Disempowered, Disenfranchised and Disengaged: Balochistan in Focus Name

Abstract

This research paper expounds upon the colonizer and the colonized dynamic prevailing between the Pakistani State and Balochistan; how the former strategically violates the provincial status and ethnicity of the latter. Highlighting the significance and evolution of ethnic identity, this study employs principals of critical pedagogy to trace how the colonial legacy of oppression has been internalized by the Pakistani state, thereby, resulting in a discriminatory attitude towards the Baloch by the military, bureaucracy and the government. It also depicts how language is used as a weapon of communication by Balochis, to deconstruct discourses pertaining to social categorization in specific geographical spaces, through the introduction of anti-colonial spaces within the dominant narrative. The paper concludes by proposing various changes in policy making, language and education through which a socially tolerant and economically beneficial attitude towards Balochistan will take root. It calls for an emancipatory project based on the model of national integration to promote the restructuring of power systems and redistribution of wealth in a manner that allows Balochistan to enjoy political, social and economic prosperity at par with the rest of Pakistan.