By Bacha Kakar
Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has sought to mold its many ethnic communities into a single, unified nation. But this ambition was never founded on consent or inclusion. It was imposed, forged by the military establishment and Punjab’s ruling elite through force, manipulation, and centralized control. The greatest burden of this centralizing agenda has fallen on the Baloch, Pashtuns, Sindhis, and other subjugated nations.
Today, Pakistan’s name has become synonymous with human rights abuses, enforced disappearances, and systemic repression. Its policies of violence, cultural domination, and economic exploitation have strangled the identity, freedom, and progress of marginalized peoples while eroding the very stability of the state itself.
Nowhere is this oppression more visible than in Balochistan and the Pashtun belt, where unending military operations, targeted killings, and enforced disappearances have created a deep and enduring humanitarian crisis. What follows is a concise look at these injustices and a call for the oppressed nations to reclaim their dignity, autonomy, and right to exist freely.
Military Oppression in Balochistan
Since the early 2000s, Balochistan has lived under the heavy hand of Pakistan’s army and intelligence agencies. Thousands of political activists, students, journalists, and ordinary citizens have been abducted, tortured, or disappeared under the pretext of being “anti-state.” Many of their bodies, bearing marks of brutal torture, are later dumped in open spaces as a grim warning meant to silence dissent and spread fear.
This campaign of terror is a blatant violation of human rights, condemned repeatedly by international organizations. Yet Pakistan’s courts remain silent, and global pressure has done little to halt the violence. When this military repression is combined with the plundering of natural resources, deliberate economic deprivation, and cultural erasure, the reasons for resistance become clear. Both armed and civil movements have persisted, standing as expressions of anti-colonial defiance against decades of state brutality.
The Pashtun Belt: A War Against Civilians
Since 2004, the Pashtun regions, including Waziristan, Bajaur, Khyber, and Swat, have been turned into a perpetual war zone under the banner of the “war on terror.” While presented as operations for national security, these campaigns have largely been wars against civilians. Thousands of innocents have been killed, homes reduced to rubble, and entire communities displaced.
In reality, the so-called counterterrorism operations have never targeted the extremist networks that thrive with state protection. Instead, ordinary Pashtuns have borne the brunt of airstrikes, artillery bombardments, arbitrary arrests, and extrajudicial killings. Military checkpoints and constant surveillance have reduced daily life to a landscape of fear. This is not peace; it is a calculated effort to crush a people’s will and dismantle their autonomy.
Enforced Disappearances: The State’s Weapon of Control
Enforced disappearances have become one of Pakistan’s most chilling instruments of repression. In Balochistan, the Pashtun belt, and Sindh, intelligence agencies seize individuals without warrants, detain them in secret, and deny all information to their families. This practice shreds the rule of law and strips people of their basic humanity. Many of the abducted are later found dead, while countless others remain missing indefinitely.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, have condemned these acts as crimes against humanity. Yet Pakistan’s rulers remain unmoved. The aim is unmistakable: to silence voices of dissent, instill fear, and maintain control through terror and uncertainty. This systematic policy of disappearance has gone far beyond the boundaries of law or morality, becoming one of the darkest features of state repression.
Economic Exploitation and Resource Plunder
Despite its vast natural wealth, from gas and gold to copper, coal, and chromite, Balochistan remains one of Pakistan’s poorest regions. Its people live in deprivation, denied education, healthcare, and opportunity. The province’s resources are extracted by the central government and Punjab-based corporations, enriching the military and elite while leaving the local population destitute.
This is not simply economic inequality; it is deliberate dispossession. When a people are stripped of their land, resources, and livelihoods, they are reduced to dependence and silence. Economic exploitation here is not a symptom of injustice; it is its very engine, a calculated strategy to keep entire nations voiceless and broken.
Cultural Colonization and the War on Identity
Pakistan’s state institutions, school curricula, and official media have long suppressed the languages, histories, and cultures of the Baloch, Pashtuns, Sindhis, and other marginalized nations. The educational system glorifies a narrow, Punjab-centric narrative while erasing or distorting the civilizations and struggles of others.
This is cultural colonization in its most refined form. By severing a nation from its language and memory, the state weakens its political awareness and sense of pride. A people stripped of identity are easier to govern and easier to break. The result is not unity but cultural annihilation, a slow and systematic erasure of entire nations within the state.
Armed and Civil Resistance
Against this machinery of oppression, the oppressed peoples of Pakistan have begun to resist, both through armed struggle and civil activism. In Balochistan, movements like the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) and Baloch Republican Army (BRA) fight for autonomy and justice, while intellectuals and human rights defenders raise their voices through peaceful advocacy. Their message is consistent and clear: no nation can surrender its right to exist freely under military subjugation.
The Crumbling Illusion of Military Sanctity
For decades, Pakistan’s army has cloaked itself in the myth of being the nation’s “guardian.” That illusion is unraveling. From Balochistan to the Pashtun belt and Sindh, people now see the army for what it is, not a protector but a colonizer of its own land and people. Public anger is growing against the military’s suffocating control over politics, resources, and national life.
The Failure of Nation-Building
The Pakistani establishment sought to unite diverse peoples under the banner of Islam. Instead, it created a structure rooted in ethnic inequality, coercion, and systemic injustice. Rather than fostering solidarity, this policy deepened division and alienation. The so-called nation-building project has now deteriorated to the brink of fragmentation.
International Complicity
The international community remains largely silent in the face of Pakistan’s repression, restrained by its nuclear arsenal, strategic geography, and geopolitical value. This silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. Each act of indifference strengthens the hand of tyranny and deepens the suffering of those who resist it.
Roots of Enduring Oppression
The persistence of despotism in Pakistan stems from one unchanging reality: the absolute dominance of the military. It controls politics, the judiciary, the media, and the economy, branding every call for justice or self-determination as a “security threat.” This militarized order thrives on fear and silence. It enforces obedience instead of accountability and domination instead of governance. The result is a system designed not to serve its people, but to subdue them.
The Imperative of Resistance
The repression, economic exploitation, enforced disappearances, and cultural colonization imposed on the Baloch, Pashtuns, Sindhis, and other oppressed nations are not acts of governance; they are crimes of control. These injustices not only strip human beings of their dignity but also affirm the moral legitimacy of resistance.
The time for silence is over. The oppressed must reclaim their awareness, embrace their heritage, and unite in civil, political, and intellectual struggle for self-determination. Real change demands clarity of vision, unity of purpose, and faith in one’s moral and cultural strength. Only those who stand firm against tyranny, who refuse to surrender their identity, their land, and their future, can shape their destiny.
This is not an era for waiting. It is an era for awakening, to resist, to rise, and to reclaim the right to live with freedom and dignity.