochistan” (Akhter 2015). Fogginess, or the sensation that one does not know who to trust, has played a key role in the exacerbation of mistrust between those who could ally with one another against the practices of state violence. I end by reflecting on how fragmentations of coherent counter-hegemonic political alternatives through the affect of fogginess and confusion mirror, even foreshadow, a similar situation elsewhere, where late liberalism produces atomistic individuals endlessly different, unable and unwilling to forge alliances that threaten a hegemonic state order. I Contemporary Construction in Balochistan I.A. Securitised Growth: Lab, Camp, and Showcase between Possibility and Threat We have made this country a laboratory for other countries tajrbāt [experiment, experience]… In that laboratory they are mixing different chemicals, and then at the end when the blast happens, and their faces or the hair on their heads have burnt, then they will remember that no, let us have another tajrbāt. 
 —Akhtar Mengal, Balochistan National Party-Mengal, Islamabad In July of 2016, the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, or BNP-Mengal, hosted a seminar in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad called CPEC: Development or Exploitation? The seminar boasted the presence of some of Pakistan’s foremost civil society activists and journalists, including Asma Jahangir, the founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and Hamid Mir and Salim Saifi, two of Pakistan’s most famous TV anchors. 5 As an ethno-nationalist party that regularly runs for elections, BNP-Mengal continued to criticise the federal government for not giving Balochistan its fair due, without calling for outright separation. This decision was duly noted at the seminar, as several speakers pointed out that it was “brave” of Akhtar Mengal to come to Islamabad despite threats he continued to face from separatist Baloch back in his province. The bravery was because he and his party were–in calling for a debate about CPEC–indirectly indicating that they maintained some faith in a central government that so many Baloch arguably felt had let them down many times before. Yet, the seminar itself revealed what everyone already seemed to know: Even the Baloch, who are willing to work with the federal government, are not given any insight, least of all a say, in most of the security and economic policies that affect the province. The result is that the various arms of the federal government–from its more benign, developmental institutions like the Water and Power Development Authority or state-owned mega-corporations like Pakistan Petroleum Though representatives of other political parties, like the Pakistan People’s Party or the Pakistan Muslim League-5 Nawaz, were not present, they had either earlier been, or later would be, present at similar seminars dubbed All Parties Conferences (APCs) that were also hosted by BNP-Mengal to shed light on the potential ”exploitation” by CPEC. - Page of 231 -159 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Limited to the Pakistan Army and the paramilitary FC–would turn up in Balochistan with plans that had not been shared, and sometimes not announced. That is why Akthar Mengal concluded that Balochistan was a laboratory for the central state, and their allies abroad. Thus, he subverted the accusation that the state has usually deployed against ethno-nationalists like himself, as well as his more uncompromising, separatist, counterparts: That they were allowing foreign countries like the United States, Russia, Afghanistan, and India realise their “treasonous” interests by meddling with Balochistan. For Mengal, the Pakistani state had regularly allowed foreign states to use Balochistan as a testing ground, as Balochistan has been a hunting ground for Saudi princes, a throughway for NATO troops, and now a corridor for the Chinese. Others that I spoke to in Balochistan spoke of Balochistan in similar, parallel ways, though through the deployment of other metaphors. Students that I met in the gardens of a university told me, “Sometimes, we get the sense that we are not studying in a university, we are studying in a camp, within a cha’uni [army tent]. In someone's hands. Someone is trying to run us forcefully.” Sitting there, they pointed to the CCTV cameras that we could barely make out, the constant questioning and prodding by guards standing on the gates when they entered and exited the campus, and the constant sensation that those around them were watching them. The technologies of hyper-surveillance, and the constant threat that they may be picked up, interrogated, tortured, or killed, was sensed as the tool through which they were hyper-visible, and therefore the tool through which their movements were controlled. Likewise, Asma Jahangir, who was also present at the seminar, spoke of Balochistan as a “showcase,” evoking the picture of a large glass case or box, within which some of the country’s most important policy interventions–tajrbāt or experiments–are “showcased” to represent Pakistan’s potential and shining future. I take my cue from the metaphors of laboratory, camp, and showcase to introduce the state’s constructive projects in post-1988 Balochistan. What was the state wanting to experiment, how did it secure its interventions, and how did show this off to the rest of Pakistan, and the world? By 1988, Pakistan exited its second round of military rule under Zia ul Haq, and–along with the rest of the world–the Cold War the year after. The legacies of imperial rule, and the more recent Cold War-era post-colonial state, had set its roots in the texture of the state, especially in Balochistan. Individuals who were previously designated as “tribal” leaders by the colonial and early post-colonial states (recipients of state salaries, even) continued to remain de facto representatives as Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) or Provincial Assembly (MPAs). - Page of 231 -160 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) This was the case even though a growing number of Baloch nationalists–many of whom were working or middle class and who came from the Baloch areas in Karachi rather than the province itself and had been young members of the Baloch Student Organisation, (BSO) formed in 1967–had come into their own as members of various nationalist parties (see Chapter 3). In fact, in the post-Zia ul Haq ‘90s, 6 these Baloch nationalists formed two provincial governments that, much like the federal and other provincial governments in the rest of the country, did not sit through their full term. Likewise, the marks of Pakistan’s first 40 years were felt after the 1990s. The separation of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971, and the systematic persecution of political dissenters during the Pakistani Cold War, meant that cross-ethnic, -class, -regional, and other alliances had folded. The simultaneous investment in right-wing political movements, particularly under Zia ul Haq with the help of American aid to counteract the socialist threat both within Pakistan and in Soviet-invaded neighbouring Afghanistan, meant that the political power of the right now far outweighed that of Pakistani “progressives.” This was certainly felt in Balochistan, and is best illustrated through a single example: the capital Quetta, which borders Kandahar, was long suspected of being the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban in the entire period after the launch of the American war in Afghanistan. It was, however, the dreaming up of Balochistan as a site of large-scale infrastructure projects in the 1990s that arguably marked the most important shift in the relationship of the state to this place and its people. This began in the context of other structural adjustment programs that international donors and lenders began to impose on developing countries throughout this era (Zaidi 1999). The 1990s marked a period when the state began to hyper-invest Also see Ahmad, Mahvish 2014. “Home Front: The Changing Face of Balochistan’s Separatist Insurgency,” The 6 Caravan, 1 July 2014. Available at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/home-front-changing-insurgency- balochistan. Accessed 27 Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -161 Image 4.3-4.4 | The first map shows the positioning of Gwadar vis-a-vis central Asia, western China, and the Indian Ocean. The second shows projects planned under CPEC, indicating the multiplication effects of Gwadar Port and the Chinese investment. Sources: “Russia Formally Asks Access to Gwadar Port.” Available at: https:// newsonia.com/reader/report/russia- formally-requests-access-to-gwadar- port/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018; “Balochistan govt report says eastern CPEC route ‘unfeasible’”. Pakistan Today, 26 July 2018. Available at: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/ 2015/07/26/balochistan-govt-report- says-eastern-cpec-route-unfeasible/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) in mega-projects like highways, dams, canals, and ports, in order to support one of two potential transportation visions: The first, the laying of a gas pipeline traversing Turkmenistan- Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) or Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI); the second, an economic corridor connecting China’s southwestern province of Xinjiang to Balochistan’s southern coast of Gwadar (Wirsing 2008). It was also marked by a period where the state attempted to explore and excavate resources, like minerals, gas, oil, copper, or gold by appealing to foreign investors. The most important of these visions was Gwadar Port, which after fits and starts in the 1990s, finally began its first phase of construction in 2002 under the post-1999 military rule of Pervez Musharraf; completed in 2007, its second phase is underway. The construction of Gwadar Port allowed Pakistan to plug its southern coast into the sea shipping and oil trade circuits of the Indian Ocean at large, which included access to the Middle East, the eastern coast of Africa, and western India. More importantly, this meant proximity to the Gulf, where one-third of global oil supplies pass through, and the positioning of the port as a potential terminal for oil and gas from central Asia and western China. In order to ensure the connectivity and proper functioning of Gwadar Port, the state also pursued secondary routes in the form of motorways, railways, irrigation canals, dams, and more. In 2014, these investments paid off in the eyes of the federal government, when China signed an agreement to invest $46 billion in CPEC–an investment that has since increased to $62 billion. The secondary projects made possible through this investment thanks to the positioning of Gwadar are illustrated in Image 4.4. These mega-projects became possible because of the combination of a military coup by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, and the imagination of Balochistan as an empty, abandoned land waiting for someone to bring it into the modern era. Musharraf, who frequently reminds the media of his role in the construction of these mega-projects, pushed them through outside the confines of formal democratic rule. Not just Gwadar Port, but projects like the RCD Highway 7 connecting southern Balochistan to Quetta in the north, and the Makran Coastal Highway linking Gwadar in the southwest to Karachi in Pakistan’s southeast, were completed. Many of these projects caused mass displacement because of the imagination of this territory as devoid of actual people–or at least devoid of rational, loyal citizens. In a speech at the inauguration of Gwadar Port in 2007, for instance, Musharraf said: I am very glad to be standing at a place where 5-6 years back there was nothing except for sand and dust, no roads or buildings etc. However, today we see progress–infrastructure is RCD stands for Regional Cooperation for Development.7 - Page of 231 -162 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) being built, there are roads, buildings, power supply and a hotel has also been constructed which is equivalent to other hotels in Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore. 8 This idea of Balochistan as a place of “nothing except for sand and dust” earlier led to the testing of a nuclear bomb in the Ras Koh Hill of Chagai District in 1998, an event that Baloch ethno- nationalists now mark as an annual Black Day, lamenting the spread of nuclear radiation on lives and agriculture. Similarly, mega-projects under Musharraf resulted in the experience of the state as contradictory, even exclusionary, in the lives of those living around them. The Mirani Dam, built close to the town of Turbat, provided some employment but also resulted in the in- migration of workers from other provinces, even abroad. It also worsened the effects of a 2007 cyclone that wiped out homes and date palms–an all-round crop that provides material for the building of huts, fuel for stoves, and income from its dates–to the detriment of local residents. 9 Likewise, med fishermen indigenous to Gwadar have both been enticed by visions of future prosperity through new employment opportunities in what used to be their little fishing village, and felt excluded as the federal government has not fulfilled these promises and built a cordon sanitaire around the newly constructed port and its supporting constellation of e.g. government buildings, hotels, and offices (Jamali 2014). Experiences of a contradictory and exclusionary state in Balochistan has resulted in the formation of critical civil society, political, and militant collectives. Residents around Mirani Dam organised to demand compensation from the Water and Power Development Authority, the federal body officially charged with the building of the dam. The med around Gwadar organised as part of the Med Ittehad or United Fishermen to demand that they also benefit from the port, and are not marginalised in its construction. The CPEC seminar with which I have opened this section follows in the footsteps of a long-standing critique by Balochistan’s ethno-nationalist politicians that the federal state has systematically sidelined the province and its peoples in its larger plans. And, southern Balochistan’s main militant group, the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), announced their presence through an attack in 2004 on Chinese engineers in Gwadar, sending a message that they did not approve of the construction of the port. In fact, later on in the speech quoted above, Musharraf said that the Baloch should not be “misguide[d]” by notions that outsiders are out to take their livelihoods, but rather open up Balochistan to the possibility of progress and development: Musharraf, Pervez 2007. “President Musharraf ’s Address at the inauguration of Gwadar Deep Seaport.” 20 March 8 2007. Available at: https://presidentmusharraf.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/gwadar-deep-seaport/. Accessed on 28. Aug. 2018. Also quoted in Jamali 2014, 52. Interview with Sharif Shambezi, Lahore (2014) and Quetta (2016). This information also derives from political 9 organising I took part in, which supported the demands of those affected by the Mirani Dam. - Page of 231 -163 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Some elements here are reluctant and misguide that foreigners would confiscate the land from locals and pressurise them. My brothers and sisters, nations who are not afraid of outsiders succeed. But those who resist investors remain backward and poor. Do not be afraid, seek education; improve your skills and help in the developmental projects. Nobody can snub you, you are natives of this land and I am with you. We want to take you on the path of success. This is my promise and you will see the improvements in your standard of living. 10 Yet, the centrality of these projects primarily for the federal Pakistani state, rather than this place and its people, is reflected in the fact that the projects have been carried out with federal rather than provincial development funding, half of which were invested in Gwadar and its ancillary projects (Budhiani & Bux Mallah 2007). When the decision to build CPEC was finalised in 2014, and the subsequent lack of transparency about the budget, further solidified the importance of these mega-projects to Pakistan’s future as an independent and prosperous nation was further solidified. In fact, when I asked my interrogator why the military was so reliant on American aid in rebuke to his accusation that I was taking foreign money, Mr X said, “The Chinese money will allow us to get out from under the thumb of the Americans.” The importance of these various “mega-projects” for Pakistan is perhaps measurable in the immense amount of military power that the federal government has deployed in order to secure current and future investments. Older fears about the spectre of the foreign invader–the British feared Russian, Ottoman, and German agents would rally anti-colonial “tribes,” mullahs, and Communists to attack the Raj from the northwest, and Pakistan fears Indian, Afghan, and American support for separatist, ethno-nationalist Baloch–over-determine the state’s perspective of its present integrity and future prosperity. On the one hand, contemporary fears are based on a long history of colonial annexation and imperial intervention; the active lobbying by diaspora Baloch of American, Indian, British, Afghan, and other governments fuels the suspicion that Pakistan’s mega-projects are vulnerable to foreign meddling. On the other hand, this fear over- determines the state when it becomes the primary, or only, explanation, transforming into anxiety; in other words, fear goes from having definite objects, to having no definite object. As will become clear in the next section, the Pakistani state attempts to resolve its anxiety, produced by a fear over-determined by tropes of the foreign invader, by seeking and locating (or fixing and attaching) its object of fear among the Baloch of Balochistan. The result is that all criticism of the federal government’s growth and development plans have been met with suspicion, sometimes Musharraf, Pervez 2007. “President Musharraf ’s Address at the inauguration of Gwadar Deep Seaport.” 