(Abdul Basit Alvi)
Mahrang Baloch’s article in The Guardian seeks to elicit sympathy for a cause linked to death, misery, and underdevelopment in Balochistan by emphasizing extreme isolation, suffering, and resilience, yet her ability to write and publish from a Pakistani jail contradicts claims of solitary confinement and reveals privileges denied to ordinary prisoners, while her alignment with the Baloch Liberation Army, a proscribed terrorist organization responsible for attacks on civilians and infrastructure, and her refusal to condemn such violence provide moral cover for terrorism, ignore the rights of ordinary citizens, and obscure the improvements achieved through Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, restored security, and the sacrifices of law enforcement, exposing her account as inconsistent with the lived reality of gradual stability and development in the province.
The people of Balochistan are not the passive, manipulated masses that Mahrang Baloch’s article suggests. They are thinking, discerning citizens who have watched the trajectory of their province with their own eyes. And increasingly, they are drawing their own conclusions, conclusions that run directly counter to the narrative she is trying to sell. Many sensible Baloch are beginning to think that if solitary confinement of the kind Mahrang Baloch claims to have endured is what it takes to bring peace, then perhaps such measures are not as bad as the foreign human rights industry makes them out to be. This is not a celebration of torture; it is a recognition of a simple trade-off. A society that tolerates a certain level of militant violence is a society that will never develop, never attract investment, and never provide its children with a future. A society that firmly and consistently applies its laws to those who would destroy it from within is a society that can eventually move past violence and into prosperity. The people of Balochistan have seen the alternative to state action. They have lived through the years when the insurgency was at its peak, and they have no desire to return to those dark days. They understand that the rights of the many cannot be held hostage by the grievances of the few, and that a so-called activist who refuses to condemn the murder of civilians is not an activist at all but an accessory after the fact. This growing sentiment of solidarity with Pakistan and its armed forces is not the result of coercion or propaganda. It is the organic result of lived experience. When a father sees his daughter able to attend university without fear of a bomb blast, he credits the security forces. When a businessman sees a new road being built that connects his town to the national grid, he credits the federal government. When a tribal elder sees that the young men of his community are no longer being lured into militancy by foreign-funded propaganda, he credits the collective efforts of a nation that has refused to give up on its most troubled province.
The article by Mahrang Baloch in The Guardian, for all its literary flourishes and emotional appeals, is destined to fail in its primary objective. It cannot and will not sow the seeds of division and hate in Pakistan in general or in Balochistan specifically, because the ground upon which those seeds would need to fall is no longer fertile. The people have seen too much, endured too much, and learned too much to be misled by a narrative that collapses under the slightest scrutiny. They know that writing an article from jail is not evidence of oppression but evidence of privilege. They know that refusing to condemn terrorism is not a sign of moral consistency but a sign of moral bankruptcy. They know that the improvement in their daily lives is not an illusion but a hard-won achievement bought with the blood of Pakistani soldiers and the perseverance of Pakistani civilians. Mahrang Baloch may have succeeded in gaining a platform in the Western media, where ignorance of Balochistan’s complexities is deep and the appetite for anti-state narratives is insatiable. But she has not succeeded in convincing the people she claims to speak for. They have rejected her lies, they have rejected her sympathizers, and they have chosen instead the difficult, slow, and often imperfect path of national solidarity, economic development, and a future in which Baloch children can dream not of guns and martyrdom, but of schools, careers, and a peaceful life within the embrace of a united Pakistan. The article is a lie, a failed attempt, and a historical footnote. The resilience of Balochistan and its people, and their unbreakable bond with the rest of Pakistan, is the only truth that will endure.
