The Dismantling of The Colonial Script, Part 2: Beyond Language, Into Structures of Power
Author: Burz Kohi
Translated by: Ruzhn Baluch
The state no longer kills us with bullets alone, it now uses language, too. The areas of Awaran where children are abducted by the army on their way to school are now called “security zones.” Dera Bugti, where headless corpses/ mutilated bodies are found, are described as a region where state writ has been “restored.” Quetta (Shaal), where university students protest the disappearance of their fellow students, is now labeled as a “hotbed of lawlessness” in the official state script. This script doesn’t just redraw maps of land, it distorts the geography of the mind.
We are told that we are “backwards”, but this term is only used when we demand not roads, but recognition. It’s said that Baloch women want freedom, but when that same woman creates her own narrative, she is no longer free; she is called a terrorist. This is the moment when the state’s dictionary, which Gramsci described as a mechanism for dominating popular consciousness, is laid bare.
The most silent yet powerful weapon of colonialism is its occupation of meaning. It doesn’t just arrive on land, it arrives in language. It doesn’t only bind the body, but also trains the mind to believe that captivity is freedom, silence is harmony, and resistance is chaos. When colonialism organizes the dictionary according to its will, it doesn’t just change the meaning of words—it claims the right to use them. This is the true colonial conquest: when the oppressed speak in the language of the oppressor, and their own voice begins to sound foreign to them.
Michel Foucault, who explored the relationship between power and knowledge, said that every form of power brings with it a “regime of truth.” This means that the powerful not only decide what is said, but also who may say it, in what tone, for what purpose, and at what cost. When the state or colonial power deems a phrase acceptable, it is not merely choosing a sentence, it is defining the entire scope of thought. This is when the dictionary stops being a mere linguistic tool and becomes a vehicle for political ideology.
We observe that colonial powers do not control the oppressed solely through the force of arms; they also construct specific truths for them. They decide whose history is valid, whose martyrdom is recognized, what patriotism means, and who is to be labeled a traitor. Colonialism organizes all truths in its own favor in such a way that the oppressed are left with no means of expressing their own truth without it turning against them. This power is not always harsh, it often hides behind soft, moral, and civilized rhetoric.
This is why Foucault says, “Power is not only that which controls the body, but that which defines the truth.” This organized form of truth becomes the very structure of the narrative building, which, through seemingly harmless words, seizes the entire landscape of thought. At this point, the script of the colonial is no longer just a medium of information or explanation, it becomes a formal institution of domination.
When the narrative ceases to be a mere collection of words and becomes an instrument of intellectual control, the question is no longer what we say, but from where we receive the permission to say it. Colonialism’s greatest success is when the oppressed are unaware that their sentences already carry the will of the colonizer. This is where the narrative by the state seeps into the very mould of consciousness, to the extent that even resistance is expressed in colonial terms—and its meaning is defined only by colonial institutions.
This process is not merely linguistic, it is part of intellectual construction. Colonialism creates a kind of thinking that can only think within the narrative of the ruler. Its reach is not limited to journalism, education, or law, it infiltrates every sphere of life. The script by the coloniser is no longer just a linguistic issue—it becomes a matter of knowledge, history, society, gender, and identity. And it is from here that the philosophical struggle begins—a struggle that goes beyond language and arrives at the ownership of meaning.
Antonio Gramsci calls this entire process cultural hegemony. According to him, power does not operate solely through coercion but also through consent. The dominant class spreads its language, its ideology, and its values so thoroughly that the oppressed come to see them as common sense, as rational, or as natural. This is the kind of consent that allows slavery to be seen as wisdom, loyalty, or pragmatic politics.
According to Gramsci, the state is built on two structures: political society and civil society. Political society is where coercion and law are exercised through the army, police, and judiciary. But the real domination takes root in civil society, where schools, religion, media, and social organizations produce and disseminate the narratives in which resistance is seen as a disturbance of peace, and silence is labeled as patriotism.
This is the process by which the state convinces the public, not merely through force, but through intellectual dominance, that their well-being lies in the very system that subjugates them. This dominance is reinforced through language. Any word that challenges the truth of the occupier is deemed irresponsible, extremist, or part of a foreign agenda.
