Other people read history while some establish it. It is the struggle for life that creates a normal person to rise in the best pages of the history. Not to name many, we get Baba Khair Bakhsh Marri, Nawab Akbar Bugti, Yousuf Aziz Magsi, Abdul Aziz Kurd, Khan Mir Mehrab Khan, Nasir Khan, The Great, and many others who have put their utmost efforts to register their names in their struggle for life. One among the very names is Karima Baloch, the ‘Lumma’ of the Baloch nation.
Looking at everything from a corner, I assume writing on a person with such great courage and boldness as Banuk in a society as ours which has been influenced by the side-by effects is one of the toughest things to do. What to bring and what to omit are two annoying questions. But today, instead of everything, let’s discuss Banuk. Only Banuk.
From early in her life to the last day, she was selfless. Her each word was for others. Sometimes for Zakir, other times for Zahid and the other hundreds of Baloch. She was fearless. She was heedless of how things were around her and worked her best to bring about societal revolution. She was changing minds. She was reviving revolution. She was showing the timely paths to the whole nation.
She was in school when she joined politics. She was alone there in the beginning because the concept of girls joining politics was vague in the society. Because she belonged to a political background, she was not hindered. She, then, worked with all her heart and soul. She was preaching the nation towards getting out of the odds of outdated norms and idle concepts. She practically showed them, men and women, the right path to glory.
Another beautiful thing about Karima is that she was not bound to her locality. For her, all the Baloch regions were hers. She tried to journey every area she could without a second thought. Yes, she was leading. Not only in Tump, neither Kech nor Makuran solely. She was leading the entire Balochistan. From Street to street, village to village, town to town, city to city, division to division and Baloch region to region, she preached the national consciousness. She was at the forefront when needed the most.
This boldness took her to the BBC’s 100 most influential women’s list of 2016. But she had broader goals. She was sent abroad by her organisation in 2015 where she married to a political activist, Hammal Haider. She was abused and questioned why she married. Very odd. But she was never attentive to personal attacks and was continuing to become a voice for her people.
Things were all going accordingly when on December 20, 2020, she was reported missing from Canada’s Toronto. A day later on December 21, her body was dumped in a lake in the capital city while police said there were no ‘foul-play’ in her murder. Some accused she had committed suicide, but the entire Baloch nation knows she was not this weak to commit suicide. She had long came out of her ‘self’. She was Karima, the identity of Balochistan. All know Balochistan does not commit suicide.
On her tribute, 21 December is observed as Baloch Women Day. This day holds a history of countless troubles that Banuk traveled all way long. It is not easy to become a Lumma. But she is a Lumma. Lumma of the nation because she cared for her nation as a mother for her does children. Till her last.
May her soul rest in eternal power.