20 March 10 2007. Available at: https://presidentmusharraf.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/gwadar-deep-seaport/. Accessed on 28. Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -164 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) outright violence, as the state sees threats to its projects in an unknown anywhere, within an unknown anyone. This is manifested not only through the intense militarisation surrounding mega-projects, especially Gwadar, and all along the planned CPEC route and key urban centres– which establishes Balochistan as a “laboratory” secured by a chau’ni or an army camp–but through the scattered and eruptive presence of a violent state. More specifically, the securitisation of Balochistan has taken place through the forcible reallocation of land to the military for the building of cantonments and checkpoints; the deployment of the FC and the Pakistan Army both primarily manned by non-Baloch Punjabis and Pashtuns; the expansion of a surveillance network through CCTV cameras in electrified urban hubs; the listening in and tracking of cell phones; and the expansion of colonial-era proxy alliances with local militias in the form of links to “death squads” and an increasing number of mukhbirs or informants, especially from the Zia-era 1980s onwards and with some haste after Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests and its 2001 alliance with the US. This is reflective of a broader militarisation within Pakistan, but one that is especially concentrated in Balochistan and further north along the Afghan border. The expansion of militarisation is in part linked to the enhancement and expansion of the military state in the post-9/11 period. When Musharraf brought Pakistan into the Global War on Terror alliance, the United States and its allies invested millions of dollars in the armed forces. In fact, until 2008, US donations to Pakistan have only came during periods of military rule: First during the Cold War to stem the spread of communism, rapidly expanding to $33 billion after 9/11. Moreover, highways completed prior to the Chinese investment in 2014 were used by NATO allies to transport military equipment through Balochistan to one of two main crossings into Afghanistan: Chaman Pass just an hour from Balochistan’s capital of Quetta. The parallel transfer of military and surveillance equipment from abroad has thus played a key role in this securitisation, e.g. through the transfer of IMSI-catchers that allows the holder to pick up phone numbers of those within a particular radius (Ahmad & Mahmood 2017). Leaked plans on CPEC indicate that the Chinese, in order to protect this important piece of its larger “Belts and Roads” plan, are also investing in fiberoptic networks and “Smart City” plans that will allow round-the- clock surveillance all along the economic corridor (Husain 2017). Several scholars on Pakistan, and similarly demonised countries, have argued that the country has been over-defined by the lens of political science and international relations. The argument is that macro-political concerns like the state’s economic development policies or geopolitical security concerns must be avoided through the study of more granular, everyday existences that does not fit easily into the concerns of the state. In fact, several anthropologists of - Page of 231 -165 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Balochistan have historically approached the province and its people through a localised lens that almost completely ignores these larger economic and political pressures (Jamali 2007). More recent anthropological work on the border territories similarly avoids these questions, e.g. through a focus on poetic landscapes or the travel diaries of young men, that at best comment or critique, or totally avoid, big power politics. The ostensible purpose is to challenge descriptions that over-determine the importance of macro-politics. While I sympathise with the effort, I argue that it is fundamentally flawed, because it ignores the constant re-emergence of these macro- pressures in conversation, rumour, political imagination, fears, and desires. In the next section I describe how macro-economic desires and geopolitical concerns lock the terrain that many people must navigate into one where people are only legible to the state as friend or enemy. Given the state’s uneven and unexpected presence–its scattered dottedness or its eruption out of nowhere–this locked terrain is sensed as a choking, deadly iron grid. It is at this moment that the state’s anxiety–fear of an unknown object–moves to resolve itself on the body of the Baloch, transferring the sensation of being choked onto these places and peoples as it rids itself of its own angst. II.B. The Inferno of Realpolitik: Friend or Enemy in Balochistan I once sat with a boy on a bench in Quetta, who recounted to me the ways he was going to die. I will die a Pakistani patriot; a Baloch nationalist martyr [qom parast shaheed]; a martyr [shahid] for Islam. Or, I will die sitting at home, with my mother, when the forces raid our home. The environment has become a burden. [Mahaul boj ban jata hai.] It was a summer afternoon and he was trying to cajole the university administration to accept his registration papers so he could start his courses in the coming academic year. In the face of his impending death, of which he was so thoroughly convinced, such a mundane chore provided a refuge from a life defined by a long, never-ending, low-intensity war. He was a Marri: Part of the same “tribal” formation that took part in the 1918 battle against the British, and the 1973-‘77 insurgency against Bhutto. The long-standing involvement of his designated “tribe,” and the continued statements by select prominent members in calling for separation, meant that he frequently found himself suspected of being a member of the on-going insurgency. Two of his brothers had already been picked up for this reason, and his home on the outskirts of Quetta was regularly harassed by paramilitary forces. The Marris had been living in neighbouring Kandahar province in Afghanistan after escaping the 1973-‘77 insurgency, crossing - Page of 231 -166 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) back over the border and settling on the periphery of Balochistan’s capital after the take-over of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1998. Every few weeks, soldiers would start carrying out a fresh round of raids, visiting homes two or three times in the same night and whisk away younger male members. Of late, however, he had begun to see the separatists he had earlier harboured sympathy for exhibit similar behaviour; they had begun to pick up and kill residents they suspected of mukhbiri or snitching. Their behaviour, he told me, left him bewildered and confused, and he eventually left the student arm of the separatist movement of which he had been a part. When I first met him in New Kahan he was suspicious of me and unwilling to speak openly in front of others: It was only after I agreed to meet him alone, that he spoke to me of the mahaul, the environment. I begin with this boy’s story to capture the terrain upon which he, and others, were forced to navigate. For Mushtaq, as I will call him to protect his identity, death was a guarantee. Not only was he young, strong, well-educated, and male–he was also a Marri, thus fitting hand-in-glove with the Pakistani nationalist public sphere’s imagination of the Baloch “traitor.” He is a reminder that the iron grid terrain chokes some more than others; or, that the terrain is mediated by ethnicity and, for that matter, gendered. The interaction of Baloch I spoke with to these terrains were uneven, depending on the tropes attached to their outward identities. Marris were considered particularly incendiary and are therefore subject to a violence that typically exceeds that faced by other Baloch. Women, in turn, were typically cast as victims of a “backward” and “uncivilised” culture; as more and more men of separatist organisations have been picked up and killed, female separatists have become the face of the student and missing persons movement. The assumption is that tropes of women as less dangerous will ensure that they are less likely to be picked up. However, though others I met faced a differential degree of threat, they nevertheless found themselves navigating a similar social ground. For men, this ground meant that the only way they could render themselves legible both to the state, and to one another, was by subjecting themselves to one of three, pre-determined categories: that of the Pakistani patriot, the Baloch separatist, or the Islamist militant. Even those who barely managed to stay on the outer edges of all three categories had to constantly remain attentive to the fact that both the state and those around them were constantly attempting to categorise them. One journalist told me that he stayed within “red lines” to ensure that he was never mistaken as having sympathies for any one side. A writer told me that he took the same route to and from work to render himself, and his circumvention of these three positions, apparent to anyone who may suspect otherwise. The sons and nephews of a prominent Baloch nationalist, whose corpse was dumped in Karachi, told me - Page of 231 -167 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) how they had reduced their movements to the same route between their home and the university, lest they be mistaken as getting involved with any one of these camps. Though frequently seen as safe, women were also subject to these categories; yet, the stories of their actions were addressed through the prism of gendered expectations. One woman said her husband had divorced her to punish her commitment to the Baloch nationalist cause; meanwhile, rumours regularly circulated about female informants, who were simultaneously suspected of “lying with the soldiers.” While the categories, which everyone exceeded and transgressed, were patently absurd–unable to capture the plurality of any site or person anywhere–they also exercised a violent social force. The result is, as Mushtaq reminds us, a mahaul or environment which is burdensome: where positions outside of these three forced subjectivities are nearly impossible because they are illegible both to the state and the society within which they live. Of course, the category into which one is cast, or which one decides to “join” or “perform” is not of equal consequence. To become a Baloch qom parast or nationalist–whether of the sort that works with or against the Pakistani government–carries enormous risk. For instance, the charge of separatism has, over the years, justified extraordinary violence. Much security studies scholarship on places like Balochistan–sites of war and violence in peripheral regions–almost exclusively begins with a pre-determined frame of analysis. Political analyses of Balochistan tend to paint the province as a site fully accounted for by the geopolitical battles of great powers like Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the United States, Russia, China, and others; or by the long list of political groups–pro-Pakistani patriots, Islamists, pro-Pakistani nationalists, anti-Pakistani separatists–that seem to fully occupy the political terrain. Fundamental to these analyses is the construction of discrete categories like perpetrator versus victim, militant versus civilian, greed versus grievance, or pro- versus anti-state: External identities or internal convictions that researchers attempt to approximate using qualitative or quantitative methods. Of course, all attempts to account for social phenomena, including violence, is limited. And, such research has its uses, for instance in lobbying efforts by human rights activists to counteract violence. However, these tools are frequently mistaken as accurate reflections of an objective truth, rather than as one of many ways in which to account for the phenomena in question. More disturbingly, the refusal to see that any articulation of such discrete categories as arbitrary can render researchers blind to how they are producing the very “thing” they purport to want to measure. The wider consequences of unreflectively applying categories is perhaps best illustrated by the Obama administration’s decision to categorise all males above the age of 16 in drone target sites as “militant.” Attempts to measure the efficacy of drone attacks was in part based on simplistic definitions of militant and civilian deaths, with little - Page of 231 -168 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) conversation on what constitutes each of these categories. As Kay Warren argues: “[T]he limitation of most typologies [of “knowing violence”] is their codification and reification of the phenomena they seek to represent, often stripping away history, and thus, failing to deal adequately with power, inequality, and signification.” Rather, as Warren argues, it makes sense to stay alive to “the radical blurring of perpetrators, victims, and audiences in these situations, marked by state induced fragmentation, ambiguity and uncertainty.” (Warren in Aretxaga 2005, 21). However, the experience of Mushtaq, and many others, tells us that while such reified categories should not be reproduced, they should not be wholly abandoned either. In fact, they re-emerge, or erupt, in the everyday, and are viscerally felt and engaged with. The subject positions of Pakistani patriot, Baloch separatist, and Islamist, which constitutes the primary analytical lens through which political science and security scholars–and the policy-makers they advise–approach the site, re-presents itself as the dominant lens through which people can come to be known by representatives of the state, and a dominant way they come to know one another. In other words, these iron-grid categories of friend/enemy, for/against, descend into the ordinary, re-shaping the terrain with dangerous, at times lethal, effect. Ignoring the visceral, felt presence of the macro-political, top-down, reified categories means ignoring what one comes across in the field. To take them seriously, means taking seriously the young boy who said to me “They do not want the Baloch. They want Balochistan”; the interrogator who told me he was willing to “sacrifice 50,000 [Baloch] for 200 million [Pakistanis]; and a writer who said: “Geography has cursed us; and geography will save us.” The point of recognising the felt presence of such macro- political, codified definitions is not to say that they are somehow a truthful account of the situation in Balochistan, nor is it to say that they are fully irrelevant. Rather, it is to investigate the way that these categories-of-knowing violence and Balochistan are both rejected and engaged with by those who find themselves to be objects of analysis. The iron grid, burdening, effect of the mahaul, and its co-imbrication with ethnic and gendered “social truths,” is best illustrated through three final stories. The first is a short one shared with me by Mushtaq earlier during the same conversation: I went to a jail once, to meet a cousin and get him out. He earlier fought with a friend, but it had nothing to do with all the politics going on. When the police looked at me in the jail, they said, “You don’t look like a Pakistani.” I told them that I was a Pakistani, I had an ID card that proved that I was. See, they are pushing us away themselves. They do not see me as an equal citizen, I mean, they’re not able to tell that I’m a Baloch ethno-nationalist [qom parast], how could they? This happens with the young everywhere, it happens to some of my friends… They go - Page of 231 -169 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) into public space, and then things like that happen, and then they ask me, and I try and explain why. The tension-filled space of cantonments, police stations, checkpoints, and other securitised sites of course render some more vulnerable than others; after all surveillance is not “undifferentiated and universal” (Gürses, Kundnani & Van Hoboken 2016, 578-579) but rather mediated by prisms of race, gender, and other identities (cf. Dubrofsky and Magnet 2015; Browne 2015). What I want to draw attention to in Mushtaq’s account, however, is his reaching for his ID card and his attempts to prove himself up to be a Pakistani citizen. The category of friend or enemy is the only one that is legible to the state, and Mushtaq knows this very well. Mushtaq’s experience reminds us that the the transfer of military and surveillance technologies should not be read as an enhancement of the state’s ability to govern more efficiently or more surgically. Rather, enhanced capacity of the state to surveil–through the aforementioned transfers of military and surveillance technologies to the Pakistani government– means that the iron gridded frames that people like Mushtaq must engage with in order to render themselves legible are now more far-reaching, with cruder and harsher effect. As critical feminist and race scholarship on surveillance have shown, the belief that surveillance provides hyper- transparency is flawed . Rather, the same representational macro-frames that have always informed state practice are in fact enhanced through the use of surveillance technologies. The second, longer, story is of Tokli, a 27-year old student from the southern town of Turbat. A few years ago, separatists involved with the Balochistan National Movement (BNM) got Tokli involved in a court case involving the killing of a coast guard and the injuring of some