By Mahsach Baloch
In the vast, arid expanse of Balochistan, where the earth bleeds minerals and the sea whispers of ancient freedoms, a wretched drama unfolds—a tragedy of colonial subjugation masquerading as national unity. This land, the largest and most bountiful under Pakistan’s dominion, is no mere province; it is a colony, a plundered terrain where the chains of exploitation bind both body and soul. Here, the Baloch people, proud and defiant, endure the violence of a state that extracts their wealth while denying their humanity.
To speak of Balochistan is to speak of a wound that festers, a wound inflicted by the colonial logic that thrives on dispossession. The Baloch are not merely neglected; they are systematically robbed. Their gas fuels distant cities, their copper and gold enrich foreign coffers, yet their villages languish without water, their children without schools, their sick without care. This is no accident but a deliberate architecture of oppression, where development is a euphemism for pillage, and progress a synonym for betrayal. The Baloch do not live in Pakistan; they are occupied by it.
Beneath this occupation pulses a war—not the loud clamor of battlefields, but a silent, insidious war of disappearance and dread. The Baloch, in their demand for autonomy, in their cry for a culture untrampled, have been met with the iron fist of the state. Enforced disappearances, that cruel alchemy of modern tyranny, have torn thousands from their homes—students, poets, shepherds, and scholars, vanished into the abyss of unmarked graves or secret cells. Their families, those indomitable mothers and sisters, march with photographs of the lost, their grief a revolutionary act, their silence louder than any manifesto. Yet the state responds with batons, with apathy, with the arrogance of a colonizer who believes the colonized can be broken.
This is the violence of a system that dehumanizes to dominate, that surveils to suffocate, that polices to paralyze. In Balochistan, the checkpoint is not merely a barrier but a symbol of subjugation, where every Baloch is a suspect, every movement a threat. The young are targeted with particular venom—arrested, tortured, or killed for daring to dream of freedom. Education, that sacred path to emancipation, is sabotaged; universities become battlegrounds where Baloch students are branded traitors, their voices stifled, their futures stolen. Journalism, the lifeblood of truth, is choked by censorship and fear, leaving only whispers to carry the story of a people’s pain.
But let us not mistake this wretchedness for defeat. In Balochistan, resistance is the heartbeat of the oppressed. The Baloch resist not only with the gun but with the pen, the song, the unyielding courage of those who refuse to be erased. The mothers who march, the poets who write, the exiles who speak—these are the vanguard of a revolution that will not be silenced. Their struggle is not merely for resources or rights but for the very right to exist as a people, to sing their songs, to tell their stories, to walk their land unbowed.
Balochistan is a mirror held up to Pakistan, a mirror that reveals the rot of a nation built on coercion rather than consent. It is a challenge to the conscience of the world, a cry that demands not pity but justice. Liberation is not granted; it is seized. The Baloch know this truth in their bones. Theirs is a struggle for a future where their land is no longer a colony, their people no longer prisoners, their dreams no longer forbidden.
Until that day, Balochistan remains a land in fetters, its people a flame that burns in defiance. And in their resistance, they remind us all: no chain is eternal, no oppression invincible, when a people dare to rise.
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.