The blunder and the remedy!

This is the story about Balochistan!

It was 27 Mar 1948. A broadcast on the All India Radio from that day, changed the fate of the BALOCH as well as INDIA too. The news reported a press conference by VP Menon, the secretary in the Ministry of States : "Menon revealed that the Khan of Kalat was pressing India to accept Kalat's accession but added that India would have nothing to do with it".

Hakim Baloch, a former chief secretary of Balochistan, an author and a historian, who has written several books on Balochistan, confirms that AIR did indeed broadcast Menon's statement.

The very next day, Sardar Patel issued a contradiction that no such request from the Khan of Kalat was ever received by India. Again on 30 Mar 1948, PM Nehru went to great lengths to deny what Menon had said. The Khan of Kalat too denied the report but by this time, the fate of Balochistan had been sealed. While Indian leaders were issuing contradictory statements on 27 Mar 1948, Pakistan military had invaded Kalat. The Khan of Kalat was forcibly taken to the capital of Pakistan, Karachi and was made to sign on the instrument of accession while Pakistan Navy had reached the coastal towns of Pasni and Jiwani.

It is a sad historical note that while India's founding fathers were fumbling, Pakistan PM Liaqat Ali Khan (Who was a Nawab from UP), on 22 Mar 1948, was meeting the three Service Chiefs to oversee the invasion plans of Kalat and Makran.

The Khan of Kalat tried his best to retain the independent status of his state. He tried for an arrangement with both Iran and Afghanistan as well as with London on the lines that the UK had with Oman. While Pakistan was waging a war in Kashmir in 1948, Khan of Kalat was pleading with India for accession. Even in Mar 1946, he sent his top leaders including Mir Bizenjo to Delhi who met besides others, the Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, to seek India's support for an independent Balochistan. 

Mir Ghaus Bizenjo confirmed to Ahmar Musti Khan (a senior Baloch journalist based in Washington) that Azad ruled out any help to Balochistan as he believed an independent Balochistan, serving as a British base, would undermine the independence of the subcontinent.

How tragically wrong were the rulers of India then. Vikram Sood, former RAW chief wrote in an article in Feb 2006 in which he regretted that the new rulers in New Delhi were too engrossed with Kashmir and Hyderabad to see the strategic significance of a sovereign Balochistan.

"While the Pakistan Army occupied Kalat, India stood by silently; Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru or Maulana Azad.....said nothing about the rape of Balochistan" according to another Indian scholar Deepak Basu.

It is sad that the Congress leadership miscalculated everything and showed their criminal lack of statesmanship in 1948. Had they listened to the Khan of Kalat, even the jihad in Kashmir would not have occurred which created the AK issue and the fate of the subcontinent would have been different.

Kalat's full name was Kalat-e-Sewa (Sewa's Fort), after Sewa, a legendary hero of the Brahui-speaking Baloch people. On 15 Aug 1947, when Jinnah recognised it as a free state, Kalat had a foreign minister named Douglas Yates Fell and an ambassador in Karachi's Garden district on whose residence flew the flag of Independent Balochistan, from 15 Aug 1947 to 28 Mar 1948.

           WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

India must help Balochistan which is in the geo-strategic interest and defence of India.

The Indian Government must politically and strategically help the Baloch movement.  Engaging with the Pakistan criminal junta at all the possible international forums, helping a Baloch freedom movement through diplomatic and political means, creating mass awareness in the world's capitals and Parliaments through media campaigns, would not only put pressure on the nefarious nexus of China and Pakistan but would also go a long way in redressing the historical ineptitude of the forefathers of India.

- Adapted from Khalid Umar's article. 

Tailpiece.

Got up at 6, the chores and was ready by a quarter to 10. It's the 1st of the Malayalam month of Chingam. There was a sense of festivity in the air despite the lock down in many places. 

With the receding of the monsoon, it has begun to get warm.