Author: Fahad Baloch
Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC), a leading student organization in Balochistan, is educating Baloch students under the banner of nationalism. It is uniting Baloch students and emphasizing their political consciousness in Balochistan and other administratively isolated Baloch-majority areas.
As a systematic students organization, BSAC collectively embarks on a journey to achieve a specific goal, which is of Baloch nationalism. Meanwhile, the Baloch students are pledged to bring off the organization’s objectives by being part of this productive and essential journey, which BSAC has put in place.
Baloch students may have suffered from unending social evils before joining this political institution, while many students have lacked political cognizance and perceptions and were unfamiliar with the actual and elementary problems of the Baloch nation particularly. But after joining this institution, they are becoming observant of their national duties and Baloch matter since BSAC is aiming upon the responsiveness of the Students. In company with political cognizance of the students, also interdicting them from social evils and struggling to make them aware to well up on the bona fide mess and issue of Baloch.
There are several barricades for procuring political cognizance in Balochistan including some internal and external factors, which either make Baloch students reluctant to choose and become a part of a particular cause, ideology or organization, or they become perplexed about the ideologies, which lead them towards the political-insentient and inanimate.
But BSAC, as a standardized-institution, has decayed these obstacles and overcame many awkwardness and perplexities to a point where it now saves Baloch students, at least to some extent, from any uncertainty.
If we go beyond prejudice and see with one eye, we will see BSAC as a political-institution, which is edifying the Baloch youth on the basis of neat and authentic nationalism. It has struggled resolutely to encourage students to read books and create a culture of book reading and it continues to do so.
Because the organization is all the cognizant about the fact that a conscious nation needs conscious youth, so that they can transcend individuality and individual thinking, realize collectivity and collective thinking and guarantee the development of the nation. For the very cause, it has arranged book stalls in different seminars in different parts of Balochistan, and also “Book Donation” camps were organized in the name of “Balochistan Kitaab Karwan” for the establishment of libraries in different parts of Balochistan.
Today, the establishment of libraries in different parts of Balochistan and the culture of reading among the youth has proved that the dream that BSAC envisioned – that Baloch students should be united, read, become enlightened and obtain political consciousness – seems to be achieved.
But BSAC did not put an end to its activities here, in fact, has engaged itself in various educational, literary and political activities including arranging various seminars, conferences and programs for putting forward its political activities.
As Paulo Freire puts in, “In the colonial regime, education that is given to the oppressed is not for gaining knowledge or awareness, it is to make machine for running the system.”
The weekly study circles on different political topics is the only symbol of education which we are getting free of cost, and then the “Navisht”, the political organ of Organisation (BSAC) which comes after every three months, is the literature of BSAC which is being published with various topics and literature, research articles on nationalism and Baloch nationalism, Baloch history, world’s political history and so forth in the Baloch languages (Balochi and Brahvi).
As me and many others, who could not get that sort of knowledge in their twelve to thirteen years of career in the already existing institutions, with our association with BSAC, we learned and got knowledge and consciousness that has become the only source of awareness in the colonial regime and colonial system of education, where we have the right to speech, express our ideas and to ask questions in an unconstrained manner and without any obstacle. So, BSAC seemed like a prestigious political institution for the Baloch youth, who affiliated with it without any self-regard to learn about the Baloch history, geography, culture and much about the Nationalism and Baloch Nationalism.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Balochistan Post or any of its editors.