bystanders. Tokli had been asked to provide a witness statement in the court and his name had been put forward. Two or three friends had been arrested, and the BNM wanted him to help get them released. As the court case dragged on, however, Tokli became concerned: More laash or corpses started falling, people who were close to him started being picked up, and he was beginning to receive threats: Once, when I was in Karachi, I received a call. “You must be a big man,” the voice on the line said. I answered, “Why?” They answered, “Those friends of yours, they’re not right.” I then said, “Okay, I will leave them.” That was the environment [mahaul]. I started avoiding them at tea stalls and on the street. All of this scared me; I wanted to escape. I would have to leave my area, my country; that was the only way to escape the environment [mahaul]… My mamu was a tablighi [member of the Tablighi Jamaat, a nation-wide proselytising group], so I went with him to Raiwind and spent 1 chila [40 days missionary tour]. When I finished, Qambar’s corpse fell. [Qambar was a prominent student nationalist.] So I spent another four months with my uncle. I was afraid, and kept receiving threats through friends. - Page of 231 -170 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) When I came back to my area I was still scared. There was a mosque in my area and I would not even go and read namaz, my daily prayers. So I returned to the tabligh, my beard had grown to my stomach. When I returned [a second time], I started holding a jamaat, a gathering, on the main road. [This time,] I would lead the prayers. This was when I was waiting on the court to call me in as a witness. In the meantime, I kept showing the tabligh around whenever they came. My imaan, my faith, was fresh. In Balochistan, maulvis are not hurt. In the mosques in Turbat, maulvis sit in peace. They walk around freely. Eventually, when the court case never ended up calling him as a witness, Tokli left the tabligh and moved to Karachi, and later Quetta, cutting off his beard and starting work with NGOs that a friend in Turbat put him in touch with. Stories of the armed forces allowing religious organisations to function in Balochistan, in starkly visible ways, is an oft-repeated narrative by people within and outside these organisations, and within and outside the province as one of the tools through which the state attempts to sideline, and sometimes attack, ethno-nationalist political collectives. For Tokli, joining the tabligh was a way to show that he was not a threat: Having demonstrated his imaan or faith for the divine, he knew he would not be suspected of having any faith in a separate territorial, Baloch nation. Yet, in order to do so, he had to start showing that his political alignments were not with his friends who were “not right.” After all, the mahaul meant that he could only be read in particular, pre-defined ways, and he had to ensure that he navigated the terrain so that he was not read as a separatist. By becoming a maulvi–an everyday word used for outwardly practicing laymen clergy–Tokli was able to “sit in peace” and “walk around freely.” He rendered himself transparent both to the state that was threatening him, and to the separatists who were asking for his help. The final story is one involving my own presence in Balochistan. These forced subjectivities, which constituted the only legible frame through which people could be read by the state and by the rest of society, meant that suspicion stuck to me: Who was I with and where did my sympathies lie? I found myself desperately introducing my long-running reporting on Balochistan and the violence to show myself up to be an outsider in solidarity with the violence. However, when I was being interrogated, I brought attention to my Lahori, Punjabi background, and the fact that my grandfather and uncles had served in the armed forces. Most of the time, however, this effort failed, as most people saw my presence in a site so wrought with violence suspicious. So, during a trip to northeastern Balochistan, the site of both the 1918 military expedition and the 1973-1977 counter-insurgency recounted earlier, a rumour began spreading - Page of 231 -171 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) that I had been sent by the opposing side. In this case, the people I was staying with–the Baijranis, a subsection of the Marris–were aligned with the state, and the opposing side was Harbiyar Marri, of the Ghazenis who is, unluckily for me, living in exile in London. Convincing the people I met that I was only there for research was well-nigh an impossibility, and I managed to get no one to speak to me openly. Instead, suspicion stuck to me and followed me around. I could have stayed beyond my three days, to convince those who were there of my independent status as a sympathetic researcher, but that would have been tempting fate: My strange, inexplicable presence in this site of violence prompted state officials to call my hosts to ask who in the world I was and what I was doing there. When I returned to Quetta, a friend reprimanded me for going, warning me that I was “playing with fire.” “We have to live in this inferno. Why are you sticking your hand into it?” II Contemporary Destruction in Balochistan II.A. Censorship as Noise: Transparency and Obfuscation at a time of Violence When I first met Nasrullah and Mama Qadeer in one of the meeting rooms of the Serena Hotel in Quetta in 2010, they were still hopeful that their visits to the courts and the press clubs, or their conversations with diplomats, politicians, and reporters, would help them find their loved ones. As the two main spokespersons of the VBMP, the grassroots organisation representing relatives of the disappeared, they helped “affectees” register First Information Reports (FIRs), filing cases in the courts, going to journalists, and speaking to state representatives; yet they, too, were personally affected. Nasrullah’s uncle, Ali Akbar Bangulzai, was one of the very first Baloch to be “disappeared”; intelligence officers picked him up when he was returning from the degree college in Quetta, after visiting his friends, ostensibly because of his involvement with Haq Tawar, an ethno-nationalist political party started by Khair Bakhsh Marri–the official sardar of the Marris at the time who died in 2014–that used to organise study circles and public education initiatives for Baloch communities around the city - Page of 231 -172 Image 4.5 | Mama Qadeer and Nasrullah at a ‘missing persons’ camp. They are the primary faces of the missing persons movement in Balochistan. Source: “Enforced Disappearances in Balochistan: VBMP to Protest on Eid Day.” Available at: https:// baluchsarmachar.wordpress.com/tag/mama-qadeer-baloch/ page/12/. Accessed 9 Sep. 2018. Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) and because of his involvement in helping returning Marris with lodging, food, and basic welfare. Mama Qadeer’s son, Jaleel Reki, had been involved with Akbar Bugti, the sardar of the Bugtis who had famously been killed by the military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, during a rocket attack in 2007 prompting province-wide protests. Back then, the organising of friends and relatives of the “missing” produced some results. It was in these early years that the Supreme Court made prominent statements confirming state the role of the state behind the violence; as a result, some of the “disappeared” would return home, and both Pakistani and international journalists were able to report on what was going on. In fact, The Herald, a Pakistani news magazine, had just run a front cover story on the disappearances and the violence. And, The Guardian had just published a piece on on-going efforts by missing persons activists to recover relatives. In 2008, a lawyer’s movement, which was prompted in part because the sitting chief justice attempted to call Musharraf to account for disappearances, managed to topple Musharraf, giving many people some hope that the courts would be able to hold the security forces to account. 11 When I met Nasrullah six years later, sitting in a bare camp in front of the Quetta Press Club, there was a palpable, visceral impression that someone had knocked the air out of him. The camp was bare because it used to be bedecked with the portraits of the missing. Instead of a forward movement in their cases, Nasrullah spoke of the sensation of running around in circles. Whether it was during conversations with state officials including security officers who suddenly called him in for a meeting, the long line of federal and provincial politicians, appearances in front of the high court in Balochistan or the Supreme Court in Islamabad; conversations with foreign and Pakistani journalists; and regular protests, Nasrullah's search seemed Kafka-esque, leading nowhere other than back to where he began. It is during one of these visits in 2016, that he invoked the sensation of brokenness and humiliation, or zalalat, with which this dissertation opened: Iqbal, Nasir. 2007. “CJ suspended, escorted home: • Justice Iftikhar summoned by SJC on 13th for reference hearing 11 • Ex-judges call it a blow to judiciary’s independence; minister defends decision • Whither judicial activism?” Dawn, 10 March, 2007. Available at: https://www.dawn.com/news/236769. Accessed on 28. Aug. 2018. - Page of 231 -173 Image 4.6 | Missing persons camps have usually been bedecked with the portraits of the missing. Source: “Enforced-disappearance in Balochistan: VBMP announces long march from Quetta to Karachi.” Available at: https:// baluchsarmachar.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/ enforced-disappearance-in-balochistan-vbmp- announces-long-march-from-quetta-to- karachi/. Accessed 9 Sep 2018. Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) People have been called almost 50 times. Witnesses have been invited, they are made zaleel, they have been asked, again and again, the same question: How were they picked up? How did you see them? Did you stay with them? Those witnesses who have given their statements and had them on record, they are made zaleel. The only purpose of this – it is not to give justice – the only purpose is that the witness comes and becomes exhausted. After being exhausted, the witnesses, when called, will not come. [They say:] Bhai [brother], we’ve come again and again and given you testimonies, and the problem is not solved. Nasrullah went on to explain that the friends and relatives of the disappeared were frequently harassed, disappeared, or even killed, for their repeated visits. Repeated attempts to bring attention not only seemed to bring them nowhere–every time they engaged in an act of testimony and witnessing, they put themselves in further danger. I begin with the story of Nasrullah, Mama Qadeer, and other members of the VBMP to bring bring attention to an irrefutable fact: Alongside the andha dhund that I open this chapter with, and that I unpack throughout, the fact of state violence, which has only been increasing in the last decade or more, is not in question. While evidence of this violence is available in the beginning of this dissertation, this section recounts the emergence and proliferation of the violence from 2001 onwards (see Chapter 1, Part I.A). Starting with the 2001 disappearance of Nasrullah’s uncle, Baloch political activists became a target for state-led abductions. The disappearances continued in fits and starts for a couple of years. Initially, the primary targets were students and young men involved with ethnonationalist and/or separatist organisations like the Baloch National Movement (BNM) or Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad (BSO-Azaad), both unarmed organisations. In these early years, release was a possibility; today, it is rare that media outlets speak openly about the disappearances. The turning point was arguably in 2007, when the assassination of the prominent “tribal” sardar, Akbar Bugti, exacerbated tensions between Balochistan and the central government. In 2005, Akbar Bugti, who had loomed large over Balochistan’s political fortunes for three decades and was widely considered a pro-Pakistan politician, launched a scathing critique of the military regime under Musharraf. The catalyst for this change of heart was a horrific rape - Page of 231 -174 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) that took place in Sui, a gas-producing town in Bugti’s backyard, the district of Dera Bugti. The 12 incident provoked widespread outrage in Balochistan. The Baloch Liberation Army, a militant group that used to be headed by the Marris sardar, Khair Bakhsh Marri, resurfaced with renewed vigour after years in obscurity. Other groups stepped up activity too, firing rockets on Pakistan Petroleum Limited’s gas pipelines to protest the “cover-up” and claiming solidarity with Khalid. For over a year and a half, Bugti and Musharraf remained locked in battle. The government’s response to Balochistan’s outrage was swift and harsh; in an interview on GEO TV, Musharraf remarked, “It is not the seventies, where they will climb mountains and we will go running after them. They will not know what hit them, and they will not know where it came from.” On the night of 26 August 2006, 37 militants and 21 military personnel died in a clash between security forces and armed separatists. Bugti was among those killed. His death prompted Baloch parties to declare a 15-day mourning period. Shutter-down and wheel-jam strikes were announced across the province. Baloch protestors flooded the streets in cities across Pakistan. Hundreds of students in Quetta blocked roads and attacked government buildings. “This incident,” the mournful pro-Pakistan politician, Akhtar Mengal, said to the Friday Times, “has cut our last link, if there was any, with Pakistan.” Soon, many Baloch separatist leaders began to escape the country, applying for political asylum abroad. Others turned up dead. In November 2007, a little over a year after Bugti’s killing, Balaach Marri, a commander in the BLA, was assassinated in Afghanistan. In April 2009, the decomposed bodies of Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, the chairman of the Baloch National Movement, Lala Munir, the general-secretary of the Baloch National Front, and Sher Mohammad Bugti, the vice chairman of the Baloch Republican Party, were dumped in Pidrak, 35 kilometres from the southern Baloch city of Turbat. They had been abducted, tortured and killed just five days after attending a court hearing in the city. About a year later, following many threats, Hyrbyair Marri, the alleged commander of the Baloch Republican Army, and Brahamdagh Bugti of the BLA, escaped the country. Other than the BLF, their organisations had been the only major militant groups operating in Balochistan. On the night of 2 January 2005, Shazia Khalid was asleep in her bedroom when a man entered it. He pulled her by 12 the hair, pressed down on her throat, wrapped a telephone cord around her neck and beat her head with the receiver. He proceeded to rape her repeatedly. According to a 35-page confidential summary, released at the end of that month by an independent tribunal headed by a judge of the Balochistan High Court, Khalid was “semi-conscious” when she stumbled into a nurse’s office the next morning, “with a swelling on her forehead, bleeding from her nose and ear.” In his report on the incident, the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote that officials from her employers, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), rushed to the scene, and allegedly told her to stay quiet. In interviews with journalists, Khalid accused a Captain Hammad of the Pakistan Army of the crime, and claimed that security forces had tried to cover it up. In a report in the Daily Times, Sherry Rehman, then an opposition member of the National Assembly, stated that “Musharraf pronounced Captain Hammad, one of the accused in the case, innocent before the judicial enquiry was completed.” - Page of 231 -175 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) It now widely known that almost the entire leadership of the Baloch Student Organisation-Azaad, a separatist but non-armed student organisation that was banned in 2013 prior to general elections in Pakistan, has been picked up, even killed. Since then, disappearances and state-led attacks have been extended to sympathisers unattached to any organisation–like Saba Dashtiyari, a prominent Baloch academic who was killed in 2011–and non-Baloch who have spoken up around the disappearances. The shooting Hamid Mir, a famous TV anchor who was attacked in 2014, is widely suspected to be in connection to his decision to host Mama Qadeer on his prime time, Capital Talk, on Pakistan’s largest channel Geo TV. After the attack, Mir’s brother read out a statement, squarely placing responsibility for the attack on the security forces. He has since spoken of being harassed for speaking out on Balochistan, for example during the CPEC seminar that I speak of in Section I.A. Meanwhile, the civil society activist Sabeen Mahmud was shot after leaving an event she hosted on the missing in Balochistan at her cafe, T2F in Karachi. Though the authorities arrested four militants, ostensibly involved in a 2015 bus shooting against the Ismaili community in Karachi, many suspect that her death was linked to her decision to host the event on the missing of Balochistan. Mama Qadeer, who continues to hold missing persons camps in front of press clubs around the country, includes her picture among the hundreds of Baloch faces that he sits amidst. After 2014, late night raids in individual homes and army operations with the use of ground soldiers and helicopters have become more common. This is in part a result of the expansion of military operations previously concentrated in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, further up the border from Balochistan, to the rest of the country