The ghosts of Balochistan

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A convoy of armoured vehicles snakes through the jagged, sun-scorched terrain of Balochistan. The dust rises in angry swirls, as if the land itself resents the intrusion. The men inside — soldiers, bureaucrats, intelligence officers — grip their rifles, eyes scanning the ridges. They know they are being watched. From above, from below, from every unseen corner of this restless province. They know, too, that the road they are building will be bombed. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. It always happens.

For Pakistan, Balochistan is a riddle wrapped in fire — a province vast in land, sparse in people, and endless in rebellion. The story goes back to 1948 when Kalat, the princely state that once ruled over much of Balochistan, was folded into Pakistan. Since then, every decade has seen an uprising, and every uprising has been crushed. But force does not solve Balochistan's problem. It only buries it, like a landmine, waiting to detonate.

Balochistan is Pakistan's most resource-rich province, yet its people remain the poorest. The gas that fuels homes in Punjab barely reaches the villages where it is extracted. The gold and copper beneath its soil, the deep-sea port of Gwadar, the sprawling deserts crisscrossed by highways of Chinese ambition — all of it should have turned Balochistan into the country's economic heartbeat. Instead, it has been turned into an outpost of discontent, a place where resentment festers and armed men roam.

For the state, Balochistan is an unrelenting security challenge. It borders Iran and Afghanistan, it hosts China's grandest investment in Pakistan, and it is home to an insurgency that has grown increasingly brutal. The military sees it as a territory to be controlled, a battlefield where separatists, terrorists and foreign agents must be neutralised.

But there are two sets of men with guns. The state's soldiers, and the Baloch insurgents - fractured, divided, but united in their belief that Pakistan is not their home. Some want independence, others just want revenge for a father taken in the middle of the night, a brother who disappeared from a checkpoint, a village burned in a counterinsurgency sweep.

The state has tried to pacify Balochistan in fits and starts. Economic packages, promises of autonomy, handshakes with tribal leaders. But always, the cycle returns to violence. The reason is simple: the people of Balochistan have never been given control over their own destiny. Elections are manipulated, political leaders either co-opted or crushed, and every attempt at self-rule ends in a noose.

The insurgency, too, is trapped in its own cycle. The Baloch separatists wage a war they cannot win. Their fight is one of desperation, and like all desperate fights, it takes its toll on those caught in the middle. Kidnappings, assassinations and bombings have hardened the battle lines, making dialogue seem impossible.

And yet, there is no military solution to Balochistan. The state cannot bomb its way out of this conflict. If Pakistan wants peace, it must abandon the illusion that Balochistan can be controlled through force alone. Justice must come first. A reckoning with past atrocities. A return of the disappeared. A real stake for the people in their own land.

There is a famous Balochi proverb: Wahe Watan O Hushkien Dar (The fatherland, even barren, is worth anything). To the outsider, Balochistan's mountains may seem lifeless, its vast stretches of land desolate. But to those who belong to it, this soil is everything. Its worth is not in the gold hidden beneath but in the people who walk upon it, who refuse to let it be taken from them, who see value not in contracts and minerals but in dignity and belonging. What happens when even that is stripped away?

The convoy keeps moving, its wheels grinding over gravel, over history, over unfulfilled promises. And somewhere, in the distance, another young man will pick up a rifle, convinced that there is no other way. Until there is.

Balochistan. From where can we mine now, a light to thin your darkness?