Which Balochistan?

Previously: Which Iberia? – Which Alexandria? – Which Albania? – Which African Nation? – Which Guinea? – Which Thebes? – Which Georgia? – Which Galicia? – Which Victoria?

I was wrong in thinking that this series was finished–truth be told, it can never end.

Balochistan (or Baluchistan) as a nation is a mountainous region in the Iranian plateau in Southwest Asia and South Asia that today includes part of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Balochi are an Iranian people who moved into the area about a thousand years ago. It was a tribal area when the British established control over the area during the Afghan Wars. The northern areas that became under British rule with treaties in 1876, 1879 and 1891 became known as British Baluchistan (see red blob between Balochistan and Afghanistan on the inset map to the right). Some Balochi areas remained in Iran and Afghanistan.

Today, “Balochistan” is the name of a Pakistan province and part of the name of an Iranian province. And there is an ongoing struggle in Pakistan and Iran for independence for the peoples who live in those provinces (with some saying it could be another Bangladesh).

Sistan and Baluchestan Province is one province in Iran, the most underdeveloped and poorest of Iran’s regions, and also it’s largest. Most of the 2.4 million people speak Balochi as their primary language.

The Balochi areas under the actual or nominal control of the British were incorporated into Pakistan as Balochistan Province when it was founded in 1948, and then became part of West Pakistan province in 1955. It was returned to full provincial status in 1970. In 1976 the Pakistani central government revoked the authority of local chiefs to administer their own peoples, touching off a significant popular revolt against the government.

Then in Afghanistan, two provinces — Nimruz Province and Farah Province — are the regions (listed by wikipedia) as having Balochi-speaking ethnic groups. That information does not match with the borders contained in the 1980 map of the ethnicities of Pakistan that is widely used to reference Balochistan proper (and which is pink in the above map). A number of maps differ as to where the Balochi live and where the language is spoken — see slightly conflicting maps here and here.

The organizations involved in the independence struggle include the Balochistan Liberation Army, a nationalist secessionist movement designated a terroroist organization by Pakistan and the UK; the Baloch National Movement, an independence group; the Baloch National Front, a coalition of independence groups; the Baloch Republican Army, another militant organization; and many others.