via the launch of Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (literally meaning the rejection of discord) on 22 February, 2017. The operation, it was announced by the official Director General of Inter- Services Public Relations, or ISPR, the public relations arm of the security forces, “aims at indiscriminately eliminating residual/latent threat[s] of terrorism, consolidating gains of operations made thus far and further ensuring security of the borders.” The “ghost town” that I open this chapter with was in the area of Dasht, which even the interrogators that picked me up admitted was a site of an ongoing army operation, has been one of the places that has been targeted as a part of a wider launch of army operations. Displacements–e.g. in the “ghost town” or of med fishermen in Gwadar–are also widespread as the federal government and its armed forces have attempted to make way for CPEC in Balochistan (see Chapter 1, Part II). In August 2018, Pakistan’s newly-elected prime minister, Imran Khan, agreed to accept a series of demands put forward by Akhter Mengal, the aforementioned Baloch politician who, while not separatist, remained a staunch ethno-nationalist. The points demanded, among other things, that the overt and covert military operations against the Baloch should end, that all - Page of 231 -176 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) missing persons should be produced, that the proxy “death squads” created by Pakistan’s Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) should be disbanded, that Baloch nationalist parties should be allowed to organise freely without interference from the ISI and MI, that those responsible for the killings and disappearances should be held accountable and prosecuted, and that thousands of Baloch displaced by the conflict should be rehabilitated. However, the aftermath of a similar move to appease Baloch nationalist politicians after elections in 2013–politicians that were also interested in addressing issues concerning state atrocities– ended in widespread accusations of corruption and a general sense that those in power were able to accomplish little. While Mengal has only decided to support the newly-elected federal government, without taking power in the form of ministries in the centre or in the province, the newly-elected prime minister’s ability to implement the changes remain dependent on the willingness of the security forces to release Balochistan into the control of a civilian authority. In 2013, the civilian authority was unable to wrest control from the army; accusations that Imran Khan remains close to the military casts doubt on his ability to do more than his predecessors. Nasrullah’s story–of a Kafka-esque, circuitous search for justice and truth–reminds us that despite this overwhelming evidence of state violence, questions and doubts continue to attach themselves to those who attempt to bring attention to it. Writers and institutions who have played a key role in bringing attention to the violence inadvertently acknowledge the presence of this question mark when they describe the violence as “forgotten,” “secret,” “dirty,” and “murky” . 13 14 15 16 What accounts for the simultaneity of overwhelming evidence and the constant sensation that no one really knows what is going on? The ostensible reason given to explain this feeling of murkiness is usually Balochistan’s marginality: The abandoned space and its impoverished people are so far away from global and national centres of power that doubt inevitably attaches itself to its peoples and places. While this explanation certainly has much merit, it does not explain the systematic questioning and refutation of “central” voices–like international United Kingdom, House of Commons, International Affairs and Defense Section, and Jon Lunn. “In Brief: 13 Baluchistan - Pakistan's forgotten conflict.” In Brief: Baluchistan - Pakistan's forgotten conflict, ser. SN06106, House of Commons Library, 2011, pp. 1–3. SN06106. Walsh, Declan. “Pakistan's secret dirty war.” The Guardian, 29 Mar. 2011, Available at: www.theguardian.com/world/14 2011/mar/29/balochistan-pakistans-secret-dirty-war. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. Tatchell, Peter. “Pakistan’s Secret, Dirty Killings in Balochistan.” Huffington Post UK, 4 Jul. 2011, Available at: http://15 www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/pakistan-killings_b_889869.html. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. In this article, Pakistani journalist Cyril Almeida writes, “Balochistan is a murky place where murky things happen 16 for murky reasons.” Almeida, Cyril. “Blood and Balochistan.” Dawn, 26 Apr. 2015, Available at: www.dawn.com/news/ 1178214. Accessed 8 Sep. 2018. - Page of 231 -177 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) organisations, national courts, and local human rights commissions–who have consistently brought attention to the atrocities by providing ostensibly independent stamps of approval. Indeed, whether or not violence is considered believable depends more on the “social facts” predominant within different publics. Stories of atrocities in Balochistan proliferate in India as a sign of the social truth of the state there, namely one that points to the inherent pathology and perversity of Pakistan; in turn, atrocities of the Indian Army are received differently. Meanwhile, within Pakistan, stories of Indian intervention over-determine narrations of violence. What is different from reports of violence during the colonial era and the early post-colonial era–when outside of informal networks and underground publications, there was little news, independent or otherwise–is that today these social facts cannot be reinstated through containment or censuring: Today, an excess of information rather than the dearth of it requires another mode of destruction. I argue that state production of noise–both in the way that violence is carried out and in the way that it is explained–serves to obstruct any comprehensible, coherent explanation. As I have argued in the very beginning of this chapter, the state’s way of violence can be approximated through attention to its structure and mode: through a scattered constellation of state and quasi- state or proxy groups and individuals; and through eruptive disappearances, torture, kill-and- dumps, “encounter” or extra-judicial killings, night raids, and army operations. The state explains violence not merely through the official statements of its politicians or the press releases of the ISPR, the public relations arm of the Pakistani security forces, but also through its informal links to mainstream journalists and, lately, its large army of “bots”: fake social media accounts that harass and spread rumour. Journalists are frequently tweeted at by these twitter accounts after publishing critical articles, accused of receiving foreign funding from India’s intelligence agency, RAW, or the CIA and blasphemous speech. This takes place in a broader environment of over- whelming information: 24/7 news channels–with talkshows featuring sometimes up to ten participants shouting at each other–and non-stop social media updates from Twitter and Facebook, exacerbating the sensation of “noise” which in turn obfuscates clear information on targeted violence. In an essay entitled “Censorship, Noise, and Silence,” Umberto Eco argues thus: “Noise becomes a cover. I would say that the ideology of this censorship through noise can be expressed, with apologies for Wittgenstein, by saying, ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must talk a great deal.’” He continues by explaining how the Italian media would present stories on “calves born with two heads and bags snatched by petty thieves”: “in other words, the sort of minor stories papers used to put low on an inside page–which now serve to fill up three-quarters of an - Page of 231 -178 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) hour of information, to ensure that we don’t notice other news stories they ought to have covered but have not been covered.” Veena Das (2017) speaks of a similar technique, when in a speech given at the seminar, Theorizing (Dis)Order: Governing in an Uncertain World, she argues that “what is at issue is perhaps not so much direct censorship as the excess of speech that almost succeeds in silencing thought.” Though Eco speaks of Italy, and Das explicitly attaches the production of excess information as a mode of silencing to the US (as opposed to direct attempts of censorship, which she links to countries like Turkey and India, and I would add Pakistan), I argue that this mode of censorship-as-noise rather than just censorship-as-silencing acts as a technique of rule which exacerbates the sensation of fogginess, in turn obfuscating clear evidence on state violence. In the face of this dual noise-silencing procedure, urban Pakistani publics must resort to what Aretxaga calls the “social truth” of the state, which in the case of Balochistan is as follows: That there are foreign powers, especially India, funding Baloch insurgents intent on breaking up Pakistan and obstructing the country’s path to future prosperity. It is not that this narrative is completely untrue: ardent Baloch separatists have admitted that they have reached out to the Indian government, some have even gone public about it. However, the social truth becomes a totalising and reductive one, that reifies the friend/enemy relationship that is experienced as violent, forceful social grids shaping the social terrain explained in II.B. In fact, this social truth provides a quick fix of excess information into an “iron grid” that is easily comprehensible and coherent. In turn, counter-truths are confused through the repeated production of excess information which reifies the social truth of the state, and which in turn is compounded by the capacity of the state–with its long tentacles into mainstream and social media circuits–to project its information. So, when I asked my interrogators about the burning of houses and disappearances of young boys after my trip around Dasht, they retorted: “We know what those boys were doing, who they were working with, and who they were getting funding from. Did you see us pick them up or torture them or kill them? Then, how can you claim that we are behind it.” Representatives of the state do not always deny taking part in atrocity, rather they question the narrative itself, and introduce further information leaving the witnesses and testimonies shrouded in doubt both about who was behind the actual violence, and whether the alternative– allowing those “boys” to do whatever they had planned to do–would actually have been worse. This plays a key role, as I show in the next section, in exacerbating the sensation of gaps, fissures, and silences productive of kashmakash at its point of effect among those who live in and around this violence. - Page of 231 -179 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) II.B. Gaps, Fissures, Silences: Producing Kashmakash I could still smell the stench of their rotting bodies on the inside of my nostrils the night I came back from the morgue. I could see the backs of their heads, hair drenched with death, their dirty kameezes and their dirty shalwars. Faces blackened by chemicals, two clear holes through their bodies, an old and emaciated man, a teenage boy. Toes tied together by a white thread of rope. A doctor and his assistant turning a head round and around to check his wounds. A relative, sent by his family, who had been asked to identify the body. Who had told the doctor that the body was his. Who was told he could not take the body because the immediate blood relatives had to show up. Who were afraid because the security forces tended to disappear men and boys close to those they had killed. — Journal notes, 12 April 2016, Quetta A few days after meeting Nasrullah in front of the Quetta Press Club, twenty bodies showed up at the Civil Hospital in Quetta. An army operation was underway in Kalat, and these were the handful of people who had died in an air raid. I accompanied him the next day to the doctor’s office and the morgue, in what for him were recurring visits. When we arrived at the hospital, the doctor was speaking to two men. They had come from Kalat, they said, and they wanted to claim one of the bodies. “Are you a blood relative? Do you have an ID card that shows who you are? Do you have a copy of the ID card of the person who has died?” The men had nothing of the sort, and though they were blood relatives, they were not immediate family: The mother of the deceased had sent her two nephews to pick up the corpse of her son. “Sorry, that won’t work. You’ll have to bring her with you.” The doctor turned around and welcomed me. “This happens all the time. Bodies turn up at the morgue, and no one comes to claim them. Sometimes they send people who we cannot hand the bodies over to, but they usually don’t even bother coming. So we end up burying them as unidentified people [na maloom afraad].” Then he took me to the freezing morgue under his office. The unknown men and boys–some looked as young as 12 and others as old as 70–lay in shelves with white strings tied around their toes. “Who knows who they are,” the doctor said. “Some people say they were nomads [khana badosh], running cattle, and the army say they were terrorists. But, who really knows. Most likely, no one will claim them and no one will identify them, and we’ll just bury them in a graveyard for the unknown behind the motorway.” Balochistan has become known for its unclaimed, unidentifiable corpses. The HRCP announced that 90 corpses have been found in Balochistan in 2017 alone (see Chapter 1, Part I.A). These large, gaping gaps in knowing feel like big, wide wounds that are not filled up with a name and a narrative that can explain, embalm, and heal the inside of the self and the outside of the - Page of 231 -180 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) social that remains so broken in the face of violence. This unspoken gap is not just emptiness or nothingness, a sort of space between different parts of the self and the social that cannot be sutured, it is highly productive of what Sumayya, who I met in Karachi, called شکمشک, kashmakash, an Urdu word for struggle, strife, pulling, hauling, dilemma, perplexity, altercation, and scuffle. She used the word to explain the state that her aunt was thrown into when she saw a corpse that may have been her brother’s, a prominent member of a Baloch separatist group. Tortured beyond recognition, Sumayya’s aunt was unable to claim and identify her brother because she could not tell if it was really him. It was not until the family found old dental records that they were finally able to attach a name to the corpse. Frequently, however, corpses are so tortured that even families of the dead cannot identify them; sometimes they are named by a note [chitti] in the pocket of the shalwar kameez that is worn, left there by the ones who have tortured and killed. Sometimes, statements like “Pakistan Long Live!” [Pakistan Zindabad!] are scrawled across the bodies of those who have been killed. Inside and around the clear and visible discourses of Balochistan as threat and possibility, and the forced subjectivities of the sarmachar, the Islamist, and the Pakistani patriot, which Mushtaq spoke about earlier, were large gaps, fissures and silences productive of kashmakash in the confusing, obfuscated maelstrom of stories around violence. By gaps I mean that something was always missing; by fissures that the gap had been actively created from a breaking, parting, cracking, or splitting; and by silence that even the presence of this lack is not spoken of openly. These gaps, fissures, and silences were everywhere present, enveloping all that which was not fully accounted for through the easy narratives of the state or the ethno-nationalists. Three sites, other than the unclaimed and unidentifiable corpses, where this lack productive of strife emerged were in the repeated experience of “things" that were missing: in the landscape, among the people, and within conversation. During a 2-week trip through southern Balochistan, at the tail-end of my 10-month fieldwork, I noted the following in my journal about the landscape: Waiting, distances, emptiness, nothingness, constituted the bulk of my trip. What do these gaps, so all over, all the time, so constant and frequent–say about this place? What do the long drives and silences only punctuated by the sounds of the motor in our car and the songs played by the driver, say about this site? When we were driving to Turbat from Karachi, we had moments where it felt like we were the only ones in the world, alongside the military checkpoints that stopped us and that we knew were keeping watch, and the militants that they were fighting. What does the sense of being in a sun saan ilaaqa [empty, deserted area] and still being seen, something we later found out was very much the case, say about violence itself in places of extreme violence? The sinister and constant sense of danger that requires that we are always on guard? To call it paranoia - Page of 231 -181 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) reduces it to an emotion that only exists in the realm of affect, feelings, and not in the material realm where people get kidnapped and tortured and killed. — Journal notes, 3 August 2016, Dasht to Gwadar Much of the territory that I traveled through was close to or around the CPEC route that was being planned. Accompanied by student activists involved with bringing attention to the atrocities, particularly female members of the BSO-Azaad, I would be told about the cantonment that was barely visible, the road that was being constructed, or the tire prints of FC or Pakistan Army jeeps that had passed through their area. The landscape that was fully known was the punctuated landscape of the state, which was a material manifestation