Inordinate interest in Balochistan—Part II
Subarno Chattarji
With monitoring by Shubha Singh
(a) Protest and violence in Pakistan:
Print and television media in India covered the protests and violence that followed Bugti¿s death in great detail. The violence within was seen as evidence of what the Times of India defined as Pakistan taking ¿one more step towards becoming a failed state¿ (¿Dangerous Neighbour,¿ August 29). On August 28 Parul Malhotra stated that "Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf is under pressure from within his country and without¿ (¿India, Baloch put Mush under pressure,¿ CNN-IBN). I look at the ¿pressure¿ from India in the next section but it is important to note here how the two are conjoined to further imply that Pakistan is a weak state in need of political-moral hectoring from its more virtuous neighbour.
Malhotra went on to describe a split between the Pakistani army and civil society: ¿And at home, the General may have praised the Pakistan army for killing popular Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, but he now has a violent protest on his hands that is fast spreading. A nationwide strike has been called on Friday. Baloch capital Quetta, the centre of the protests is now under indefinite curfew.¿ Details of number of people killed, arrested, or injured, the setting of shops and banks on fire, the closing of the Quetta-Karachi and Quetta-Punjab highway, and that ¿people defied curfew orders voicing their anger over Bugti¿s killing¿ were reported as the ¿Baloch fury spread¿.
Print media was equally insistent in its reporting of the reactions to Bugti¿s death. The Asian Age carried a PTI report under the heading ¿Balochistan on Fire¿ with ¿Tribal Chief Killed, Riots in Quetta, Trains Cancelled¿ as the strap line (August 27). The Indian Express headline read ¿Balochistan in flames after Pak Army kills top leader¿ and the double strap line said ¿Bugti Killed in Missile Attack. Red alert across Pak, curfew in Quetta after riots; Pak opposition warns of 1971-like situation¿ (August 27).
(b) The 1971 parallel and secessionist movements:
The reference to 1971 made by Pakistan opposition leaders was repeated by Malhotra: ¿Some Opposition leaders even warn that Pakistan could see a repeat of 1971 when east Bengal broke away to form Bangladesh but for that a fractious opposition will need to overcome the power of the gun.¿ For India 1971 was a moment of great triumph and the frequent references to that event indicate more than a cautious hope that it will be repeated, if only the Pakistan opposition were to get its act together. While reporting what some opposition leaders in Pakistan said, Indian media bias was evident in the way it commented on those statements.
In an editorial on 29 August the Asian Age pontificated: ¿Discontent in a state if not addressed sensibly and sympathetically, or worse, if it sought to be crushed by the use of force, may turn into disaffection which sometimes can even lead to DIVision and disintegration of a nation. Who should know it better than the rulers of Pakistan which was dismembered in 1971 precisely because the powers that be in West Pakistan cynically ignored the genuine aspirations of the then East Pakistan? […] The fact that a government had to launch an armed attack on its own region to eliminate a political leader is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Pakistan¿ (¿A Political Assassination¿). The way in which the lessons of 1971 are smugly interwoven with the idea of political failure within Pakistan is stunning simply because the editorial assumes a vantage moral position, totally obliterating parallel contexts within India, as if India has survived intact purely on the basis of democratic negotiations with various secessionist movements. Note also how Imtiaz Alam¿s ¿villain¿ was transformed into a ¿political leader¿ by the Asian Age, the fluidity of appellations indicative of the numerous media manipulations of the personage and legacy of Bugti.
A lack of historical self-reflection was also available in the Times of India International section of 1 September, which had a ready reckoner of dissident movements in Pakistan. The headline ¿Perils of Pakistan¿ was followed by ¿What¿s on Pakistan¿s insurgency map¿. The article listed FATA/Waziristan, Sindh, Northern Areas, Balochistan, and Pakistan heartland with a paragraph on the dissident activity in each region. It said that ¿subnationalist movements and insurgencies now exist in three of Pakistan¿s four provinces.¿ A map of India at the height of the Khalistan movement, Kashmir, insurgencies in various north eastern states, and Maoist incursions would not have looked too pretty either, nor for that matter would a contemporary map. Neither would the histories of the suppression of these movements make pleasant reading. None of these contexts exist in the media frame because the focus is on India¿s tottering neighbour and by contrast on India¿s shining democracy.
