How Pakistan sleepwalks into its disintegration – Firstpost

The gravity of the ongoing Baloch insurgency ascertains Pakistan’s implosion. The logic of incrementalism in demanding Baloch autonomy or independence has not been effective with the Punjabi-dominated failed Pakistani state. The latter’s deliberate deafness to Baloch anxiety, suffering, humiliation, human rights violations, forced disappearances, unlawful captivity, and poverty, and its uncanny consistency have aggravated the Baloch insurgency and demand for autonomy.

Hot pursuits and kinetic options have entered the Baloch itinerary of freedom. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)’s hijacking of the Jaffar Express on March 11 illustrates the Baloch resolve to secede from the shaky patchwork country called Pakistan. It also indicates the Baloch liberation movement’s depth, expansiveness, and criticality. Its maturing moments have arrived to underline the non-negotiable nature of the demand for autonomy.

The hijacking of the Jaffar Express on March 11 constitutes a legacy and watershed in Baloch’s struggle for independence. This will strengthen the collective Baloch imagination to underscore the imperatives of Balochistan independence. The Pakistani military counter-offensive to this hijacking episode may temporarily dent the movement, but the groundswell does not seem to dissipate soon. It may acquire more lethality and speed. The Baloch insurgency underlines sensitive issues of identity, dignity, ethnicity, and sovereignty and builds a compelling logic for a prolonged conflict until the objective of autonomy is met.

The root of the Baloch problem goes back to 1948 when the princely state of Kalat (later Balochistan) was annexed with force and fraudulence. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s cunning and duplicity cajoled the Kalat leadership into accepting Pakistan as their homeland. The Baloch realised the mistake in the post-annexation era. They dramatically lost their identity and autonomy under increasing authoritarianism, undemocratic centralisation, and Islamism.

Repression became the modus operandi to check dissent, peaceful protest, and equal representation. Militarism characterised the Pakistani state. It specialised in repression. It instrumentalised fear to secure submission. It worked for a while in Pakistan’s favour. This kind of status quo developed its antithesis.

Reactions began to emerge and acquired consistency. East Pakistan unburdened itself from Pakistani top-heaviness and repression in 1971 through secession from Pakistan, denting the latter’s hubris. The landlocked Balochistan had to wait for its time against the precarity of forced disappearances, tortures, apathy, and indignity.

The consistency of fragmented and poorly organised protest and opposition finally evolved into a systematic insurgency in 2004 against the Pakistani state for Baloch freedom. Since then, the Baloch movement has been unstoppable and more defined. Pakistan opened its Pandora’s box to curb the gravity of the insurgency. It used its typical tactics of engaging one Baloch group against others for encouraging infighting, false promises, etc., to get temporary ease and then turn its back as usual. Force and fraudulence exacerbated the Baloch problem. It intensified the lethality of the Baloch action and reaction against Pakistani apathy.

The Jaffar Express hijacking has unearthed the Baloch angst and their collective resolve to secure freedom at any cost. This complicates the Baloch problem. Its irreparability underlines the imminence of the balkanisation of Pakistan. The time for nemesis has arrived. Pakistan will pay for its sins through implosion. The synthetic nation and its terrible body politic guided the destiny of Pakistan to leprotic fragmentation. The infection will spread until it becomes a nonentity.

Pakistan’s attitude towards Balochistan has always been enmity, indifference, and domineering. It needs the Baloch resources and land, not the people. The Gwadar project and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) expose Islamabad’s hypocrisy. It does not address the Balochistan interest while signing the mega-project deals with China.

The Baloch interest is sacrificed on the altar of Beijing-Islamabad camaraderie. This has increased the Baloch resentment. The political, economic, bureaucratic, and administrative isolationism of Balochistan has resurfaced Pakistan’s Janus face. Whitewashing and brazen lying will not improve the condition in any significant sense. The ready shortcut for Pakistan is to blame India for every domestic issue. It specialises in externalising its problem. Introspection has never been its DNA. Ever since it was born as a nation, it sleepwalks into chaos and mismanages everything. It finds military solutions to all problems. It browbeats its military strength and extends its military repression to the Baloch insurgency.

This one-size-fits-all formula has boomeranged. The Baloch resolve against the military repression has left the Pakistani establishment clueless. The Pakistani state fails to understand that Baloch nationalism is not a law and order problem. It is a collective aspiration for freedom. The Baloch middle class, women, children, and the ageing have also significantly joined the Baloch movement. Therefore, the Baloch movement has become the pulse of the people. Baloch ethnicity also contributes to the formation of this nationalism. Pakistan’s homogenising tendencies by conveniently foregrounding Islam as a unifying force have neglected ethnic diversity, economic disparity, and provincial differences.

This political problem cannot be militarily solved as Islamabad has been trying to. The Pakistani military is never taken into confidence by the Baloch people. It is alleged that the Punjabis are a majority in the Pakistani military. They are always perceived as oppressors by the Baloch. Pakistan is a military state. The civilian government is its subsidiary. Imran Khan upset this arrangement during his tenure from 2018 to 2022, exposing the hollowness of the Pakistani military. Therefore, the Pakistani military has lost its weight in checking the Baloch insurgency.

The Baloch fight for freedom has acquired an international dimension. It is no longer a local phenomenon. Pakistani repression and human rights violations of the Baloch people have gained global resonance. The Baloch activists have tried consistently to bring their issues of homeland, human rights, and freedom to the knowledge of international institutions. Mahrang Baloch, the face of Baloch activism, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2025. Her activism for the Baloch cause has featured her in the BBC’s 100 Women list and Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. They illustrate the Baloch formidability. Pakistan can no longer brush the Baloch cause aside as inconsequential.

The Global Terror Index (GTI) 2025, prepared by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), has ranked Pakistan second in its assessment of the impact of terrorism in 163 countries. Against this devastating report, the Pakistani military’s crackdown will be directly construed as blatant aggression, repression, and unabated marginalisation against the Baloch people’s fight for freedom.

Economic collapse, political chaos, terrorism, and domestic fissures complicate the Pakistani reality. A synthetic nation without a civilisational guide or ethos is on the verge of disintegration. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout is less likely to happen as Europe is caught in the conflict in its backyard between Ukraine and Russia. Transactional Trump finds no interest in Pakistan’s crisis.

China is seemingly the only country that may rescue Pakistan to protect its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and broader geostrategic game plan. China’s military support for Pakistan on the Baloch issue will internationalise the matter. It will be constructed as a foreign intervention. India and the US will not remain tight-lipped about Beijing’s interventions. It will complicate the geopolitics of the region, leading to the conflagration of the issue. Therefore, Pakistan sleepwalks into its disintegration. It does not seem to do anything to avert the inevitable. It leapfrogs from one crisis to another without settling anything. It stands amid chaos, waiting to become a memory.

Jajati K Pattnaik is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Chandan K Panda is an Assistant Professor at Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Itanagar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.