The grotesque, remorseless and relentless slaughter of the Shiite Hazaras in Balochistan is yet another grim episode that lays bare the escalating conflagration in the region and the extreme complexity the national question and the sectarian strife have plunged into. This was an act of barbarity that is the outcome of a rotten state and system that has miserably failed to bring any peace, prosperity or stability to the region. Rather, there is mounting evidence that some sections of the state are involved in perpetuating this catastrophe. The Hazaras are being systematically targeted and killed for almost a decade now. None of the perpetrators have been arrested or prosecuted. The complicity of the religious terrorist outfits created by the state to expedite its ever-increasing coercion is blatantly clear.
As Pakistani capitalism became more and more rotten due to the burgeoning economic and social crisis, the state has become more brittle and erratic with its mounting repression and terror. Most of these fanatical outfits were created to execute operations for the interests of sections of the ruling classes and bosses of the state. These non-state actors were after all Frankenstein monsters that were manufactured to act in areas that were beyond the writ of the state. The monstrosities carried out by these bigots recruited, trained and financed by the imperialists, state agencies and regimes like the reactionary Saudi monarchy, were bred and indoctrinated in the religious and sectarian mythology. However, with the rapidly changing situations and drastic policy shifts of the imperialists and their bogeys in Pakistan, it became problematic and complicated to keep these rogue elements on the leash.
Hence these fanatical organisations atomized, with the elements splitting away becoming even more bestial and frenzied. With massive amounts of black money generated through the drug trade and other criminal activities, this jihadi terrorism became a very lucrative enterprise. Upstart warlords and drug barons arose in this war of attrition started by the imperialists after the Afghan revolution of 1978. Those who split first and foremost attacked the masters who had created them. Not only that, this splintering and antagonisms also polarised sections of the state that were often confronting each other in the covert operations in which they were using these fanatical organisations. These intrinsic conflicts within the state institutions have badly damaged the cohesion and the chain of command of the armed forces.
The other aspect is the mineral wealth and strategic geography of Balochistan that has become a curse for its inhabitants. The international and regional powers have their own imperial designs. Like lustful hungry vultures, they are descending and tearing apart the body politic of Balochistan. This has led to imperialist proxy wars where not only the states but also multinational corporations are in conflict to boost their chunk of the plunder of the region’s resources. On the one hand, there is a covert conflict between the Chinese vested interests and US imperialism, not only for the resources but for strategic access to the Gwadar port and the Mekran coast. Similarly, there is a conflict between the Saudi regime and the Iranian mullah aristocracy for regional hegemony. It is a known reality that some of those Wahabi and Deobandi organizations, the splinter groups of which are being accused of the incessant genocide of the Shiite Hazaras, were originally created, sponsored and nurtured by the Saudi intelligence agency.
The oppressed people of Balochistan, especially the Hazaras, are being slaughtered in this sectarian frenzy. The Baloch masses have suffered national repression and class exploitation for more than six decades. Balochistan is geographically the largest, and resource-wise the richest province of Pakistan. Yet its people are suffering from extreme poverty and misery. The main state of pre-partition Balochistan, Kalat, was inducted into Pakistan through palatial intrigue and brute military force. Hence there has been a resistance against the national oppression of the Pakistani state ever since its creation. The Baloch youth and political activists have been involved in several armed struggles against the repression of the state. It is the longest lasting insurgency in Pakistan and the resistance has refused to budge. The struggle in the 1970s was brutally crushed by the army with the support of the closest collaborator of US imperialism, the Shah of Iran, who was restored to this peacock throne by imperialism in the 1950s after an illegal putsch against the popular left nationalist leader Mohammad Mossadeq. More than 5,000 Baloch perished in the liberation struggle. In the current conflict, 8,000 Baloch political activists and youth have been abducted by the ‘agencies’, according to the Baloch nationalists. If the Baloch cannot win independence, the military cannot defeat them either.
But the irony of the struggle is that not only does the Pakistani state try to buy off some of the leaders in mainstream politics, the various imperialist intruders try to penetrate the resistance and use it for their vested interests. In 1978, one of the legendary leaders of the Baloch resistance, Sher Mohammad Marri, popularly known as General Sheroff, told a visiting group of revolutionary students: “We are fighting for an independent socialist Balochistan. Our aim is to use it to spread revolutionary socialism throughout the region.” This statement sheds some light on the ideological basis and character of the national liberation struggle of the 1970s. Today, the struggle against state oppression is being ripped apart by conflicts on the basis of sectarianism and ethnicity. The strategists of the state strive to aggravate such conflicts to break the resistance. Imperialists have never been friends of the toiling masses of the oppressed nationalities and this is particularly true in the case of Balochistan. The right of self-determination, including secession, is a fundamental right of the oppressed masses of Balochistan. No one can or should force them to live in a state the majority of the Baloch masses do not want to be inhabitants of. But to defeat the capitalist state of oppression the movement needs to unite all those sections of society that are being exploited and repressed by it. This necessitates the linkage of the struggle for national liberation to the class struggle. It will create a formidable force to overthrow this system of class exploitation and national oppression. Lenin expounded the relationship between the national and class struggle. He wrote in 1920: “The right of self-determination is, of course, a democratic and not a socialist principle. But genuinely, democratic principles are supported and realised in our era only by the revolutionary proletariat; it is for this very reason that they interface with socialist tasks.”
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]