of the known landscape of legible and visible subjectivities. Much like people were only recognisable by the state when they identified as sarmachars, Islamists, or Pakistani patriots, the state only recognised secure and known those parts of Balochistan that had been subsumed and organised by the state in the form of cantonments, checkpoints, or five-star hotels. The people and places outside of these known territories and subjectivities of the state were unknown, even by many of the Baloch that I was traveling with. In much literature on Balochistan, colonial officers and post-colonial foreign correspondents have described this landscape as abandoned and deserted, and as needing to enter the modern era (Haider 2010; Grare 2013). Meanwhile, post-colonial scholarship has pushed back on these easy definitions of a tribal backwater that exists in some ancient, mythic time by recovering important, alternate, subaltern imaginations of this place and its people (Caron and Dasgupta 2016; Hopkins and Marsden 2011). By doing so, they have questioned the easy tropes that characterise such places as always being at the border or the periphery of the centre, to note how they are also at the centre of other lives (Marsden 2007). Much of this critique is accurate, but the affect of gaps, fissures, silences that repeatedly emerged within this place, and the kashmakash that it produces even within those who live here alerts us to how macro-categories must neither be reified nor circumvented (see Chapter 1, Part II). If we take seriously the exhortation by anthropologists of affect and the state that affects are constitutive of the political, then the question emerges: How do the gaps, fissures, silences constitute politics? They alert us to the sites of kashmakash, that allow no discourse to settle, and constitute a context within which a coherent counter-politics has difficulty emerging. The importance of this kashmakash makes sense, for example, in Pulabad, a village in southern Balochistan: The mother of a driver who was taking me and some other women around to the houses of relatives of the missing ran after our jeep in her black burka, insisting on sitting in the driver’s seat next to her son. It was dark, she said to him, and who knows what could happen. For this woman, Pulabad was not a place that was foreign, it was the centre of her world, - Page of 231 -182 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) it was where she had been born and given birth. But a kashmakash–a conflict or a strife about what could happen if this driver who was taking us around in the evening–remained with her. In fact, in his research on Gwadar Port, Hafeez Jamali (2014) notes a similar sort of landscape characterised by gaps, fissures, and silences, when he speaks about the mega-development projects in southern Balochistan: [W]hat is actually produced on the ground is a set of interrupted or suspended geographies and temporalities. Places get transformed but not in the way in which policymakers, private investors, or the beneficiaries and victims of development want. I suggest that interruptions, suspensions, and stasis characterize the experience of large- scale development projects as much as, if not more, than connection, speed, and movement. (Jamali 2014, 56) Similarly, the stories of missing people and missing deaths kept on emerging in ways that were unexpected among the people. During the visit to Kohlu in northeastern Balochistan which I recount in Chapter 3, where I stayed with Baijrani Marris aligned with the state, I heard about a recent Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) attack on members of their family, which left seven people dead. The main target of the attack was the eldest son, a negotiator convincing former insurgents to surrender to the army as part of a general amnesty. He had played a key role, also, in securing the release of various Marris who had been disappeared by the security forces, and thus played an important role in mediating a difficult conversation between various sides of the conflict. Throughout my time in Kohlu, I was taken to families who had members killed by the BLA. When I asked them whether the Baijrani Marris themselves, or the FC and Pakistan Army that they cooperated with, engaged in similar activities, I was told that such stories were a fabrication. Though I assumed that the denial of atrocities was linked to a genuine critique of militants, or even part and parcel of attempts by people to protect themselves, I was surprised to discover at the very end of my four-day excursion to Kohlu that the Baijrani’s themselves had one young boy missing: He had been disappeared while crossing an FC checkpoint. Yet, the story of this boy, who did not fit easy pro-state narrative prevalent in this territory, was barely mentioned during this visit to Kohlu. Similarly, a young female student whose father–a prominent leader in the BNM–had been missing for several years, never told me about the disappearances and killings carried out by ethno-nationalists. As a formal member of the BSO-Azaad, she stuck to the line that was given to her. A couple of days into a trip in southern Balochistan, however, she told me that her uncle had been killed for attempting similar negotiations with the state for the release of young Baloch boys who had been picked up by armed forces. Unlike the disappearance of her father or the - Page of 231 -183 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) killing of other ethno-nationalists, this particular death did not enjoy the same sort of public notation or discourse. In both cases, it was not all of those who had gone missing or had been killed who were a subject of conversation. Rather, it was those who fit with either the narrative of the state or the narrative of the separatists. When someone was disappeared, tortured, or killed by a “side” considered a friend rather than an enemy, their story went missing. In an anthropology of post-war Vietnam, Heonik Kwon (2008) notes how sons who had died fighting against the communists figured in complex ways within ancestral remembrance, sometimes prompting pain and tension, and sometimes disappearing altogether. While Balochistan is not a post-war site, a similar recalibration of the narrative takes place here, over-determined as it is by the friend/enemy line. Much like with Sumayya's aunt, this disappearance of conversation about particular people was productive of kashmakash: A young boy in Kohlu said that he did not know what to make of this deliberate silencing. While he knew that the BLA was violent, he also knew that the state was complicit in extraordinary levels of killing. The young female student, after several days of remaining silent about the killing of her uncle, told me of her closeness to him and his extraordinary presence in her life, even as she expressed her support for the very group that had taken his life. Conflictual, contradictory accounts emerged in these moments of stories going missing, and both the young boy in Kohlu and the young girl traveling with me found themselves struggling to make sense of the violence which they were witnessing. The silences also moved through conversation. Journalists regularly pulled me aside and told me that I should be careful when poking around, that there were certain things that it was better to avoid. At a workshop that I attended, to speak about reporting I had done in 2014 on military operations further up the border areas–in FATA–students who were in the audience quickly attempted to veer the conversation off topic, in their attempt to speak about the missing and the dead in Balochistan. After the workshop, employees of the NGO pulled me aside and said that I must remain silent about those topics. They said that they did not know who was who and they could not fully trust everyone. Silence around certain issues was the best policy, they explained, because everyone had to survive. The conversational landscape–in the newspaper or media, or in a workshop–were constantly punctuated with strategic silences that had to be adhered to in order to ensure survival. In its place was the widely shared knowledge that something was happening, but what exactly it was remained unclear, a subject of strife and conflict. In moving between the unidentifiable and unclaimed corpses, the deserted and empty landscape, the stories of the missing and the dead that disappeared, and the conversations that were not had, I am attempting to capture this widespread, felt sensation of all that which was not - Page of 231 -184 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) present but rather absent. The absence inherent in this non-presence was, however, circulating as a felt presence of kashmakash. The mahaul or environment/atmosphere which defined the narratives that could be spoken and the subjectivities that could be inhabited, also included all that exceeded state-centric narratives and subject positions. Given that the iron grid narratives of friend/enemy, experienced as an “inferno,” is unable to account for all that is taking place, this affect of kashmakash or strife becomes the mahaul or environment that is the most dominant and felt in the form of the fogginess and haziness with which I opened this chapter. It is to this fogginess and haziness that I now return. III Fogginess: Confusion, Alienation, Docility The topic of violence in Balochistan repeatedly prompts questions among scholars of Pakistan, even critics of the armed forces. One Pakistani scholar said I should consider the role of the CIA in the killings within Balochistan; another said that India may be playing a role behind the scenes. After drafting a press release through a collective of political organisers within Pakistan to protest an army operation in Kalat, fellow activists questioned the decision to equate the killings of the Pakistan Army with that of the Indian Army in Kashmir who at the time had launched a new wave of violence. The sensation that all was not visible within Balochistan–a sensation that through the circulation of conspiracy theories and rumour within Pakistan sticks to some places more than others–was compounded when it came to violence in Balochistan. As the ethnographic vignettes describing the andha dhund that open this chapter demonstrate, this is a felt sensation within Balochistan. Anthropologists of violence have perceived, again and again, that inherent to sites of violence is the felt sensation of disorder. By challenging attempts to make sense out of non- sense–as political scientists or sociologists may attempt–they explore the place of disorder within sites of violence. In his study of violence in Colombia, Taussig notes: [T]his of course is what people like me are meant to do, too: find the underlying logic that will make sense of the chaos. Your disorder, my order. Find the paths through the forest and over the mountains. Talk their language. Determine their self-interest. Square it into real estate called “territory.” Then dip it all into a fixing solution like developing a photograph. But what if it’s not a system, but a “nervous system” in which order becomes disorder the moment it is perceived? At the moment the bouquet perks up, no longer just a wad of crumbled paper. (Taussig 2003, 17-18) Yet, by noting a ordered disorder, or a disordered order, anthropologists like Taussig have left open the question of the interaction between such a sensation and the forging of territory and - Page of 231 -185 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) subject. If violence at its point of effect feels like disorder–like fogginess, illegibility, an andha dhund–then how does this act as a force that simultaneously upends, but also consolidates, state rule? More specifically, how can an andha dhund act like a disciplinary force in the forging of state territory and state-defined subjectivity? As I also argue in Chapter 2, in my analysis of the state- as-jinn, it is necessary not just to communicate this affect of fogginess, as Taussig does, but to discern and delineate the specific disciplinary mechanisms at play. Indeed, tracing the disciplinarity of disorder-making reveals that it changes over time and geography, across the places and peoples of Balochistan. Parts I and II investigated how the andha dhund emerges within Balochistan: Between the constructive project of the state, which produces the “inferno”-like sensation of iron grid narratives and subjectivities, exist the gaps, fissures, and silences that produce a kashmakash or strife among those moving through sites of violence in Balochistan. Here, in Part III, I investigate the affect of the andha dhund itself, by arguing that the blind and directionless fog which circulated externally, produced confusion, alienation, and docility internally. Moving between ethnographic vignettes from the field, and an auto-ethnography from the cell in which I was held, I explore the relationship between andha dhund and these three emergent, affective states– confusion, alienation, and docility–to unpack the breakages, loneliness, and submissiveness that circulated in the wake of fogginess in and around violence in Balochistan. I end by demonstrating how these affective states indexed the displaced anxiety of the state: Anxiety, understood as fear of an unknown object, seeks and locates its object of fear in the body of suspect Baloch, who is cast as a separatist “traitor” and “terrorist.” It is at these moments of displaced anxiety that the andha dhund, or the sensation that nothing or no one can be fully known, is produced, in turn disciplining those who dwell within it. III.A. Confusion | Breakage and Disorientation On a trip to Mashkey-Gajjar in 2013, I met Kamal, a 27-year old member of the central cabinet of the BSO-Azaad. Kamal used to study sociology at the University of Balochistan in the capital of Quetta, until he was disappeared for two months by the security forces. During a long, two-hour interview that I carried out with him in a tent set up after an earthquake in 2013–which gave me access to this otherwise difficult to enter southern town of Mashkey-Gajjar–he told me about the two rooms that the interrogators would transfer him between during the time he had gone missing: There were torture rooms. So many torture rooms. One of the rooms had spirals, red and white spirals. Also on the floor. It would make us feel dizzy. Here they carried out physical - Page of 231 -186 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) torture. The other room was totally black. The black one they would just keep us in for a month, or more. Here, they would just keep us. The story of the two rooms–the dark one and the one with the spirals–was repeated by others that I interviewed during my early years reporting on the violence in Balochistan. Similarly, Dr Allah Nazar, the commander of the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) who I interviewed during a three-day visit to a mountain hideout in southern Balochistan later in 2013, also told me a story about when he was disappeared as a student. Prior to this disappearance, he was not an active militant, and many believe that the almost two-year abduction was one of the key factors that drove him “into the mountains,” to take up arms against the Pakistani state. During the 17 interrogation, he said intelligence officers promised to turn him “into a schizophrenic.” His commander of the Dasht Zone, Khalil Yaqub with the nom de guerre Sachan, similarly said that he had become “a war psycho,” before handing me pills that he regularly took to deal with his anxiety, depression, hallucination, and schizophrenia. Later, when Sachan was killed by the BLF to which he had dedicated his life, a Baloch student told me that though he had been known for the efficiency with which he carried out attacks–he was accused of killing a prominent member of the leading party in the provincial government, the National Party’s Maula Bakhsh Dasti–he was constantly suffering from “mental illness.” People like Kamal, Nazar, and Sachan would frequently be dismissed as unreliable accounts of a site of violence since they are committed and dedicated members of the separatist and armed movements. But, I want to suggest that their centrality within these movements, and thus their experiences with extraordinary violence which the state repeatedly declares is targeted against people like them, provides a perspicacious insight into the disciplinary functions of violence. A similar insight could be teased out from conversations with members of Pakistan’s armed forces if I had access to them. Scattered interactions with soldiers within Balochistan and other places along the border hint at the fact that a similar sort of breakage may be at play. In 2013, when I was leaving Mashkey-Gajjar in a charity ambulance disguised as a medical doctor, after the Pakistan Army launched an operation to take back the village from the BLF, a soldier stopped us and told us how he was scared of everything that was going on, of those who spoke languages (Balochi, Brahui) that he did not understand, and that we should be careful too. In the summer of 2014, while reporting on the 1,000,000 refugees who escaped North Waziristan, a Tribal Agency by the border to Afghanistan, and who had arrived at their first stop–a town called Bannu–young soldiers were in a state of panic. Stories of soldiers shooting into the air to try and The idea of the mountains as a safe space for fugitives from the state is well-repeated elsewhere around the world; 17 an old Kurdish saying holds that the mountains are the only friends of the Kurds. - Page of 231 -187 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) discipline the throngs of refugees were circulating, but rather as seeing this shooting as a sign of their evil or pathological character, I would like to consider the possibility that a similar sort of confusion, breakage, and disorientation was at play. During my time in Bannu, one