Balochistan is going through a challenging era of illegal dominance, marking its beginning back in 1839 when the British imperial army attacked the core of Baloch state, the Kalat State, to make it a buffer state for controlling its neighboring Afghanistan. In their negation to becoming a buffer state, the British forces invaded and attacked them, martyring the then Khan of Kalat, Mir Mehrab Khan, along with his limited companions. They formed a closed-border policy under which all the internal affairs were handed over to the chiefs (Sardars) with a Khan of their desire to rule, and entered into multiple treaties with the then government. The second point of the CB policy was to restrain the Khan and the interior Baloch government from making any international treaties. Or let’s say, it was the British government who would and could deal with the external matters of the Kalat State.
After British withdrawal from the sub-continent, they also set Kalat State as a free state in the month of August 1947, the case of which was already pending before them for emancipation. After the nine-months independence of Kalat State, the newly-formed neighboring state of Pakistan, with the help of the same British government and its left-behind weaponries, invaded and enslaved Balochistan through an annexure, which the indigenous Baloch, and the then Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmed Yar Khan-III, term ‘forceful’ and ‘illegal’. However, despite several attempts, the case is yet to be approved globally and various insurgencies have not only raged but also ended, with the fifth insurgency underway.
Like in the past, Baloch have been viewed as a totally different people under the Pakistani rule. Their culture has been eyed as a culture of jungle/forest or they are widely termed as dacoits, villains and vicious. In the state curriculum, their language has been ignored, while the mainstream politics is way behind. Despite having multifold natural resources and becoming home to international mega projects in the likes of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Saindak and Reko Diq, while the other interior gas, copper and other reserves are an exception, Balochistan is least prioritized in the welfare and development sectors – considering the fact that Balochistan has the lowest population, which rarely becomes 5% of the total state population – Lahore has a thicker population than the whole presently-administered Balochistan.
All the mentioned deprivations afar, human rights violations have been a major setback in Balochistan where enforced disappearances, extrajudicial and targeted murders, women victimization, children’s rights violations, administrative and cultural violence and other similar nature of Baloch rights’ infringements are in the limelight. In the very present – though traditionally we can trace it back in 1971, when two Baloch (Marri) women were forcibly disappeared just before the fourth Baloch insurgency was to begin – enforced disappearances of Baloch women have shaken the societal norms, customs and traditions.
Only in the continued year of 2025, there have been five recorded cases of women abductions involving state institutions as abductors: the first case was of Mahjabeen Baloch who was arrested in an illegal raid at her hostel room in civil hospital on May 29 and disappeared. The second incident took place on November 22, when the 15-year old Nasreen Baloch was arrested and disappeared from Hub Chowki, whose whereabouts are a question to day. Then we have the case of Farzana Zehri from Khuzdar who was illegally disappeared when she was coming back to her home from a local hospital. On December 9, Rahima Rahim was taken away along with her brother Zubair Rahim from Dalbandin’s Zahoor Colony and since then, they are kept in the torture cells. This was followed by the recent and fifth abduction of a Baloch woman, Hazira Baloch, from Hub Chowki on December 18 – only in the month of December, three such cases have surfaced raising the indigenous concerns.
We are observing a gradual excessiveness in state’s institutional tactic to perform the illegal act of women abduction in Balochistan when no resistance and vociferation is followed by. In the political language, we term it “Psyche-endorsement” where the oppressor implements policies gradually and make a habit of the oppressed to those acts, eventually leading to normalcy of the situations and endorsement of the acts. With continuous state practice of the same act in the past, the state’s institutions faced backlash and a collective mass reaction back then, but in the present, women are openly disappeared through force and a criminal silence prevails in the air of Balochistan, encouraging state institutions’ victory of psyche-endorsement.
One thing is clear: the Baloch and state conflict has not resolved yet. Both the parties are contesting their best to wage the war and win. The state is trying hard to inflict all forms of violence on the Baloch, including physical violence, cultural violence, administrative violence, psychological violence, social violence, economic violence, historic violence and all the other such forms. In response, the Baloch struggle is based on countering every single policy and reshape the national psyche as it was during emancipation in the past – or the restoration of the former societal set-up.
The best way to stop a nation as Baloch from succeeding is to morally bankrupt it. Under the same “Moral Bankruptcy” policy, the state institutions are distorting morality and ethics in the Baloch society. Or in the simplest terms, to keep Baloch distanced from the ongoing struggle and make them abide by the state oppressions, is to culturally and historically deprive them from their roots – the recent abductions of Baloch women is the practice of the same series.
Baloch women are the symbols of purity and honor. As a Baloch culture and norm, when women are at the forefront, men bow down in respect. But in the contemporary Baloch society, Baloch women are illegally arrested and shifted to unknown locations, and there is a criminal silence adopted in the society as if nothing had happened.
We can derive that the ill-state intentions are gradually bearing fruits: their “Psyche-endorsement” policy has made us feel normal about enforced disappearances of Baloch women. “Moral Bankruptcy” of the indigenous Baloch civilians is strengthening while the cultural violation seems very practicable without any opposite force, reaction or resistance.
It is the right time to revive the Baloch politics so as to comprehend the wars which are fought with ideas, policies and psychology of oppression. Had we been late in identifying and addressing the above discussion, we will lose a great deal of national endorsement – internally and externally. Enforced disappearances are not right and justifiable but an expectation from immoral governance and empowered institutions. Including women and children is a direct crime in all the spheres – religiously, socially, nationally, internationally and on the basis of humanity.
The Baloch people need to step forward, understand the complications of war-like situations and contribute for the national development. The recent wave of enforced disappearances of Baloch women is more than just condemnable, but it is also a matter of dependence: if the people in Balochistan stand up against such crimes, they are likely to end it up in their favor. But if they choose silence in haplessness and fear, they will definitely become the next one on board. This is how the colonial psyche and structure runs.