MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Pakistan
Index
The final major ethnic group in Pakistan is the Baloch.
A
comparatively small group, the Baloch, like the Pakhtuns,
are a
tribal population whose original territory extends beyond
the
national borders. Over 70 percent of the Baloch live in
Pakistan,
with the remainder in Iran and Afghanistan. The Baloch
trace
their roots to tribes migrating eastward from around
Aleppo, in
Syria, before the Christian era. Sometime between the
sixth
century and the fourteenth century, they migrated to the
region
of present-day Balochistan.
Baloch speak Balochi, part of the Iranian group of
Indo-
European languages. Linguistic evidence indicates the
origin of
Balochi to be in the pre-Christian Medean or Parthian
civilizations. The modern form has incorporated elements
from
Persian, Sindhi, Arabic, and a number of other languages.
Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Baloch
intellectuals
used Persian and Urdu scripts to transcribe Balochi into
written
form. Since Pakistan's independence and with the rise of
Baloch
nationalism, Baloch have favored the Nastaliq script, an
adaptation of Arabic script.
The land of Balochistan is exceedingly inhospitable;
geologists have even compared the landscape with Mars. A
Pakhtu
expression, reflecting on ethnic relations as well as on
geography, describes Balochistan as "the dump where Allah
shot
the rubbish of creation." Subsistence is hard in this
environment
and is achieved by pastoral nomadism, dryland and
irrigated
agriculture, and fishing. Dryland farming is marginal,
although
it is a mainstay for many seminomadic herders. The Baloch
plant
drought-resistant grains in earthen embankments where
scanty
rainfall has accumulated.
Irrigated farming is concentrated near oases in two
kinds of
systems: open channels that bring water from a few
riverbeds, and
subsurface drains (karez) that channel groundwater
downward to planted fields. However, such irrigation and
cultivation are extremely limited, forcing most Baloch to
eke out
a living by herding or farming in the marginal hinterland.
Sheep and goats are the main herd animals. The herder
typically consumes the dairy products these animals
produce and
sells the meat and wool. Pastoralists organize themselves
around
water sources; wells are the property of specific camps.
Kinship and social relations reflect the exigencies of
dealing with the harsh physical environment. Like other
Pakistanis, Baloch reckon descent patrilineally. Lineages,
however, play a minimal role in the lives of most Baloch.
They
are notably flexible in arrangements with both family and
friends. Ideally, a man should maintain close ties with
relatives
in his father's line, but in practice most relations are
left to
the discretion of the individual, and there is wide
variation. It
is typical for lineages to split and fragment, often
because of
disputes with close kin over matters such as inheritance
and bad
relations within marriages. Most Baloch treat both
mother's and
father's kin as a pool of potential assistance to be
called on as
the occasion demands. Again, the precariousness of
subsistence
favors having the widest possible circle of friends and
relatives.
Marriage patterns embody this kind of flexibility. As
in many
parts of West Asia, Baloch say that they prefer to marry
their
cousins. Actually, however, marriage choices are dictated
by
pragmatic considerations. Residence, the complex means of
access
to agricultural land, and the centrality of water rights,
coupled
with uncertain water supply, all favor flexibility in the
choice
of in-laws. The plethora of land tenure arrangements tends
to
limit the value of marrying one's cousin, a marriage
pattern that
functions to keep land in the family in other parts of
Pakistan.
The majority of Baloch are Hanafi Sunnis, but there is
a
community of an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 Zikri Baloch,
who
live in the coastal Makran area and in Karachi. The Zikris
believe in the Messiah Nur Pak, whose teaching supersede
those of
the Prophet Muhammad. Their beliefs, considered heretical,
have
led to intermittent Sunni repression of their community
since its
founding in the fifteenth century.
Only among the coastal Baloch is marriage between
cousins
common; there, nearly two-thirds of married couples are
first
cousins. The coastal Baloch are in greater contact with
non-
Baloch and manifest a concomitantly greater sense of group
solidarity. For them, being "unified amongst ourselves" is
a
particularly potent cultural ideal. Because they are
Zikris, they
have a limited pool of eligible mates and do not generally
marry
outside of the group of Zikri Baloch.
