Qadir Baloch’s plea for conquering hearts and minds
From some “politically disturbed” areas, rockets were fired at helicopters carrying relief goods.
ISLAMABAD:
Abdul Qadir Baloch has every reason to feel proud at being an exceptional son of Balochistan – one who reached the highest ranks of the army. For the past five-plus years, though, he has been active in full time politics and being a prominent PML-N legislator must know the ‘narrative’ his party wants to project these days.
Only the other day, none other than Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had told the National Assembly without any guilt or shame that the federal government was finding it extremely difficult to rescue and supply relief to the earthquake victims in Balochistan. From some “politically disturbed” areas, rockets were fired at helicopters carrying relief goods. That forced the government to attempt aerial drops via C-130s.
Abdul Qadir Baloch has gone to quake-hit areas to monitor relief operations for the federal government. After a two-day visit to these areas he was still not sure whether the alienated and angry activists associated with an outfit led by Dr Allah Nazar in vast swathes of territory in Mashkai district were denying access to helicopters with relief goods by lobbying rockets at them.
There also were reports that a team of voluntary doctors could not reach the affected areas due to a life-threatening incident of firing. Such reports have discouraged many other groups of volunteers to reach out to victims. Speaking in the National Assembly, Qadir also dismissed the said story. He rather insisted that a team of volunteers was fired at in an area, “but that was due to some personal enmity,” perhaps with some individual of the said group.
With absolute confidence of a proud soldier, Qadir Baloch spoke for long to tell us that the overwhelming majority of the quake-victims told him in choked voices that the army and FC should lead the relief and rescue activity. He rather spotted a ‘historic opportunity’ in their pleas. The army, he believed, can win the “hearts and minds” of the people of Balochistan by reaching out to earthquake victims. In the long term, it may lead to nullify the influences that outfits like the one headed by Dr Allah Nazar currently savor in vast pockets of Balochi-speaking belt.
I do not have any empirical knowledge to question the ex-general’s assessment. Since Wednesday morning, however, I continue taking phone calls from some journalists and political activists in Balochistan who claim that “exaggerated and mostly incorrect reports were being deliberately spread” to create the feeling as if the alienated and angry groups of the Baloch youth did not want the state of Pakistan to come to the rescue of quake victims. “The idea is to portray them as cruel and insensitive to the misery of quake victims”. Thanks to the fog that conflict situations create all across the world, I cannot affirm their claims without dispassionate double checks.
The use of “winning hearts and minds” by General (retd) Baloch did make me feel bad, though. After all, the same expression was first used by a famous administrator of the British Raj, Sandeman, for dealing with the Baloch people. After his appointment as the commander of the US-led war in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, claimed pursuing the same strategy.
Discussing Balochistan, the PML-N leaders proudly keep saying that instead of appointing someone from his own party, which emerged as the single largest party in the Baluchistan Assembly, Nawaz Sharif worked hard to ensure the election of Dr Malik as the provincial chief minister. Malik had once been a hard-core ‘nationalist,’ but gradually grew into a pragmatist. All of us sincerely presumed that his election would help build bridges to the alienated and angry youth of Balochistan. For various reasons, he does not seem to have taken off. No wonder, people like General (retd) Qadir Baloch have now started looking up to the army for “winning hearts and minds” in the province.
He, however, was not the only person from the PML-N benches who proved that the party headed by Nawaz Sharif sorely lacked both a well-defined narrative as well as a script. Throughout the two-week session that ended Friday, the National Assembly discussed but the presidential address that Asif Ali Zardari had delivered before a joint parliamentary sitting. Chaudhry Birjees Tahir, a minister, was assigned to make a ‘winding up speech’ before adoption of the customary ‘vote of thanks’ for this address. To prepare the house for this vote, Tahir was insanely provocative to put Zardari in the club of dictatorial presidents in khaki. Like Ayub, Zia and Musharraf, he kept insisting, “Zardari ruined and demeaned the prestige of the president’s office.” The PPP backbenchers could only shout with hurt hearts in return and failed to fathom that Tahir had lynched their much trumpeted claim of ‘national reconciliation.’
