Listen to Gulzar
A high-profile Baloch separatist leader is speaking his mind. Founder of banned BNA outfit, Gulzar Imam, alias Shambay, who was arrested last month, regrets his taking up of arms, and believes that Balochistan’s rights can only be achieved through constitutional and political means. This is a welcome gesture from a hardcore militant, and one hopes that his comrades on the run will take a cue from his new-found realisation. His call for laying down arms to other insurgents was backed with some deep thinking, as he said, “…we started this war without understanding the state” and that the “armed war further complicated” the desolated province’s problems rather than resolving them.
Gulzar now has enough time to reflect back on his past deeds, and he is doing so. This is why, while talking to the Press along with provincial authorities in his captivity, he summed up by saying it was a painful experience all those years, and regrets that he was on the wrong track. That perception is quite a valid synopsis, and dilates deeply as to how the restive province had suffered all these decades in the absence of a socio-political solution to its miseries. Most of the problems are owing to lack of an institutional framework to talk it out, and the impulsive approach by those wielding the gun to resort to highhandedness. This has led to devastation in all walks of life, and the people are in abject poverty and deprivation.
Balochistan has a typical human-centric fissure to address, and that can only come through a sustained dialogue process. The topography of the region and the tribal customs make it altogether impossible to seek a way out, if militancy is chosen as the way forward. This is what happened with the Baloch, as they became hostage to forces of inertia who took up arms against the state and government, and literally sabotaged the texture of political participation. Gulzar’s conscience is in need of being disseminated, so that Balochistan can reconcile to make a leap forward in national integration.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 25th, 2023.
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