IT is not as if we have not been here before. Balochistan has bled for so long that the mainstream Pakistani consciousness has tuned it into the background. Yet every so often, the Baloch national question is thrust into the spotlight and everyone suddenly becomes an expert on everything Balochistan.

What has transpired after the gruesome killing of civilians in Musakhel — most of them reportedly of Seraiki and Punjabi backgrounds — is a microcosm of everything that is wrong about the way most Pakistanis, particularly in the core regions of our highly fragmented country, conceive of the Baloch question.

First came the frenzied demands for retribution. Expressing outrage at the killings is one thing, but giving the state license to crush ‘terrorism’ is another thing altogether. The current insurgency in Balochistan has raged for almost two decades, and was originally triggered by the dictatorial regime of General Pervez Musharraf, who, some readers will remember, publicly announced ‘they won’t know what hit them’.

Ever since, Baloch youth have been criminalised to no end, thus providing further fuel to the insurgency. Even staunch Pakistani nationalists have, on occasion, acknowledged that insurgencies, past and present,........

© Dawn