Baloch society is stratified and has been characterized
as
"feudal militarism." The significant social tie is that
between a
leader, the hakim, and his retinue, consisting of
pastoralists, agriculturists, lower-level leaders, and
lower-
level tenant farmers and descendants of former slaves
(hizmatkar). Suprafamily groups formed through
patrilineal
descent are significant mostly for the elite hakim,
whose
concern for rivalry and politics is not shared by other
groups.
The basic exchange traditionally underlying this
elaborate
system was the hakim's offer of booty or property
rights
in return for support in battle. In more modern times,
various
favors are generally traded for votes, but the structure
of the
system--the participation of the lower-level leaders and
the
hizmatkar through patron-client ties--remains much
the
same.
In common with the neighboring Pakhtuns, Baloch are
deeply
committed to maintaining their personal honor, showing
generous
hospitality to guests, and giving protection to those who
seek it
of them. However, the prototypical relationship is that
between
the leader and his minions. A Baloch suffers no loss of
status in
submitting to another. Although competition for scarce
water and
land resources characterizes social relations between
minor
leaders and hizmatkar, competition coexists with a
deeply
held belief in the virtues of sharing and cooperation.
Sharing
creates networks of obligation among herders, mutual aid
being an
insurance policy in the face of a precarious livelihood.
Baloch tribal structure concentrates power in the hands
of
local tribal leaders. The British played local rivals
against
each other in a policy of indirect rule, as they did with
the
Pakhtun tribes to the north--and virtually throughout the
subcontinent. In essence, the British offered local
autonomy and
subsidies to rulers in exchange for access to the border
with
Afghanistan. In the early 1990s, local leaders maintained
this
policy to a large extent, continuing to exploit the
endemic
anarchy, whether local, provincial, or national.
There have been sporadic separatist movements in
Balochistan
since independence. Baloch have long been accustomed to
indirect
rule, a policy that leaves local elites with a substantial
measure of autonomy. The 1970s saw a precipitous
deterioration in
relations between Balochistan and the central government,
however. The violent confrontation between Baloch
insurgents and
the Pakistani military in the mid-1970s was particularly
brutal
(see Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and A New Constitutional System
, ch. 1).
The conflict touched the lives of most Baloch and
politicized
those long accustomed to accepting the status quo.
Original
demands for greater regional autonomy escalated into a
full-scale
movement aimed at restructuring the government along
confederal
lines. By the mid-1980s, traditional cleavages among
hakim, minor leaders, and hizmatkar had
declined in
importance as the Baloch increasingly thought of
themselves as a
unified group in opposition to Pakistani, or Punjabi,
hegemony.
Zia ul-Haq's overthrow of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977
was
welcomed by many in Balochistan, in contrast to popular
sentiment
in the rest of the country, which was appalled by the
extraconstitutional act. As relations with the central
government
began to smooth out, however, the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in December 1979, placing nearly the entire
northern
border of Balochistan on alert as a frontline area.
Balochistan's landscape in the 1980s changed markedly
as
Afghan refugee camps were established throughout the
northern
parts of the province. In many instances, temporary mud
housing
eventually became transformed into concrete structures.
The
refugees also caused the demographic balance to change as
ethnic
Pakhtuns--many refugees from Afghanistan--came to settle
in
Balochistan.
Although social conditions in rural areas have changed
little
for most Baloch, two scandals in the early 1990s caused
the
region to receive much attention. The first grew out of
reports
that some owners of brick kilns in remote parts of the
province
had labor practices that resembled slavery, complete with
indenturing workers to loans that were passed down through
generations. The second was the charge that young boys
were being
recruited from the most remote parts of the province to be
"camel
boys" in races in the Persian Gulf states. The screaming
of the
young boys, who are tied to the backs of racing camels,
supposedly scares the animals into running faster. The
young boys
often are maimed or killed in the process. Impoverished
parents
unwittingly accepted payment on the promise that their son
would
be employed as an apprentice.
Because of the area's limited population and its low
population density levels, there has been little
development in
Balochistan except in Quetta, the capital of the province.
The
rural programs that exist stem mostly from the efforts of
the
Agha Khan Rural Support Development Project, an NGO that
has
expanded into rural Balochistan on the basis of its
successes in
the mountains around Gilgit, in the far north of the
country.
This project works on organizing disparate communities
into local
support groups and has had particular success in reaching
women
in remote areas of Balochistan.
Data as of April 1994
|
|