Daily Times

Quetta, located in the Northern region of Balochistan near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, is the ninth largest city of Pakistan. The city lies on the Bolan Pass route and is the only historical gateway from Central Asia to South Asia, having a total area of 2,656 Sq. km. It is a trade and communication center between the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Quetta, being the provincial capital of Balochistan, is home to around 1.001 million people from diverse ethnicities and linguistic groups. People from every corner of Balochistan have shifted to Quetta because of the availability of educational and health facilities.

Our distinct face features make us more vulnerable to these targets. In other words, on political, economic, religious and social grounds, the Hazaras are always subjected to a series of perpetual discrimination and assault, based on their uniqueness of face features different to other natives of the province. Hazaras being there at the other side of the religious affiliation as compared to the majority of the province adds more to their plight in the long run of sectarian militancy. The sad part of the story is that local settlers of the province, both Baloch and Pashtuns, albeit shares a long history of occupying and living on one and single geography with Hazaras, jumps to the narrative from above and never restrain from fueling to the process of ‘otherization’. This was more visible on one misfortune occasion when a Pashtun young boy was murdered by few individuals and a wholesome terrorization of the community was grounded in the province.

In Addition to that, the past two decades are of high consideration when seeing it in the context of sectarian militancy in Pakistan. Although, the issue of sectarian militancy is spread across the country since the seeds were sown during the era of General Zia ul Haq, it took an ugly turn and presents a more painful picture when seen the intensity in Quetta, and that too against the Hazaras, with their definite face features and their ‘segregated’ zones subjecting them more likely to easy targets. The ongoing violence in the name of sectarian militancy adds more to the strained circumstances. Religion is used interchangeably with Hazara identity, and has always been used to malign the structural oppression against Hazara as an ‘ethnic community’, and not a ‘religious community’.

‘Ghettoization’ of everything

Consequently, the ghettoization and ‘separated’ zones in the name of security made us suffer today in different other perspectives as well. The interaction and mobility with non-Hazaras is being intentionally avoided. This in result has adversely affected all walks of life. All the economy of the community is restricted to these separated zones. An auto driver or a plumber or a shopkeeper, all have to remain for a small community in their ‘separated’ zones than going outside and dealing with a large number outside the community might incentivize them. But fearing target killing, they try to remain in, and sometimes charge their fairs higher to meet their domestic ends.

I remember once when I needed to rectify some of my documents from local board office which was probably on a twenty minutes’ distance from my ‘separated’ zone, a Hazara auto driver told that he will charge 800. On my inquiry about the amount, he told that he won’t be able to find a Hazara sawari back to Hazara town, and that he is unable to drive through the city accept these ‘separated’ zones. High likely, their traveling areas are from and to Hazara town/Mariabad. The two ways are misconceptions where if a non-Hazara enters our area we will be stared at as an alien and vice versa.

These weren’t the only experiences that I faced but many alike. When using local transport, going to office, university or to a bazaar for shopping etc. the “POLICING”, both on community level and governmental level, is quite usual. On various other occasions, even mobile phones were used to make videos of us, whenever traveling with a non Hazara, for the purpose to viral it on social media platforms on different community pages, using as a leverage for character assassination. Not surprised to share that I am not the only individual facing this but it also extends to other female friends in my circle who have an abundance of the stories alike.

Resultantly, policing is being understood as an obligation for male genders of the society. When facing all these issues the question came into my mind that what if a man travels with a non Hazara, would there be someone to ask them or are they answerable with whom they are traveling? The answer is obviously NO. Hence, the problem of patriarchy and gender authorization is wider across the globe, but being a female belonging to third world society in a city of Balochistan province Quetta, it would be sufficient to say, or at least, accept the conception of being ‘double colonized’. Additionally, if I added an identity of a Hazara woman, it might get a series of colonization which is continually painting the identity of a Hazara woman with multi layers. Whereas, authoritarian behavior increases with the provided situation as double patriarchy.

This debate is a bit wider if I discuss why the issue is happening, but it all relates to history, political, geographical and the infrastructural perspectives. The endogenous/internal inability of the unit to deal with shocks is referred to socioeconomic vulnerability. Risk exposure and other socioeconomic factors influence endogenous incapacity. It has the potential to lead to a situation of violent conflict when combined with other contextual factors and it can be one of the impacts of segregation in infrastructure. Lack of opportunity in Balochistan as whole is another topic, but even seeking some opportunities out of segregated areas in the terms of Quetta uplifts/ increases the social and economic vulnerabilities while being confined within the community.

While writing these lines, and problematizing Hazara ‘identity’ and the changing shape (and reshape) of society from above, I found myself reminiscent of the situation the famous political philosopher and French West Indian Psychiatrist, Frantz Fanon, has discussed in his monographic account ‘The Wretched of the Earth’. Not to jump into historical jargons, Fanon looks into the processes of construction of a colonial psych and the reshaping of thoughts that produces ambiguities and blurred boundaries for the one at receiving hand. It derails the development of thought and so directly affects communal harmony and mutual consensus, relating to particular issues. It maximizes internal disharmony and leads to more tribal warfare. Thus, what Fanon emphasizes here is that a ‘subject’ needs to direct his anger to a direction that should reflect the materiality of the conflict and ambiguities around, rather than adding more to the internal conflict. Besides, the connectivity of the parts descending from a single whole determines the preparedness of a community in order to lessen the risks of internal insecurity and focuses more on production and counter narrative.

In our case, the most significant factor is that each individual from the community if asked to write his/her story, one would find an abundance of stories reflecting and emanating from this very structural and procession effects of a system which are managing each unit with its differences the way it fits to the larger framework of policy making. Parallel to that, Hazara male and women, who are working in any field of life, have gone through the brunt of these tiny differences to others. Each story would account a new understanding of the plight these individuals had experienced one way or the other. Moreover, I would encourage, and would love to read the stories of individuals fighting against the multi-layered and multifaceted plight of Hazaras as a whole.