young soldier approached me, alarmed at the thousands of people lined up for food and drink, “I have been feeding them with my own hands. I have been dropping water into their mouths so they have enough to drink. There just isn’t enough. What am I supposed to do?” In the few days that I spent at the camp in Bannu, a rumour began to circulate: At the one, bottle-necked checkpoint receiving the 1,000,000 refugees, a woman carrying her young child approached a soldier. It was said that she told him her son was dying; she had been walking three days in the heat and he had nothing to drink. Overwhelmed by the people passing through, he shooed her back. She returned a while later, with the corpse of her dead son. The soldier, overtaken by grief, shot the two men standing next to him, before turning the gun on himself. In Balochistan, this breakage seemed everywhere present. In fact, whether it was the corpses that were unidentifiable, the many women within a village like Mashkey-Gajjar to whom local doctors administered “drips” so they could deal with anxiety prompted by the sound of helicopters or troops, or the broken infrastructure–roads with potholes, dotty cellphone coverage–that dotted the landscape around Balochistan, lesions or breakages emerged as a recurring theme in Balochistan. These lesions on corpses, bodies, and landscapes break apart subjectivities and social worlds, as Elaine Scarry (1985), in her study of torture, has argued. This breaking down or destruction of subjectivities and worlds, I argue, clears the way for the construction of the Pakistani state’s iron grid subjectivities within a geopolitically-defined world. These lesions within the material, social, and subjective fabric could feel disorienting: Through the breaking down of subjectivities and worlds, it became unclear how one should make sense of spaces and peoples–or remake worlds and subjectivities. As an NGO worker said to me about students that her organisation had brought to Quetta to train in film-making: “When we work in Quetta, we need to be careful about who it is we talk to and what it is we talk about. We do not know who to trust, even among the students.” This sense of not knowing who to trust– where to orient ones relations–was compounded by the shifting alliances of both the state and separatist, Islamist, and independent militias. The Pakistani military state has a long history of operating through proxy groups, a practice that has colonial roots and one which has its earliest instantiation when armed insurgents from the Tribal Areas further up the border were sent into Kashmir after the Indian Army marched troops into Srinigar to subsume this contested territory into India. The 1980s funding of mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan further expanded the relations between the state and the proxy groups with which it cooperated. Within - Page of 231 -188 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Balochistan, Islamist groups, state militias (popularly known as “death squads”) and individuals brought in as mukhbirs or informants to the state were everywhere present, sometimes within the same family. Sometimes, existing relations–of friends and siblings–exceeded the disorienting, shadowy relations, but other times these very relations could turn and erupt in unpredictable and violent ways. Unlike the state, whose soldiers were frequently recruited from the dominant province of Punjab or the northern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province (i.e. mostly Punjabis and Pashtuns rather than Baloch) those making up the ranks of the militancy and the militias were friends and neighbours and therefore people about whom stories were known. However, by mimicking the structures of the state–after all, a separatist militancy is wanting another state different in its claimed vision but similar in form–they were, at times, evoking a similar sort of disorientation. Most notoriously, decisions to execute suspected mukhbirs or informants based on an elaborate network of counter-informants that reported to the central command of various militancy groups resulted in similar raids by militants. Mushtaq, the young boy I met on a bench in Quetta, said he did not understand the reason behind most of these executions. “Why would you kill your own?” he asked. Many I spoke to, however, said that the violence of the state continued to far outweigh that of the militants. After all, they explained, they did not know the Punjabis and Pashtuns who descended on Balochistan from afar, unknowledgeable about the place and its people and unable to speak the language. In turn, as I have argued earlier, these Punjabis and Pashtuns may be just as disoriented as the ones they are meant to patrol. One can consider the larger situation in Balochistan as a macrocosm of the andha dhund of the cell, and thus trace the ways in which the confusion which is produced in other sites of violence in and around Balochistan was also discernible within the cell. With 24-hour bright lights and a fan, the cell made it impossible to know the time of day. In an attempt to control the passing time, previous inmates had etched time dials, calendars, and sticks marking hours and days into the walls; others had etched prayers. This confusion was also apparent during my own abduction. The sensation of darkness and disorientation was produced whenever the blindfold would be placed over my eyes, whenever interrogators would give contradictory information, or whenever veiled threats were handed out. Even my sense of time and place was cast into disorientation, as the interrogators flew us to an undisclosed location and held us in a cell with a 24-hour fan and light, making it impossible to tell the time of day, or the place we were in. - Page of 231 -189 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) III.B. Alienation | No control and longing At the end of my interview with Mushtaq, the student that speak of in I.B., he told me that he felt completely alone. On the one hand stood a state everyone knew regularly picked up people to torture and kill them. On the other hand stood the militants–the Islamists and the separatists– who had also begun to mimic the state. “The Baloch end up dying either in the hands of the state, or in the hands of the BLA [Balochistan Liberation Army].” The purported leaders of the Baloch– within and outside government–would invoke people like him and his family in their attempt to position themselves on the political terrain. But that would just make Mushtaq feel used. “There are all these big people abroad, all these big people in parliament, all these big people everywhere. If they act in their own name, that is fine, but they keep on speaking the name of the Baloch. They claim our martyrs when they have died, but they do not claim us when we are alive. They are neither for Pakistan, nor for Balochistan.” When we were done, Mushtaq told me, “I just want to live a normal life.” I return to the story of Mushtaq, to unpack his loneliness in the midst of the violence, and his longing for the normal. In his investigation of alienation under capitalism, Marx speaks of how workers lose the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think and conceive of themselves as the directors of their own actions, to determine the character of said actions, to define relationships with other people, and to own the product of their own labor. In his narrative on loneliness, Mushtaq speaks of how he cannot control his immediate surroundings, in which the state and militants are scattered everywhere and can erupt without warning to undo his life. He is forced to direct himself in certain ways through certain routes through the city, to avoid checkpoints in order to operate safely and securely within the city, or as he calls it, normally. He is frequently unaware who it is he is able to trust, since the state is no longer visibly identifiable just as a Punjabi or in a uniform, but runs through his social relations in the form of mukhbirs or informants. Mushtaq is unable to engage with any form of labor, cut off as he is from the normal everyday that allows for such production. Instead, Mushtaq lives in the andha dhund, illegible to others and to himself, and unable to find a place for himself in a world that he cannot control. “I become depressed,” he said. Living in a state of violence, the imagined “normal” becomes an impossibility, and therefore precisely that which is longed for. In a critique written by Audre Lorde of white feminists, she explains that living in a constant state of violence, or a threat of it, means that the concerns one faces can come across as normal, or simple, because they just have to do with survival. “Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car - Page of 231 -190 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying.” All- consuming violence, which breaks, disorients, and produces extreme alienation, produces in people like Mushtaq a longing for that which is read as predictable, normal, and stable among other people. Against the distance created by alienation and longing, Mushtaq wants the intimacy created by familiarity and satisfaction. III.C. Docility | No will and submission In the aftermath of the death of a separatist leader in Karachi, his son found his movements tightly policed by his mother. She no longer wanted me to travel around Karachi like I did before. I left the movement, and I stopped going around the city as much as I used to before. Now, I have to call her and check in with her, and be home before a certain time. Mohsin, as the son was called, was not the only one who watched himself. A journalist who came to speak with me explained how he operated within “red lines” whenever he reported, ensuring that he did not speak about certain topics or about certain types of institutions, like the army. The NGO that I stayed at said that there were plenty of problems that they could speak of other than those to do with the violence. Editors and journalists in other parts of Pakistan had stopped reporting on Balochistan, an action that eventually and surprisingly convinced many of them that the violence had begun to decrease. In her investigation of the agency of women within the piety movement in Egypt, Saba Mahmood (2001) argues against the tendency to associate docility with the abandonment of agency. Instead, Mahmood argues that “the term literally implies the malleability required of someone to be instructed in a particular skill or knowledge–a meaning that carries less a sense of passivity, and more that of struggle, effort, exertion, and achievement. Such a way of thinking about agency draws our attention to the practical ways in which individuals work on themselves to become the willing subjects of a particular discourse. Importantly, to understand agency in this manner is neither to invoke a self-constituting autonomous subject nor subjectivity as a private space of cultivation. Rather, it draws our attention to the specific ways in which one performs a certain number of operations on one’s thoughts, body, conduct, and ways of being, in order to ‘attain a certain kind of state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’ (Foucault 1975a, 24) in accord with a particular discursive tradition.” (Mahmood 2001, 202-236) While I agree with Mahmood’s assertion that docility is active, I argue that attention to the forced subjectivities on offer in a violent site like Balochistan demands that we pay attention to how rendering oneself - Page of 231 -191 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) docile can also act as a mode of survival rather than as a mode of a liberal, autonomous subject who engages in a process of self-fashioning to willingly subject themselves to a particular discourse. In the cases that I speak of above, these operations on the self are entered into unwillingly, yet can end up having the same sort of disciplinary and self-disciplinary effect, with the explicit purpose of ensuring survival in an environment where death feels guaranteed to those who do not fall in line. One could argue that this sort of docility is too superficial, and performed, and therefore categorically different from the far deeper-going operations on the self of which Mahmood speaks. However, I refute such an argument, insisting instead that repeated performances to render oneself legible within a violent political terrain eventually sinks into the interior of persons, as they turn themselves into willing subjects of state rule within Balochistan. Giving up will, and submitting oneself to the iron grid terrain of political subjectivities available to most people within Balochistan, becomes the only way to stay alive. III Conclusion As long as there’s plenty of confusion here, I’m quite happy. — Asad Durrani, former director of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Head to Head with Mahdi Hassan, Al Jazeera At a talkshow hosted by the journalist Mahdi Hassan with the former head of the ISI, the New York Times journalist, Declan Walsh, noted that perhaps Durrani was less knowledgeable about all the activities going on within Pakistan than he was letting on. Though he was specifically commenting on the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the quote is worth reproducing here: General Durrani, with his sort of carefully calculated publication, is presenting a view of the ISI or an image of the ISI which is very prevalent in Pakistan as well, which is that it is all powerful, omnipotent, and capable of the most dastardly, conniving operations and so on. I think there is an alternative possibility here, including with the Bin Laden raid, which is actually, perhaps, a more chilling truth, which is that they didn’t know, and they had no idea. And what that actually tells you, is that things are more out of control than people like General Durrani would have you believe. Rather than either denying what Walsh said, or affirming it, Durrani announced that he was perfectly satisfied with the continued circulation of confusion: “As long as there’s plenty of confusion here, I’m quite happy.” I end with this vignette because Durrani’s quote reminds us that confusion around the state’s actions is useful. Yet, even Durrani’s quote does not fully capture the role of this confusion, - Page of 231 -192 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) which in his quote seems to indicate that it merely makes the state come across as impenetrable and invisible. This is a point that anthropologists of violence have also indicated is one of the most important disciplinary functions of fogginess: To render the state inaccessible to those who are supposed to have relations to it (Das 2004; Jeganathan 2004). I argue that the disciplinary function of this fogginess is far wider than just rendering the state inaccessible, because the foggy state now operates in and through the society which existed with some distance from it through a large network of proxy groups and informants. The descent of the state’s fogginess into society means that it is not only the state that is confusing, but that people have also become impenetrable to one another. This sort of impenetrability vis-a-vis one another means a breakage within the social body, a fragmentation of the individual nodes of this social body, and a submission to the rule of the state in order to ensure survival. When this sort of breakage, fragmentation, and submission becomes the effect of the fogginess, it becomes more difficult for a coherent, counter-hegemonic discourse to emerge that can counter the violence of the state. The effect of this is similar to that of earlier eras of state violence: Much like colonial violence targeting counter-societies of anti-colonial “tribesmen,” mullahs, spies, and communists, and the early post-colonial state’s targeting of counter-societies of pan-peripheral ethnic minorities, current state violence fractures social relations among targeted Baloch, and between them and others who may express a politics of alliance or solidarity, through the production and circulation of affects like paranoia, anxiety, and distrust. Consequently, an easily discernible, coherent, counter-hegemonic discourse and community cannot forge relations of trust to thereby emerge, or hold together. This complicates the emergences of, in Majed Akhter’s (2015) words, “a solidarity between people who reside in the colonial heartland–places like central Punjab and Karachi–with people who reside in colonised spaces, especially Balochistan.” The only truth that emerges, then, is that of the sarmachar, the Islamist, or the Pakistani patriot, as alternate forms of identification and relationality are cast into the foggy recesses of all that does not align with the narrative and subjectivities of the state. Nevertheless, Durrani’s quote does remind us that the fogginess present in and around sites of violence in Balochistan is a microcosm, or even a foreshadowing, of conditions elsewhere. Perhaps the biggest sign of this is the spread of state practices earlier concentrated in Balochistan and along the border territories to the rest of the country. In the months since I finished my fieldwork, stories of the state’s most notorious practice in Balochistan, disappearances, began spreading outwards. Workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, or MQM, a political party of Urdu-speaking migrants from India during Partition, were disappeared in large numbers during operations carried out by Rangers in the city of Karachi, just a few hours away from southern - Page of 231 -193 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Balochistan, in 2016. Once dominant within the bureaucracy, those politically active within this community now find themselves targeted by the security state. Sindhi ethno-nationalists who, unlike the Baloch, are not in armed rebellion yet find themselves on the CPEC route in the neighbouring province of Sindh, have begun to be subject to enforced disappearances. In January, 2017, five writer-activists were disappeared from cities around Pakistan for their relentless critique of the armed forces including disappearances in Balochistan. All but one are released. This sort of “spreading out” of practices from periphery to centre has been noted by scholars like Camaroff and Camaroff (2012) and McCoy (2009), who have argued that attention to state practices in the global periphery give insights into future practices in local, regional, and global centres invoking the concept of the lab which Akhter Mengal spoke of earlier. Camaroff and Camaroff (2012) have argued that structural adjustment policies implemented in developing countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s foreshadowed austerity in Europe. Meanwhile, McCoy has traced how the US Army’s occupation of Manila at the dawn of the 20th century paved the way for modern police and intelligence units that later migrated back to the mainland, shaping a new federal security apparatus that was used against ”people of color, aliens, and really any heterodox challenge to American power” during World War I. Keeping this in mind, my 18 particular study of Balochistan, and some of its wider effects in Pakistan, could be perspicacious in understanding similar shifts elsewhere. I would like to end with a poem, written by my friend Salman Haider, or Sallu Bhai as we call him affectionately, who was disappeared for three weeks in January 2017, to capture the knowledge that what is happening in Balochistan may soon happen to us all. The poem was written several months before his own disappearance, during the time I was doing my fieldwork, and was widely shared among the Baloch I was speaking with. Much like I argue that the fogginess of the state may foreshadow conditions elsewhere, this poem eerily foreshadowed Sallu Bhai’s own abduction. 