(c) Bugti¿s body:
The dubious nature of Pakistani governance was emphasized by Indian media scrutiny of the controversy surrounding Bugti¿s body and subsequent death rites. On 29 August ibnlive.com carried a piece, ¿Mystery surrounds Bugti¿s death¿: ¿While the alleged killing of Baloch tribal chieftain Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti has sparked off much political turmoil and also kicked off a war of words between India and Pakistan, Bugti¿s body remains mysteriously elusive. […] The Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), which Bugti headed, said the government was creating confusion about the whereabouts of Bugti¿s body.¿ Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf was quoted as asserting that the Bugti¿s body was not in the Combined Military Hospital and that ¿"all possible efforts are being made to find the body in the cave"¿.
On 30 August CNN-IBN in ¿Army¿s new theory on Bugti killing¿ cited Pakistan¿s defence spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan who said ¿Bugti was killed when a cave where he was hiding caved in¿. The spokesman ¿denied that Bugti was killed in the Army firing¿. Bugti¿s son, Talal, responded by accusing ¿the government of lying¿. ibnlive.com resurrected the Bugti body controversy on 4 September: ¿"We still can¿t believe that the body buried in Dera Bugti on Friday was that of my father. If it were his body, then why wasn¿t anyone, including the media, shown the Nawab¿s face," he [Jamil Bugti] said. This has prompted the government to offer to conduct an immediate DNA test¿ (¿Buried body may not be Bugti¿s: Son¿). The airing of conspiracy theories and trial by media were intended primarily to show up the undemocratic nature of the Pakistani state.
Sandwiched between the assertions and accusations was a reference to General Musharraf visiting the hill resort of Murree. ¿Addressing a gathering, he [Musharraf] tried to soothe the Baloch sentiment outraged over the killing of Bugti. He promised financial help to the province. "Just love Pakistan," he urged the Balochis.¿ Musharraf¿s exhortation was disingenuous and his facile comment was deliberately highlighted to show the disconnect between the President and his people. That Balochis may find it difficult to ¿Just love Pakistan¿ was amply highlighted in the media.
The Hindu¿s Nirupama Subramanian in ¿Violence continues to rock Balochistan¿ provided details of Bugti¿s funeral, the rampage afterwards, and that the ¿delay by the Government in producing Bugti¿s body added fuel to the fire¿ (29 August). She cited one Sherbaz Khan Mazari, ¿a close friend of Bugti¿ who said that ¿the story of the collapsing cave was "creative fiction"¿. This is just one example of the print media mirroring television obsession with Bugti¿s body.
(d) The bin Laden angle:
While the body controversy, its burial, and the protests were media staple in India primarily to show anarchy and failure in Pakistan, there was a more subtle mode of placing Bugti¿s death within a matrix of dubious policies and practices. Indrani Bagchi pointed out that the action against Bugti had been taken while US Centcom chief, General Abizaid was in Pakistan. While this could have been mere coincidence, Bagchi went on to assert that the communication interception equipment and helicopter gunships used to track and kill Bugti, had been given by the US to target al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
What Bagchi implied was expanded upon in two pieces, one by C. Raja Mohan and the other an edit page article by defence analyst C. Uday Bhaskar. Raja Mohan in ¿Killing may complicate Indo-Pak relations,¿ (Indian Express, 28 August), wrote: ¿India will surely be concerned with the fact that Musharraf has chosen to deal with the Baloch nationalist cause and a former top establishment figure like Bugti, who was Senator, Interior Minister and Governor of Balochistan, with extreme force while meekly surrendering to the Taliban and the religious extremists in Waziristan.¿
Uday Bhaskar wrote: ¿What the Bugti killing demonstrates unequivocally is that Pakistan¿s military now has the technological capability to prosecute the war against insurgency and terrorism with great lethality. Whether through satellite phone intercepts or the use of helicopter gunships, it has established a certain operational credibility despite the harsh and sparsely populated terrain of the Baloch region. If this be the case, it would be fair to assume that a military that can take out Bugti can do the same with bin Laden¿ (¿Tactical Gain, Strategic Blunder,¿ Indian Express, 30 August). The implications are fairly clear: while Pakistan has killed Bugti adroitly it has failed to hunt down Osama bin Laden; this is not because of a lack of means or technology but due to a lack of political will; further this proves that the ¿frontline ally¿ in the war on terror is unreliable and duplicitous. In this analysis Pakistan is a failed state (because it kills opposition leaders) and an untrustworthy ally in the great civilizational war of our times.
