An “identity crisis” looms before the Baloch people as Pakistan is killing their intellectuals and strategically suppressing their history, says a Baloch freedom activist, adding that they will “not let Pakistan take our cultural identity from us”.
According to prominent Baloch freedom movement activist Mazdak Dilshad Baloch, the lullabies of Baloch mothers “are the only source of history lesson for the new generation” of their people.
“As per Pakistani text books, Balochistan is a barbaric nation and Baloch people are barbarians who fight among themselves. That’s what they (Pakistan) teach their kids, a manipulated history of Balochistan,” Mazdak told IANS.
The issue of manipulated history in text books was also raised in the Pakistan Parliament earlier this year, after the 12th standard sociology books defined Baloch as “uncivilised people who engage in murder and looting”.
“There is total crackdown on journalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, students. The figure of missing people has crossed 25,000 and about 25 Baloch journalists have been killed. They are killing our intellectuals, educated ones who could take us forward in the future,” said Mazdak, who was in the Indian capital.
He said most of the Baloch leaders and intellectuals are either dead, underground or have fled Pakistan fearing for their life.
Terming the Pakistani media a “puppet” and Pakistan an “artificial nation”, the young activist who was in Delhi to garner support of Indians and Baloch people, said, “Our history is being suppressed and this is part of their strategy. Baloch people are voiceless and Pakistani media can’t help us”.
“They are confining our 700-year-old history to 70 years which is not even ours. Our children are told that Jinnah was our founder, while it was Mir Miro Baloch who founded the kingdom of Balochistan in 1410,” Mazdak said, adding that while Baloch people love education, they resist the Pakistani syllabus.