19 Cummings in McCoy 2009.18 Thank you Sallu Bhai for permission to use the poem, and to Ahsan Kamal for the translation.19 - Page of 231 -194 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) Right now the friends of my friends are being disappeared Soon it will be my friends’ turn And then mine… When I become the file that my father will bring to court hearings Or the picture that my son will kiss when asked by a journalist Or the silence that my wife will wear as jewelry Or the murmurs of the prayers that my mother will utter before blowing softly on my picture Or the number that will be used to call and summon me in prison Or the sin that I never sinned Or the confession that I had signed even before I was abducted Or the sentence that was given even before I confessed Or the punishment that is meted out evenly to me and my people Or the law whose stench is nauseating to civilized noses Or the commission that dabs the perfume of such laws before convening Or the poem that the friends of my friends will write, tomorrow Yes, I am a poem A picture is imprisoned on the page opposite mine, With parted lips, one holding a blossoming kiss, the other drenched in hums of songs A framed file beside it, and in the drawer next to it??? Sins, confessions, and punishments, perhaps I cannot open that drawer For I will have to leave this page to do so And leaving a page of verse is a serious sin As grave as helping books escape locked closets ںیہ ےہر وہ ہتپ( تسود ےک ںوتسود ےریم یهبا ےہ یراب یک ںوتسود ےریم رهپ ںیم دعب ےک سا روا اگ ںونب لئاف ہو اگ ےئاج رک ےل تلادع پاب اریم ےسج ےموچ رپ ےنہک ےک یفاحص اٹیب اریم ےسج ریوصت ہو ای اگ یگ ےنہپ یویب یریم وج پچ ہو ای ےس ےنکنوھپ رپ ریوصت ںام یریم وج ٹہاڑبڑب ہو ای یگ ےئانگنگ ےلہپ ںؤاج اراکپ ںیم ےناخ دیق یسک ںیم ےس سج ددع ہو ای اگ اوہ ںیہن دزرس یهبک وج ہانگ ہو ای ےلہپ ےس ےنوہ اوغا ےن ںیم رپ سج فارتعا ہو ای ےهت ےید رک طختسد اهت اکچ اج اهکل ےلہپ ےس فارتعا سا وج ہلصیف ہو ای میسقت ربارب رپ ںوگول ےریم روا رپ ھجم وج ازس ہو ای یئگ ید رک نهگ ےنهتن ہتفای بیذہت ےس دناسب یک سج نوناق ہو ای ںیہ ےتاهک رپ زیم رک کڑهچ مویفرپ اک نوناق سا وج نشیمک ہو ای ےہ اتھٹیب اگ ےهکل لک تسود اک تسود ےریم وج مظن ہو ای ںوہ مظن کیا ںیم ںاہ ےہ دیق ریوصت کیا رپ ےحفص ےلاو ےنماس ےریم اوہ uهک ہسوب رپ هچاب کیا یک ںوٹنوہ ےلھک هدا ےک سج ےہ یئوہ یڑهتل ےس ٹہانگنگ یرسود روا ےہ زارد یلاو ھتاس روا ےہ لئاف کیا ںیم میرف ربارب ےک سا ؟؟؟ںیم ںوہ ےئگ ےهکر ازس روا فارتعا ہانگ دیاش اتکس لوھک ںیہن زارد ہو ںیم اگ ےڑپ انلکن ےس ےحفص ےنپا ےهجم ےیل ےک سا ےہ مرج انلکن رہاب ےس ںوحفص اک ںومظن نیگنس حرط یک ےناورک اہر ےس ںویرا}ا وک ںوباتک… - Page of 231 -195 Chapter 4 | Confusion : State Destruction in Contemporary Pakistani Balochistan (1988-present) - Page of 231 -196 Chapter 5 | Conclusion Chapter 5 | Conclusion To live, I must be a musafir, a traveler. — Hammal, Quetta Hammal meets me with his friend, Pervaiz, in the gardens of the University of Balochistan. Both are organisers with the BSO-Azaad; both are musafir living in Quetta. They tell me that travel permits them to escape the extremity of the places they are from, where their involvement with the BSO-Azaad is known and therefore recognised, or misrecognised. “I need to run far away from a lot of things,” says Pervaiz, “so I can live.” And they tell me that the life of a musafir allows them “to do something.” For Pervaiz, that doing something is building a movement: “If I am talking about changes, if I say that I am trying to build a movement, if I am wanting that Balochistan, then I must move around among people who are my own.” Hammal and Pervaiz were among those musafir who traveled to weave together disparate places and peoples within one movement, the movement for Balochistan. Much like their sangat, or comrades, they spoke of working towards articulating a zehen, nafsiyat, shaoor, or zameer–a mind, psychology, consciousness, or ideology–against that of the state. Yet, there were other musafir who traveled with other purposes: Like Nasrullah and Mama Qadeer of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons who, unlike Hammal and Pervaiz, did not counter, but rather engaged, the state through its own institutions, including its police stations, courts, and hospitals. And, like Mohsin and his cousin Arsalan in Karachi, the son and nephew of a slain separatist leader whose mothers want them safe, who moved through the city merely to avoid being seen, heard, or felt by a state so ready to categorise, or miscategorise, them. Yet, whatever the form of travel, all had as their purpose survival, or life itself. I began this dissertation with a focus on the violence of states, which through the dispersion and destruction of places and peoples seek to fix and construct territory and subjects. In Part I, I revisit and review my argument. Now, I end with the figure of the musafir, or the recurring theme of fugitive travel, where targeted Baloch seek to counter, engage, and avoid this very violence “to live.” In Part II, I turn to the recurring theme of the fugitive places and peoples that constantly eluded the state, and explain why it points to a future trajectory of scholarship. - Page of 231 -197 Chapter 5 | Conclusion I Containment, Censuring, and Confusion: State Destruction in Balochistan This dissertation has argued the following: While the construction of state, territory, and subjects requires a rendering of society as legible to create it and make it manipulable for the purposes of rule, the destruction of politics, places and peoples renders other networks transgressing and opposing the state’s version of society illegible in order to dismantle and disperse them. These “counter-societies” consist of collective identities that transgress and resist the state’s version of society proper: e.g. through the shared identity of the anti-colonial rebel, the revolutionary communist, or the ethno-nationalist. In turn, society proper is constituted by state-sanctioned identities considered necessary for rule: like the “tribal” colonial subject or the loyal and growth- minded Pakistani citizen. The mode through which the state obscures counter-societies differs from era to era. In the colonial era the state attempted to contain these counter-societies through a designation of them as “fanatical” to secure Balochistan as a buffer zone; in the early post- colonial era the state attempted to censor them as “traitors,” a category that persists today, to secure Pakistan’s integrity and sovereignty; and in the contemporary era the state attempts to confuse coherent counter-movements to state power in order to ensure a prosperous and growth- oriented future. The recalibration of state modes of destruction, on the one hand, follows Balochistan’s place in a larger colonial and imperial world ordered first around the British Raj and later around the Cold War, post-9/11 US hegemony, and the rise of China. On the other hand, this recalibration moves along with the rhythms and changes of social life, including longer- standing cycles and circuits of migration as well as the forging of new connections first in an early post-colonial era of radio, newspapers, new transportation networks and schools, and next in a contemporary era of social media and securitised growth. By examining the recalibration of sovereign violence during the entire time that the modern state has existed in Balochistan–over a period of 180 years–I trace how the colonial and post-colonial state has policed the boundaries of political life. This insight into what is and is not allowed to be up for discussion within the body politic, and the ways in which certain questions about what it means to live together are excluded, provides not only an insight into Balochistan, or an academic insight into state-making and state rule, but also an insight into how all states establish hegemony through the exclusion of alternative imaginations and collectivities, and a political insight crucial for movements seeking to counter violent marginalisation perpetrated by those who rule them. By centring methodologies of destruction within Balochistan, this dissertation has intervened in a bifurcated public terrain, where questions of violence tend to split between those who reify pre-existing categories of knowing violence, inadvertently reproducing tropes of instability, and - Page of 231 -198 Chapter 5 | Conclusion those who–fearful of igniting such clichés–circumvent the question of violence altogether. Arguing that this bifurcation is a sign of a debate that is mired in a notion of a disordered state of nature and an ordered state of law as oppositional formations, where the former is the “necessary opposite and origin point” of and for the latter (Das and Poole 2004, 8), this dissertation is positioned amidst literature arguing that seemingly oppositional entities like order and disorder or stability and instability are co-imbricated (Benjamin 1942; Fanon 1961; Tilly 1985). This is followed by a critical engagement with literature on violence and the state, through an application of the heuristic of destruction, which allows a shift in focus from violence and state produces to what it destroys (Foucault 1975a, 1977; Scott 1998; Mitchell 1988; Cohn 1996; Dirks 2001; Sharma and Gupta 2002). To make this shift, the dissertation turns to literature which questions the replacement of coercion by consent (Benjamin 1942; Agamben 1998, 2008; Taussig 1992, 1997; Massad 2001; Aretxaga 2005; Das and Poole 2004; Shah and Kelly 2006; Khalili and Schwedler 2010) and yet makes two interventions. Firstly, it mobilises an anthropological insight garnered from sites of violence: Namely, that the state is reincarnated not only in its rational, legible, order- making mode but in its magical, illegible, and disorder-making ones. However, it also widens the scope of this assertion in two ways. First, by arguing that these magical modes can be discerned and delineated, or be given an analytical language, through a placing of it in a history and context against notions of it as “opaque and mysterious” (Taussig 1997, 5). And, it centres counter-societies sought destroyed by subverting Gramsci-inspired studies of articulation to focus, instead, on dis- articulation–and, by turning to writings from collective lifeworlds subject to destruction which remind us that lifeworlds persist despite attempts at annihilation (Moten and Harney 2013; Campt 2014; Anzalduá 1987; Öcalan 2017a, 2017b). This theoretical incision is made through the three, substantial empirical chapters that make up this dissertation. Each chapter begins by rehearsing the state’s constructive project, or how the colonial, early post-colonial, and contemporary states have made sense of and ruled Balochistan. In the colonial era, when the modern state first colonised Balochistan to establish itself, the state engaged in territorially bordering and enclosing its places into defined territories, and counting and categorising its peoples into defined ethnicities and “tribes.” Through these two parallel processes, a system of indirect rule was set up in Balochistan’s southern, Baloch- dominated areas (Swidler 2014). Indirect rule meant that the British governed through a network of appointed “tribal” heads (the khan, sardar, tumandar) and their various sub-heads (the mukaddams, waderas, and motabirs). Thus, the colonial state’s desirable subject was a loyal “tribesmen” subservient to his “tribal” head. The colonial state’s cartographic imagination sat uncomfortably with pre-colonial tributary and segmentary relationship (Marsden & Hopkins - Page of 231 -199 Chapter 5 | Conclusion 2012, 38). And, existing linguistic and “tribal” communities forced into discrete and hierarchical identities sat oddly with their porous and flexible social formations (Mamdani 2010, 104-106). Similarly, in the post-colonial era, I review how the new Pakistani state attempted to transform a buffered territory with (mostly) indirectly ruled “tribal” subjects in the colonial era, into a bordered province of citizen subjects in the postcolonial period. Colonial-era understandings of Balochistan as a marginal but strategic territory persisted, as did a reading of its subjects as backward “tribals.” Yet, a post-colonial imperative to integrate the peoples and places of Balochistan into a central state dominated by Punjabis in the military and mohajirs in the bureaucracy, as well as a homogenous citizenry defined by the Urdu-speaking Muslim, introduced important changes into the state’s relationship to Balochistan. Thus, the early post- colonial state’s desirable subject was a centrist Urdu-speaking citizen. Much like in the colonial era, the state’s policing of geographic boundaries sat uncomfortably with historical and new trans-geographical relations and travels of Baloch figures and communities; meanwhile, the state’s constructedness of Pakistan’s desirable citizen subject was constantly thrown into question through Baloch demanding linguistic, cultural, political, and economic decentralisation. Finally, in the contemporary era, I trace changes in the state’s constructive project within Balochistan after 1988, identifying the pursuit of securitised growth as its priority. Opening with an ethnographic vignette, where Baloch and those who organised in sympathy with them describe Balochistan as a “laboratory,” “army camp,” and “showcase”, I proceed to lay out both post-9/11 securitisation as well as the mega-projects of the Pakistani state, especially under Pervez Musharraf ’s military regime. This time, the state’s imperative to propel Pakistan into a more prosperous future meant that the desirable Pakistani citizen subject is also one invested in the state’s dreams of economic growth and development–especially in the aftermath of China’s 2014 investment into an economic corridor that runs through Balochistan. I argue, through my ethnographic material, that the state’s desires forged a political terrain which locked in legible subjectivities, meaning that Baloch could only be read through the lens of either the Pakistani patriot, the Baloch separatist, or the Islamist militant. Much like the earlier two eras reviewed, these iron-grid subjectivities left most Baloch transgressing and exceeding what they felt were violent categorisations. My review of the state’s constructive projects in each chapter is followed by an investigation of how the state in each period sought to destroy places and peoples within Balochistan that transgressed state-sanctioned territory and subjectivity. To do so, I closely read 6000 pages of colonial cases and telegraphs for a study of colonial violence, 2000 pages of speeches, court cases, and pamphlets issued by the state as well as speeches, pamphlets, and magazines published by Baloch movements for a study of early post-colonial violence. And, I - Page of 231 -200 Chapter 5 | Conclusion base my investigation of contemporary violence on 10 months of interviews and ethnographic fieldwork between January-September 2016. In the colonial era, I investigate events in and around a military expedition launched in 1918, against Balochistan’s northeastern Baloch–primarily, though not only, the Marri and Khetrani “tribes”–after they refused conscription into the Imperial Army and, subsequently, launched attacks on British officers and outposts. In the lead-up to this investigation, I review cases tried under the Murderous Outrages Act (MOA), which allowed colonial officers to detain, prosecute, and execute those designated as “fanatics” without trial, and if necessary burn their bodies to contain the spread of “infection”’ in order to argue that the 1918 expedition was not exceptional, but embedded in everyday acts of violence. What emerges is that the British categorised all those who did not adhere to the colonial logic of the backward, subservient “tribal” subject loyal only to its particular section as a ghazi or “fanatic” who had fallen victim to its own irrational passions, and gone “beyond reason.” To destroy the “infection” of the “fanatic” in a Balochistan considered to be a buffer zone marginal to the British Raj but strategic in keeping foreign incursions at bay, it was sought contained through encirclement and