(e) Repercussions for India-Pakistan relations
The Times of India editorialized on 29 August on the unrest in most of Pakistan and how this ¿could spiral out of control¿. ¿There are dangers,¿ it warned, ¿for New Delhi here as well because if Pakistan begins to implode, its rulers will try to hold it together by directing anger against an external target, and India is the obvious candidate.¿ The desperate instability of Pakistan is cause for worry and war may be thrust on India, as it was in the past. This formula ignores India¿s role in the sub continental arms race, the ways in which that has undermined security and social development on both sides of the border, and casts India in a passive role. While the Balochi unrest is sometimes contextualized by referring to economic deprivation, those contexts are not expanded to look at the larger picture of shortsighted Indian policies that contribute to desperation and unrest. This is not to imply that India created the Balochi problem but to state that Indian media ignores inconvenient facts. Pakistani shortcomings are justly highlighted, but India¿s role in sustaining a symbiosis of suspicion and hate are seldom mentioned.
Praveen Swami further articulated Indian anxieties and fears arising from the Bugti killing. ¿Battered by the growing violence in Balochistan, and bereft of political allies, Gen. Musharraf is desperate for an issue with which to restore his fragile legitimacy. More than a few experts now believe that renewed hostilities with India are the sole card Pakistan¿s military ruler has left in his deck¿ (¿Balochistan shadow over India-Pakistan ties,¿ The Hindu, 5 September). One point of clear difference, legitimacy, and superiority is the fact that India is a democracy and Pakistan is not. Swami cites a letter written by ¿prominent figures in Pakistan¿s public life¿ calling Musharraf to count. ¿No democracy, the letter said, could function unless the institutions of state abided by their constitutional roles, and respected the principle of separation of powers. "The elections scheduled for 2007," it concluded, "will not be credible without neutral and impartial caretaker governments, both at the Centre and in the provinces."¿ This democracy deficit is what makes Pakistan a ¿failed state¿ and Bugti¿s killing is proof of that failure.
Swami cites the belief of unnamed Military Intelligence people in India that Musharraf will embark on another Kargil. Prior to this, perhaps unwittingly, Swami draws attention to India¿s strategic weakness post-Pokhran II: ¿Pakistani strategists have come to believe that their nuclear shield guarantees them the freedom to wage small, localized wars, or to support enterprises like the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. To Pakistan¿s military, India¿s decision not to cross the LoC during the 1999 Kargil war, or to risk a conflict in 2001-2002 after the terrorist attack on the Parliament House, demonstrated that this belief was robust.¿ The argument is a sensible one and was made earlier by Amartya Sen: ¿[…] India enjoys massive superiority over Pakistan in conventional military strength. Surely this strategic advantage has become far less significant as a result of the new nuclear balance.¿ Sen also refers to Kargil: ¿With the danger of a nuclear outburst, the Indian government¿s decision not to countercross the line of control in retaliation was clearly right, but it had no real option in this respect, given the strategic bind that it had itself helped to create.¿[i] Sen points to a ¿moral and prudential¿ failure on the part of Indian policy makers, but Swami and friends seem to think that the Bugti killing only bolsters India¿s moral superiority.
To this end Swami cites the Balochistan Express. ¿The Baloch protests, the Express asserted, were "of the same level that was [seen] in Bangadesh on March 1, 1971 [when elections were called off in West Pakistan], which was the beginning and the end of politics."¿ This reference to 1971, like the ones noted earlier, signals the return to moral comfort and Indian superiority.
[i] Amartya Sen, ¿India and the Bomb,¿ The New Republic, September 25, 2000: 130.