Balochistan needs the 3-D solution

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Terror is a tool, not a form of war. It is meant to scare people into submission as perpetrators use the space to impose a manner of thought and action meant to serve their cause. Usually, tools of terror and their execution will inherently create their own counter in the subject population, but a state will anyway react keeping its people safe.

In repeated cycles of action and reaction the perpetrators will find relevance in their regime, against the state and in the hearts and minds of the people they intend to dominate. Persisted with, over time, rebels will find enough sympathy — and cadres — to turn the process into an insurgency. Balochistan has an insurgency, plain and simple, where people — most if not all — relate to the aim and objectives of the insurgents.

The state should have broken the cycle of insurgency in its formative stages but hubris and catastrophic dismissiveness of sociopolitical and socioeconomic drivers in a sparsely populated region have left the nation on the verge of an open war. We are now 'almost' in a state of war with the rebels - a progressive deterioration from the stages of disillusionment, alienation, agitation, violence, terror, insurgency to war. We missed each of these till we must now decide: 'shall we war' or is there another way?

The state is not the military alone but the total apparatus including governments, parliaments and the plethora of decision-making levels. While contending terror, insurgency and war fall in the palette of the military the initial stages in this cycle of sociopolitical decay point to a comprehensive political failure. A nation which has 1971 in its unfortunate baggage failed to read and remedy the situation before it got worse at every stage.

This is how it shaped over decades. Initial reluctance to join independent Pakistan may have been a false start but it needed utmost attention of the national leadership to institute common stakes with the Baloch people. Worse we persisted with the neglect as the new nation failed to find stability in leadership and its purpose losing people to their whims.

By the time, Ayub Khan arrogated power to himself for a durable length of time the Baloch had lost hope in the new state and were only looked at with suspicion triggering missteps that have only multiplied the pain. Alienation was almost complete. This cemented the disenchantment of the Baloch with the state.

Balochistan suffers from a serious formative discrepancy. It is almost forty percent of Pakistan, area-wise, but less than six percent its population. This lack of density makes vast swathes unreachable and loosely connected. This isn't unique. Mongolia is 'twice' as large as Pakistan with a population 'one-fifth of Balochistan'.

Yet, it has found its ways to survive, live and sustain in peace sandwiched between Russia and China. Balochistan's annualised per capita income stands at barely USD 1100 while that of Mongolia is over USD 16000. For the twenty years between 2000 to 2019, Balochistan's GDP grew at only 2.1 per cent annually while its population grew at 3.2 per cent. Other indices are equally abysmal. Where, how and who went wrong?

The struggle for political power and control of its resources remains an exclusive 'game of thrones' of the Baloch elites while the fast-educating middle class remains disenfranchised on the fringe. The common Baloch continues to suffer from ruthless poverty and state-people disconnect. If it has translated into widespread alienation, it isn't anomalous.

A province as vast is divided into just three administrative units making effective governance impossible. Tribal chieftains retain control of their fiefs and must be appeased for any meaningful administrative activity. Levies, the law-enforcement militia, is subject to the control and influence of the tribal head than the administrator. Ninety per cent of Balochistan, by law, is under Levies to please the Sardars. Meanwhile, the rebel thrives with impunity.

The recent spate of terror incidents in the province collate in an apparent assault meant to saturate defences in time and space and reinforce the divisions and the chasms in the social, political and administrative make-up. Together with an incessant spate of terror launched by TTP in KP it aims to mimic a widespread war.

However, each must be segregated by its intent, origin and formulation. KP needs a counter-terror strategy only which could be the reinstitution of a rehashed National Action Plan first formulated in 2014. Terrorism is imposed intending to subjugate people while an insurgency sustains with people's support and sympathy. The people of KP are state's strength and must be drafted as a bulwark against the TTP terrorists aiming to disrupt their lives.

Balochistan's case is different needing comprehensive treatment. The three-D option includes deterrence, dialogue and development. Deterrence is the state's full response against those who by their own admission have taken up arms against the state and attack its resources.

There cannot be any expedience or leniency to such elements. Any talks with the neighbours who harbour the insurgents may accompany the kinetic application of the state's power to eliminate those who threaten the state with a view to dismember it. They must be nipped where they exist.

Dialogue should only be with the fence-sitters not yet fully incorporated in insurgent philosophy, even if disaffected. The principle of creating common stakes must underwrite such an engagement. Words or money is not what will wean them away, but amelioration of their ideational and aspirational disillusionment will.

Widespread development is the key to building common stakes between the state and its people. If resources are insufficient, those must be found or redirected to touch every aspect of socioeconomic and infrastructure uplift of a province that has been lain to neglect for too long. Tourism is another area of attention that can not only earn money but populate empty spaces with infrastructure and recreational activities.

Pakistan should take a leaf out of Dubai and Saudi Arabia at making deserts attractive and tourist friendly. Merely sticking to CPEC and Mining only reinforces the perception that the state steals from the province what is precious without sufficient return to the people. A time-bound development plan far bigger than any other province must be instituted for Balochistan to bring it at par, if not better, with the rest of the country.

Finally, we need to return power back to the people and their chosen representatives. It will mean fresh elections in the province which should be totally free, without fear, among all who abide by the Constitution of the country. There should be no favourites. We need to let more germane leadership, away from the Sardars, emerge and assume stewardship of a province where the state has been guilty for far too long of cultivating the chieftains only. Perhaps, that could be the first step in restoring order in Balochistan and securing Pakistan.