blockades; its “infection” was sought “erased”; and its existing peoples forced to subject themselves to the very colonial governing logic that the state had decided they had surpassed, namely that of the “tribe” with its “backward” “tribesmen” subservient to their sardar. In the post-colonial era I analyse events in and around the 1973-’77 insurgency and counterinsurgency operation. This operation followed the dismissal by the sitting prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, of Balochistan’s first democratically-elected provincial government; in protest, a broad constellation of Baloch and their left-wing sympathisers took up arms against the central government. In the run-up to this analysis I review a well-trodden tale of state violence retold by Baloch nationalists: Beginning with the annexation of the largest territory in Balochistan, namely Kalat State, in 1948 and the decision by Prince Abdul Karim to launch and armed militancy, this tale repeats other moments of state violence and heroic tales of armed resistance. I then argue: While destructive policies of containment were sufficient in the colonial era, where Balochistan was a marginal buffer zone, a post-colonial imperative to integrate the peoples and places of Balochistan necessitated a shift towards destructive policies of censuring. The figure of the colonial-era “fanatic” certainly haunted the figure of the “traitor” from Balochistan, who was cast as a backward “tribal”–but this figure was in turn also cast as separatist and foreign-funded. Much like the category of the irrational and over-emotional “fanatic” obscured identities and collectivities that transgressed and exceeded state-sanctioned “tribes” and ethnicities organising against colonial governance, the category of the irredentist and foreign-funded “traitor” shrouded alternative imaginations of state and political belonging–or of Pakistan, and what it could mean - Page of 231 -201 Chapter 5 | Conclusion to be Pakistani. I review how the three main oppositional fronts in which Baloch were involved– the National Awami Party, the Baloch Student Organisation, and the armed Baloch Popular Liberation Front–were certainly not backward and “tribal,” but also not secessionist and driven by foreign powers. Instead, they were proffering an alternate imagination of both Pakistan and the world as multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist, against the uni-national Urdu-speaking and Punjabi dominated, capitalist, and US-aligned state and its global networks. Finally, I turn my attention to contemporary state violence, characterised by harassment, abductions, torture, “encounter” or extra-judicial killings, kill-and-dumps, and military operations. I open with driving through a ghost town in my final week of fieldwork, to capture the affect of the andha dhund, the blind and directionless fog, or the overwhelming sensation that no one and nothing could be fully known. I then argue that while the colonial state aimed to contain Baloch “fanaticism” in order to secure the region as a buffer zone, and the postcolonial state sought to censure counter-collectives of Baloch nationalists and urban leftists who sought to imagine Pakistan as multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist, the contemporary state’s attempts to speed up Pakistan’s economic growth and propel the country into a more prosperous future (through mega-projects like ports, roads, railways, and gas pipelines in Balochistan) necessitates violence that generates confusion. The excessive amounts of violence to which Balochistan has been subject, as well as the clear evidence of this violence that has been reported by independent human rights organisations, media outlets, and more, is nevertheless repeatedly and frequently subject to doubt. This is reflected in the writings of journalists who continue to refer to the violence in Balochistan as “forgotten,” “secret,” “dirty,” and “murky” ; in a state that 1 2 3 4 through its institutions repeatedly ask those who are affected by it to file witness statements again and again; and in a Pakistani media landscape that is overflowing both with evidence of the violence and accusations that the Baloch are foreign-funded separatist “tribals” blinded by their sardars. Through references to my ethnographic fieldwork, I trace the contour and content of this confusion, manifested in the andha dhund, and find that it exists in between the iron-grid subjectivities of friend and enemies of Pakistan, or of the legible categories of the Pakistani United Kingdom, House of Commons, International Affairs and Defense Section, and Jon Lunn. “In Brief: 1 Baluchistan - Pakistan's forgotten conflict.” In Brief: Baluchistan - Pakistan's forgotten conflict, ser. SN06106, House of Commons Library, 2011, pp. 1–3. SN06106. Walsh, Declan. “Pakistan's secret dirty war.” The Guardian, 29 Mar. 2011, www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/29/2 balochistan-pakistans-secret-dirty-war. Tatchell, Peter. “Pakistan’s Secret, Dirty Killings in Balochistan.” Huffington Post UK, 4 Jul. 2011, http://3 www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-g-tatchell/pakistan-killings_b_889869.html. In this article, Pakistani journalist Cyril Almeida writes, “Balochistan is a murky place where murky things happen 4 for murky reasons.” Almeida, Cyril. “Blood and Balochistan.” Dawn, 26 Apr. 2015, www.dawn.com/news/1178214. - Page of 231 -202 Chapter 5 | Conclusion patriot, the Islamist militant, and the Baloch separatist. It is in these places where I found gaps, fissures, and silences–sites of illegibility–where most people live and die. In turn, these illegible sites in between the hyper-legible subject positions were productive of شکمشک, kashmakash, an Urdu word for struggle, strife, pulling, hauling, dilemma, perplexity, altercation, and scuffle, a word that was used by the niece of a slain Baloch, who described the state her aunt was thrown into when she was unable to identify her brother. In turn, the confused andha dhund–or the overwhelming sensation that nothing and no one can be fully known–produced confused, alienated, and docile subjects necessary for rule. The recalibration of state modes of destruction was in part a result of the Balochistan’s place in a larger world ordering. In the colonial era, Balochistan was marginal and strategic, with its state, territory, and subjects constructed for the purposes of protecting the British Empire from the threat of German, Ottoman, and Russian attack. In the early post-colonial era, the Pakistani state’s alignments with the US during the Cold War, as well as Shah-era Iran, meant that counter- hegemonic Baloch aligned with communist figures and networks presented a threat that had to be done away with. These shifts in Balochistan’s place within larger world-making efforts by states everywhere meant that the state in Balochistan had access to different types of punitive technologies making possible different types of destruction. This recalibration was also a result of both long-standing social genealogies and newer circulations of people and ideas. In the colonial era, historical circuits of migration fit uneasily with colonial boundary- and subject-making. Meanwhile, the flourishing of new modes of connectivity in the post-1947 period–through radio, newspapers, new transportation networks, and schools–meant that both Baloch nationalism, and communist ideologies, spread through social life within Balochistan. Finally, the Baloch are notoriously active on social media, with much evidence of state violence shared there. These sorts of global and social shifts meant the state had both different capacities to deploy violence, and different challenges in dispersing counter-hegemonic fronts. Thus, in the colonial era the marginality of Balochistan meant access (eventually) to bomber planes and some troops that could at most contain “recalcitrant tribesman” in an attempt to cut off longer-standing relations between Balochistan and those outside its designated colonial border. Meanwhile, in the early post-colonial era access to new modes of counter-insurgency warfare and the challenges of flourishing Baloch nationalist and communist politics meant that censoring places and peoples within the post-colonial border were necessary. Finally, post-9/11 access to some of the most sophisticated surveillance technology in the world, combined with Baloch communities who have access to social media accounts to circulate evidence on violence, means the state has developed new kinds of destructive interventions which seek to confuse. Of course, in each - Page of 231 -203 Chapter 5 | Conclusion period, previous modes of destruction persist–colonial containment during post-colonial censuring, both during contemporary confusion–yet these shifts indicate that we must study violence in exceptionalised border territories with more nuance, and that the challenges facing movements seeking a more democratic dispensation (or perhaps just more space to exist) shift in ways that require attention if they are to be overcome. Indeed, through a tracing of the shifting modes of destruction over a period of 180 years, I end up mapping state-sanctioned boundaries of political life. In the colonial period, the state allocated the space of the shahi jirga–a “tribal” supra-council–as the only place where differences could be settled, including differences with colonial officers. Of course, who could take part in the jirga as well as which issues could be brought up were regulated. As a result, anyone who operated outside the colonial state’s definition of the properly political were rendered “fanatical,” a charge which justified the unleashing of extraordinary violence. Similarly, in the early post- colonial period, demands for multi-nationalism, an equal economic and political share in resources, and the forging of anti-imperialist relations with other groups or states were constituted as antithetical to the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan. All those who attempted to raise this political demands were similarly charged with being enemies of the state, through the category of the “traitor.” Finally, the many Baloch collectivities launching a critique of the state’s mega-projects, or the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, are automatically read through the lens of backwardness and, again, treason, rather than sources of alternate imaginations of belonging and aspiration. Indeed, underneath and around state-ordered territories of the bordered colonial buffer and post-colonial province and growth engine, and state-sanctioned societies of colonial “tribal” and post-colonial citizen subjects pursuing economic growth, lie scattered many other ways places could have been ordered, and people could have lived together. After all, as Chantal Mouffe (2005, 7; 2008, 3) argues, the political always contains the “ever present possibility of antagonism” or a reminder that “things could always have been otherwise and [that] every order is predicated on the exclusion of other possibilities.” State violence not only does away with these alternate imaginations and collectivities, it also attempts to shroud memories of them through tropes of “fanaticism,” “treason,” and “terrorism.” By going to the site of violence, on landscapes, communities, and bodies, I trace what hides behind these crude categorisations which allow the state to unleash its violence. This not only gives us insight into Balochistan, or into academic theorisations of the post-colonial state; it also gives us an insight into state violence elsewhere in the period. It reminds us that violence is not flat and unitary across historical time (or, perhaps, even across geography) and it gives us political insight into the challenges movements face as they attempt to expand political life against state attempts at containment, censuring, and confusion. - Page of 231 -204 Chapter 5 | Conclusion II Musafir and Movements: Towards That Which Eludes Destruction Behind all the three moments of violence I found lurking the figure of the musafir and movements, who repeatedly and consistently escaped a destructive state’s attempt at capture. During the 1918 military expedition, this figure was manifested in the travels of Peshawari and Kandahari mullahs, in Ottoman and German spies, or in the likes of Misri Khan, a Khetrani named as one of the “ringleaders” in colonial documents, who was inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution and managed to escape to Afghanistan by hiding with neighbouring Pashtuns. In the 1973-’77 counterinsurgency operation, this figure included those leaders and members of NAP, the BSO, and the BFLP who did not merely evade arrest, but continued to repeat their visions of a multi-national, socialist, and anti-imperialist political collectivity against that of the state and a world that seemed so hostile to it. And, in the contemporary era, it manifested itself in the stories of people like Hammal and Pervaiz, Nasrullah and Mama Qadeer, and Mohsin and Arsalan– whom I speak about in the opening of this concluding chapter. Or, perhaps far more incisively, in the stories of women like Mehlab, Aisha, Hani, Tayabba, Sultana, Rani, Ruzhn, and others: Female separatists who have left their homes, traversing not just the enforced divide between private and public, but the state-enforced fracturing of the terrain within Balochistan which obstructs travel itself, to imagine a different kind of world where not only the Baloch, but women, have a room of their own. The musafir and movements articulate a counter-hegemonic imagination because they encountered others, sought separated from them, during historical moments of containment, censuring, and confusion. These encounters across lines of difference– of ethnic, “tribal,” ideological, gendered, and other divides–break open the possibility to forge relations which are not ordered according to a state that seeks hegemony, and thus breaks open the possibility for imagining another way to live together. It is no wonder that today the Pakistani state does not wish anyone to go to Balochistan. Such a regulation of travel and movement means that new imaginations of political collectivity will struggle to emerge. That is precisely why people who continue to travel there despite warnings and harassment, present such a threat to the state. That is why the now deceased human rights advocate, Asma Jahangir, presented such a risk to the state; when they asked her why she kept kept on going to Balochistan, she answered, “This is my country, I will go wherever I like.” Indeed, the lurking and eruptive figures of the musafir and movements, and the encounters with which they engaged, are a reminder that state violence has never managed to destroy counter-identities and collectivities. Again and again, within the archives, the interviews, and the ethnographic field, I found rumours, dreams, utterances, memories, histories, remnants, shards, residues, and fragments of all that which was sought destroyed, but which managed to - Page of 231 -205 Chapter 5 | Conclusion persist despite attempts at annihilation. During my fieldwork, one Baloch shared a story about a 5 “fanatic” whose body the Raj burnt before dumping his ashes into a gutter; yet, when the British left in 1947, the community remembered where the ashes had been dumped, and merely rebuilt a shrine in the very place they had been thrown. Similarly, during my first reporting trips as a journalist into Balochistan in 2010, I found traces of nationalist and socialist political lifeworlds scattered in and around Balochistan, through references to Mir Gul Khan Nasir, Frantz Fanon, Mir Chakar Rind, and Paulo Freire. These scattered traces were what set me on a quest to find past imaginations and collectives that persisted despite attempts by the Pakistani state to do away with them. Finally, despite the state’s current attempt to obfuscate clear evidence of its own atrocities, the memory of violence stays first and foremost with those who have lost their loved ones, but also in their collective lives. So, I met women who showed me patterns of embroidery they had developed to remember those who had died in the hands of the Pakistani state, or to remember fighters currently in the mountains. And, I met zikri interspersing their devotional hymns with songs to the missing and the dead. Violence by states, though extensive and intensive, are never complete; instead, collectives keep them safe in sites of illegibility, where they cannot be accessed by a state that has such narrow readings of this place and its peoples. There they live on in abeyance, sometimes protected from the vagaries of sovereign violence, sometimes waiting for another generation to bring them back into the realm of a far broader visibility. Following musafir and movements, and all that which eludes destruction, represents the other, crucial side of any story of state violence. While this dissertation could not pursue this trajectory of scholarship, and political engagement, it will constitute the work that I hope both I, and others, can carry out. After all, to think and live against the violent anxiety of the state in places like Balochistan, we must be willing to treasure memories of movements, by living the life of musafir. I would like to thank Dr. Yael Navaro, Dr. Mezna Qato, Dr. Chana Morgenstern, Dr. Sertaç Sehikoglu, and (soon to 5 be Dr.) Ayse Su Polat for our enriching discussions around our joint project, Archives of the Disappeared, for such a beautiful articulation of this concept. Also see Navaro 2017. - Page of 231 -206 Bibliography Primary Sources Archival Documents Accounts of events leading up to the Marri Rising, attacks on Gumaz on the 19th-20th February, 1918 and subsequent advance of the Marri Punitive Force to Mamand and Kahan. 30 May 1918. Records of the Attorney to the Governor General in Balochistan. 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