Balochistan: the reality ? IV
27/02/2007
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Thanks to the arrogant, avaricious and short-sighted policies of the rulers, Balochistan has been perpetually blighted by colossal problems of a very serious nature; making it a bottomless pit of deprivation and destitution laced with menacing despotism for the people.
Ironically, those responsible for these ills have expediently chosen to blame the people and their leaders for the same. This blaming of the people and their leaders is absolutely malicious and fraudulent because the reality not only contradicts their claims but also brands them as the guilty party.
?The allotment of land in Gwadar has been made in violation of the policies formulated by the government itself. The discretionary power has been exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner, which has been cited as a clear example of abuse of authority and misuse of power. Nobody knows how the settled land owned by the state has been transferred to the private sector, that too on peanut prices, which depicts lack of transparency and mismanagement.?
No, this is not a Baloch nationalist leader lamenting the injustices that cover the entire spectrum of economic, political, cultural, social and civil rights of the people in Balochistan. Nor are these the words of an aggrieved land owner robbed of his birthright by the powerful land mafia. This statement is a part of the judgement that Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed on the two-member Supreme Court Quetta bench gave in their decision in October 2006.
It also observed that ?every allotment, sale and disposed of land appears to have been made in a dubious and suspicious manner.? It ordered cancellation of allotment of residential and industrial plots in Gwadar. It observed that the Balochistan government is not competent to allocate a land quota for politicians, ministers, elected representatives, high civil officials and provincial judiciary without having proper legislation on the subject.
It said, ?The allotment must be made in a transparent, judicious and fair manner by adopting the procedure of open auction for industrial plots and balloting system for housing projects.?
This judgment totally exposes the pretentious bogus claims of transparency by the government. It proves that in absolute disregard for the rights and wishes of the people, unscrupulous grabbing of real estate and doling out of concessions, privileges and franchises to friends, factotums and functionaries is rife and rampant in Balochistan.
With the 40-year tax exemption to the operators of Gwadar Port and the building of a huge airbase nearby, the already pathetic conditions are bound to be accentuated. The people there might as well put their dreams of prosperity indefinitely on hold.
The exploitation and misuse of gas has been one of the most contentious issues because like land, it is intimately related to the Baloch national rights question. 70 percent of Pakistan?s natural gas needs come from Balochistan and although it is 70 percent more efficient than the gas found in other provinces, it is paid only Rs. 47/cu ft while Punjab gets Rs 222/cu ft. The royalty there is well-head based while Punjab and Sindh get royalty based on market value.
Columnist Naseer Memon says, ?Natural gas deposits, which turned the fate of the country in the early 1950s, benefited the whole country except Balochistan. The 10,000 feet deep gas reserve was estimated as 10.78 trillion cubic feet. Over the past 55 years, the country has consumed 8.14 TCF leaving 2.63 TCF behind, sufficient for another two decades. In 2004-05 it produced about 920 million TCF per day, yielding annually 336,493 million TCF. Providing fuel to the national economy for years, gas reached Balochistan after 25 years when Quetta first received LPG in 1976. Six decades are gone, but even today Balochistan has only 3.4 percent of gas consumers as compared to 51 percent from Punjab alone, which contributes only 4.75 percent gas. The province contributes Rs 85 billion per year through gas revenues but receives only Rs 7 billion from the federal government. What Dera Bugti received in return for the wealth it generated is evident from the UNDP Human Development Report 2003, which ranked Dera Bugti last among the 91 districts of the country on the Human Development Index.?
These facts speak out loudly and bluntly; they present the stark reality. The people there live in hopeless deprivation in spite of great natural wealth and this precious resource is being depleted at an incredibly fast pace without a thought for the future of the Baloch people.
Some people lament the low gas consumption and meagre royalty, but that is not the answer to the demands of the people of Balochistan because they aren?t demanding the right to burn the gas, they are demanding the right over the where, how and why of its utilization.
Let us briefly touch the marine wealth question. Fishing forms an integral part of the economic and social life support system of people along the coast. Even the word Makran has come from the Persian word Mahi Khoran, which means fish eaters. It is a source of livelihood of a great many people along the 770 km coastline, but unjust policies keep them in deprivation.
The building of naval bases along the coast has dispossessed the people of the natural harbours and physically hindered the fishing. The table below gives an idea of how much the people of Balochistan are losing out on this front. Of this catch too, 80,000 tons is caught by trawlers from Sindh.
Fish catch off coast of Balochistan & Sindh. Year 2004
With the influx of the moneyed classes, the fishing business, like real estate, will also fall into their hands if it hasn?t already. The people who have respectably lived off their own labour for centuries will be reduced to the position of menial servants and lose irreparably on the economic, political and cultural fronts.
The government doesn?t seem to tire of pledging the opportunities that mega-projects will create. They erroneously suppose menial jobs alone will satisfy the aspirations of the people who are demanding control over their own destiny. The Baloch are demanding the right to be the masters of their own fate and not an opportunity to be menial servants. This it fails to comprehend. History is replete with examples of those who chose not to learn and the fate they suffered.
Marie Antoinette (November 2, 1755-October 16, 1793) the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa of Austria and the wife of French King Louis XVI was surprised to see people rioting for bread in the French city Reims, where French kings were crowned, at the time of their coronation in 1774. She is reported to have said, ?If they have no bread, let them eat cake!? (?S?ils n?ont plus de pain, qu?ils mangent de la brioche?.)
While saying this she was neither being naïve nor trying to be funny. She said exactly what she should have said for she had never seen want or hunger. She had no inkling how people lived and neither do our Marie Antoinettes (not intended to be gender-specific).
Our Marie Antoinettes, the denizens of local Versailles aka Islamabad, will never comprehend the people?s natural indignation and wrath at being deprived of their birthright until it is too late for them as it was for many others before them.
They are oblivious to the aspirations, dreams, desires, promises, visions and expectations that the people hold in their hearts for themselves and their younger generations? present and future.
The people see all their yearnings being trampled upon, shattered and crushed arbitarily and heartlessly. They see them sold as franchises and concessions to the highest bidders and all in the name of ?national interest? by these Marie Antionettes. Naturally this makes the people angry and resentful in the same way as the people of France were in 1789.
The fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 had heralded the French Revolution and Louis XVI was guillotined on January 18, 1793, while Marie Antionette died by the guillotine on October 16, 1793.
(Concluded)
The writer has been associated with the Baloch national struggle |
