The distressing events following Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti’s death on Aug. 26 have created an environment of acute distrust between the government and the people in Pakistan. Quite apart from one’s political leanings and views about Nawab Bugti, it is the dreadful, almost surreal, developments following the death that are causing concern.
Nawab Bugti was a controversial politician — charismatic, well read, and occasionally brutal. While clamoring for Baloch rights from the federal government, Bugti conceded perhaps only minimal rights to those he ruled with an iron hand, a militia and a jail. But now it’s a different story.
He could now be a martyr in the multiple narratives of Pakistan — the narrative of the state versus the politicians, of the people versus the state, of the Baloch fighting the domination of Punjab. In the way Nawab Bugti died, Islamabad has lost its voice in all the narratives.
There is no denying that President Musharraf understood both the evolution and the political dimension of the Balochistan question.
No government in Islamabad had contributed to the development of Balochistan as much as Musharraf’s. While the previous administrations identified the issues, Musharraf pushed for practical steps — dams, schools, electricity, more royalty, more development budgets, larger presence of the Baloch in the security agencies etc. He led the political initiatives too — despite his initial damaging comments about hitting the “Baloch insurgents.”
When this round of the crisis erupted in 2004 he fully backed the formation and the work of the parliamentary Committee on Balochistan. The committee’s report was supported by Nawab Bugti and human rights activists like Asma Jehangir. Musharraf promised to implement its recommendations. In fact when it came to the crunch, the negotiations on pickets and posts, Musharraf supported the civilian interlocutors despite strong objections from certain groups in the security establishment.
The negotiations did produce a breakthrough in April 2005 over the question of a military cantonment, and simultaneous removal of the Bugti pickets and Frontier Constabulary posts.
But then two developments — including the stepped up sabotage activities by the Balochistan Liberation Front — derailed the political dialogue. Distrust replaced the fragile trust that was beginning to emerge between the Baloch leaders and the federal government. While the government’s civilian interlocutors and initially Musharraf himself understood the need to continue the political track, a section within the security forces believed in the option of force. With sabotage on the rise and endless intelligence reports claiming the Indian, the Afghan and many other “hands” in all of this, the political track was abandoned. That was the cardinal error. Islamabad should have stayed with both tracks. Confronted with sabotage and armed opponents, the Pakistan Army saw Balochistan as a “do-or-die” battleground.
Today after Bugti’s death Islamabad has no allies in the Baloch political landscape, apart from the anti-Bugti tribals it was cultivating. As if the death of Nawab Bugti was not itself a devastating blow to this government’s own agenda of “provincial harmony”, they lost no time in making a further hash of matters. The most appalling was the circumstances in which Bugti was buried on Sept. 1.
A padlocked box was lowered in the grave. No family member was present. According to media reports, some of the government-sponsored political opponents of Bugti, some officials and a group of journalists participated in the last rites. The body was not handed over to his family; his six daughters and two sons were not able to have a last glimpse of their father.
God knows what prompted the government to take the indecent and callous decision of denying the body to the Bugti family. National security considerations, politicization of the funeral or a botched up operation?
There are many questions that require answers.
The Bugti killing does not mean dams of discontent will burst tomorrow. It is about space for consensus shrinking in Pakistan’s polity, it is about Pakistan’s soul not being at peace with itself. It does raise the fundamental question of how will Pakistan manage the relations between the federation and its constituent units.
For now let us mourn the demise of a politician whose trajectory began as a young man deferentially bending forward to shake hands with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan in 1947 and ended with his death as an outlaw in the mountains of his own land. This should not have been the case. If such things are not to disfigure the Pakistani landscape any further, we need compassion, fair play and a credibly functioning democratic system.