The deadliest quality of the colonial script is that it never attacks directly. It slowly alters the meaning of words, the structure of sentences, and the soul of tones so subtly that the oppressed never suspect that what they’re saying was, in fact, said to them. This is the moment when even consciousness begins to speak from within the script, and that is why resistance often begins with doubt in one’s own words.
Derrida, in his theory of “deconstruction”, says that a colonial script is never complete. Every word depends on another, every meaning relies on a different context. This uncertainty always turns the script into a battlefield. And it is at this very point that the colonial script can be exposed.
Colonial domination of the narratives is not limited to meaning, it extends to time as well. Colonialism controls the very timeline of history. It transforms the past into “backwardness,” the present into “instability,” and the future into a promise of “development”, and within this timeline, the oppressed are always left waiting for a destination that is never meant for them.
This temporal colonization is enforced through language. As in: “You were savages, we have civilized you, and tomorrow you will become modern.” This is not just a sentence, it is an entire ideological current that shakes the foundations of history, identity, and justice. In this process, the oppressed are not only severed from their past, but their future is also handed over to the mercy of the colonizer’s language.
Gwadar is no longer just a port, it becomes a “strategic zone.” The land that once housed fishermen is now called an “economic corridor.” The script doesn’t just rename places, it redefines their meaning. In Derrida’s words, the colonial script does not conceal presence, it conceals absence. That which has been erased is omitted from the language. And this is the moment when the silence of the colonial script becomes the loudest scream.
In such a situation, when the oppressed cannot use their own words on their own land, cannot narrate their history in their own language, and cannot preserve their identity through their own expressions, their very existence becomes a question mark. The greatest cunning of colonial rule lies in this: it removes “existence” from language itself, attempting to render it invisible. The Baloch and Balochistan of pre-1948 are so thoroughly denied that the very idea of a Baloch identity is treated as if it never existed.
When language itself becomes a tool of domination, resistance is no longer a mere reaction, it becomes the act of reclaiming meaning. This reclamation is not just about assigning new meanings to old words; it is a conscious refusal of the entire system of power. In such a language, freedom no longer means only territorial or political separation, it becomes the name of a truth that power had buried. Patriotism no longer lies in silence around the state’s flag, it lives in the courage to expose every rhetorical disguise of injustice.
Frantz Fanon, a scholar of colonial violence and psychology, says that colonialism occupies not only the body but also destroys the colonized person’s understanding of self. And this destruction happens through language. When a slave views their bondage with pride, when a woman sees her silence as dignity and her helplessness as virtue, when a young person sees their rebellion as illegitimate—that is the triumph of language that no weapon can achieve. But Fanon also says that when the oppressed begin to create their own words, their own metaphors, their own meanings, they ignite a fire capable of reducing the entire ideological structure of empire to ash.
It is at this point that language becomes a revolutionary weapon. Resistance is no longer just a matter of the gun, it becomes an act of intellectual rebellion. Now, every word crafted by the state becomes a question. The meaning of “development” is interrogated, the cost of “peace” is measured, the veil of “patriotism” is lifted. Every sentence that was once merely a headline now becomes a charge.
This reclamation of language is not just philosophy, it is everyday politics. When a Baloch stands on the street holding a picture of a disappeared loved one, they are not just protesting, they are making the “missing” visible again in the language of the state. When a Baloch woman speaks in political circles, she is not just speaking, she is breaking the wall that has always deemed her voice irrelevant. And when a poet, journalist, or teacher rejects the language that was handed to them, they fulfill the first condition of reclaiming their voice.
This language will no longer be shaped by court judgments, newspaper headlines, or the daily lies of ISPR press releases. Every term you use, “clearance operation,” “anti-state elements,” “national security,” “innocent Punjabi laborer,” “extremism”—is now trapped in its own contradictions. Because now, the Baloch youth hears them with the same irony with which Derrida deconstructed the empire’s speech, with which Fanon tore through colonial psychology, and with which Foucault questioned the truths of power.
Whatever you say now, we will hear it, but through the ear of a script that has already exposed all your metaphors. Whatever you write, we will place it in the margins of the script, where the other lies of your history already lie. Whatever meaning you try to assign, we will interrogate it, and that question will leave you perpetually incomplete.
This script now stands in defiance of you, resolute, irreversibly rejecting your authority. It no longer bends to your definitions, your histories, or your myths. And in this very moment of the script, where meaning has broken free from your control, the defeat of your occupying state is not just imagined; it is already inscribed.
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.