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2013.
Abdul Qadir Baloch has every reason to feel proud at being an exceptional son of Balochistan – one who reached the highest ranks of the army. For the past five-plus years, though, he has been active in full time politics and being a prominent PML-N legislator must know the ‘narrative’ his party wants to project these days.
Only the other day, none other than Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had told the National Assembly without any guilt or shame that the federal government was finding it extremely difficult to rescue and supply relief to the earthquake victims in Balochistan. From some “politically disturbed” areas, rockets were fired at helicopters carrying relief goods. That forced the government to attempt aerial drops via C-130s.
Abdul Qadir Baloch has gone to quake-hit areas to monitor relief operations for the federal government. After a two-day visit to these areas he was still not sure whether the alienated and angry activists associated with an outfit led by Dr Allah Nazar in vast swathes of territory in Mashkai district were denying access to helicopters with relief goods by lobbying rockets at them.
There also were reports that a team of voluntary doctors could not reach the affected areas due to a life-threatening incident of firing. Such reports have discouraged many other groups of volunteers to reach out to victims. Speaking in the National Assembly, Qadir also dismissed the said story. He rather insisted that a team of volunteers was fired at in an area, “but that was due to some personal enmity,” perhaps with some individual of the said group.
With absolute confidence of a proud soldier, Qadir Baloch spoke for long to tell us that the overwhelming majority of the quake-victims told him in choked voices that the army and FC should lead the relief and rescue activity. He rather spotted a ‘historic opportunity’ in their pleas. The army, he believed, can win the “hearts and minds” of the people of Balochistan by reaching out to earthquake victims. In the long term, it may lead to nullify the influences that outfits like the one headed by Dr Allah Nazar currently savor in vast pockets of Balochi-speaking belt.
I do not have any empirical knowledge to question the ex-general’s assessment. Since Wednesday morning, however, I continue taking phone calls from some journalists and political activists in Balochistan who claim that “exaggerated and mostly incorrect reports were being deliberately spread” to create the feeling as if the alienated and angry groups of the Baloch youth did not want the state of Pakistan to come to the rescue of quake victims. “The idea is to portray them as cruel and insensitive to the misery of quake victims”. Thanks to the fog that conflict situations create all across the world, I cannot affirm their claims without dispassionate double checks.
The use of “winning hearts and minds” by General (retd) Baloch did make me feel bad, though. After all, the same expression was first used by a famous administrator of the British Raj, Sandeman, for dealing with the Baloch people. After his appointment as the commander of the US-led war in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, claimed pursuing the same strategy.
Discussing Balochistan, the PML-N leaders proudly keep saying that instead of appointing someone from his own party, which emerged as the single largest party in the Baluchistan Assembly, Nawaz Sharif worked hard to ensure the election of Dr Malik as the provincial chief minister. Malik had once been a hard-core ‘nationalist,’ but gradually grew into a pragmatist. All of us sincerely presumed that his election would help build bridges to the alienated and angry youth of Balochistan. For various reasons, he does not seem to have taken off. No wonder, people like General (retd) Qadir Baloch have now started looking up to the army for “winning hearts and minds” in the province.
He, however, was not the only person from the PML-N benches who proved that the party headed by Nawaz Sharif sorely lacked both a well-defined narrative as well as a script. Throughout the two-week session that ended Friday, the National Assembly discussed but the presidential address that Asif Ali Zardari had delivered before a joint parliamentary sitting. Chaudhry Birjees Tahir, a minister, was assigned to make a ‘winding up speech’ before adoption of the customary ‘vote of thanks’ for this address. To prepare the house for this vote, Tahir was insanely provocative to put Zardari in the club of dictatorial presidents in khaki. Like Ayub, Zia and Musharraf, he kept insisting, “Zardari ruined and demeaned the prestige of the president’s office.” The PPP backbenchers could only shout with hurt hearts in return and failed to fathom that Tahir had lynched their much trumpeted claim of ‘national reconciliation.’
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2013.