Balochistan

Coordinates: 27°25′N 64°30′E

(Redirected from Baluchistan)

Balochistan[4] (/bəˈlɒtʃɪstɑːn, bəˌlɒtʃɪˈstɑːn, -stæn/ bə-

LOTCH-ist-a(h)n, -A(H)N; Balochi: ‫;ﺑﻠ�ﭼﺴﺘﺎﻥ‬ also Balochistan
romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a ‫ﺑﻠ�ﭼﺴﺘﺎن‬
historical region in Western and South Asia, located in
the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Region
Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid
region of desert and mountains is primarily populated
by ethnic Baloch people.[5][6][7]

The Balochistan region is split among three countries:

Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Administratively it
comprises the Pakistani province of Balochistan, the
Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, and the
southern areas of Afghanistan, which include Nimruz,
Helmand and Kandahar provinces.[8][9] It borders the
Khyber Paktunkhwa region to the north, Sindh and
Punjab to the east, and Iranian regions to the west. Its
southern coastline, including the Makran Coast, is
washed by the Arabian Sea, in particular by its western Balochistan region in pink
part, the Gulf of Oman.
Countries Afghanistan
Iran
Etymology Pakistan

The name "Balochistan" is generally believed to derive Population (2013)

from the name of the Baloch people.[8] Since the Baloch • Total c. 18–19 million[1][2][3]
people are not mentioned in pre-Islamic sources, it is Demographics
likely that the Baloch were known by some other name • Ethnic Baloch, Pashtuns,
in their place of origin and that they acquired the name groups Gurjar, Hazara, Sindhi,
"Baloch" only after arriving in Balochistan sometime in Saraiki
the 10th century.[10] • Languages Balochi
Minor: Brahui, Jadgali,
Johan Hansman relates the term "Baloch" to Meluḫḫa, Dehwari, Pashto, Lasi,
the name by which the Indus Valley civilisation is Sindhi, Saraiki, Dari,
believed to have been known to the Sumerians (2900– Persian, Hazaragi,
Khetrani, Urdu
2350 BC) and Akkadians (2334–2154 BC) in
Mesopotamia.[11] Meluḫḫa disappears from the Largest List [show]
Mesopotamian records at the beginning of the second cities
Quetta
millennium BC.[12] However, Hansman states that a Kharan
trace of it in a modified form, as Baluḫḫu, was retained Turbat
in the names of products imported by the Neo-Assyrian Zahedan
Empire (911–605 BC).[13] Al-Muqaddasī, who visited Khuzdar
Zaranj
the capital of Makran - Bannajbur, wrote c. 985 AD that
Uthal
it was populated by people called Balūṣī (Baluchi), Iranshahr
leading Hansman to postulate "Baluch" as a Dera Allah Yar
modification of Meluḫḫa and Baluḫḫu.[14] Sibi
Kalat
Asko Parpola relates the name Meluḫḫa to Indo-Aryan D.M. Jamali
words mleccha (Sanskrit) and milakkha/milakkhu Dera Bugti
(Pali) etc., which do not have an Indo-European Gwadar
Zhob
etymology even though they were used to refer to non-
Chabahar
Aryan people. Taking them to be proto-Dravidian in Nushki
origin, he interprets the term as meaning
either a proper name milu-akam (from
which tamilakam was derived when the
Indus people migrated south) or melu-
akam, meaning "high country", a possible
reference to Balochistani high lands.[15]
Historian Romila Thapar also interprets
Meluḫḫa as a proto-Dravidian term,
possibly mēlukku, and suggests the
meaning "western extremity" (of the
Dravidian-speaking regions in the Indian
subcontinent). A literal translation into
Sanskrit, aparānta, was later used to
describe the region by the Indo-Aryans. The proportion of people with Balochi as their mother
[16] tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan
Census
During the time of Alexander the Great
(356–323 BC), the Greeks called the land
Gedrosia and its people Gedrosoi, terms
of unknown origin.[17] Using etymological
reasoning, H. W. Bailey reconstructs a
possible Iranian name, uadravati,
meaning "the land of underground
channels", which could have been
transformed to badlaut in the 9th century
and further to balōč in later times. This
reasoning remains speculative.[18]

History
The proportion of people with Brahui as their mother
The earliest evidence of human tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan
occupation in what is now Balochistan is Census
dated to the Paleolithic era. Evidence
includes hunting camps, lithic scatter,
and chipped and flaked stone tools. The earliest settled villages in the region date to the ceramic
Neolithic (c. 7000–6000 BCE) and included the site of Mehrgarh in the Kachi Plain. These
villages expanded in size during the subsequent Chalcolithic when interaction was amplified.
This involved the movement of finished goods and raw materials, including chank shell, lapis
lazuli, turquoise, and ceramics. By 2500 BCE (the Bronze Age), the region now known as
Pakistani Balochistan had become part of the Indus Valley civilization cultural orbit,[19]
providing key resources to the expansive settlements of the Indus river basin to the east.

Classical period
From the 1st century to the 3rd century CE, the region was
ruled by the Pāratarājas (lit. "Pārata Kings"), a dynasty of
Indo-Parthian kings. The dynasty of the Pāratas is thought
to be identical with the Pāradas of the Mahabharata, the
Puranas and other Vedic and Iranian sources.[20] The Parata
kings are primarily known through their coins, which
typically exhibit the bust of the ruler (with long hair in a
headband) on the obverse, and a swastika within a circular
legend on the reverse, written in Brahmi (usually silver
coins) or Kharoshthi (copper coins). These coins are mainly
found in Loralai in today's western Pakistan.

During the wars between Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)

and Emperor Darius III (336-330 BC), the Baloch were
allied with the last Achaemenid emperor. According to
Shustheri (1925), Darius III, after much hesitation,
assembled an army at Arbela to counter the army of
invading Greeks. His cousin Besius was the commander,
leading the horsemen from Balkh. Berzanthis was the
commander of the Baloch forces, Okeshthra was the
commander of the forces from Khuzistan, Maseus was the
commander of the Syrian and Egyptian contingent, Ozbed
was the commander of the Medes, and Phirthaphirna was
leading the Sakas and forces from Tabaristan, Gurgan, and
Khurasan. Obviously, as part of a losing side, the Baloch
certainly got their share of punishment from the victorious
Macedonian forces.[21]
Large Baluch carpet, from the mid
19th century. Alternating rows depict
cypress trees and Turkmen Gül
motifs in offset coloration. The
somber background colors are
characteristic of Baluch weavings.
This likely was a commission for a
tribal Khan or chieftain for
ceremonial use.

Herodotus in 450 BCE described the Paraitakenoi as a tribe ruled by Deiokes, a Persian king, in
northwestern Persia (History I.101). Arrian describes how Alexander the Great encountered the
Pareitakai in Bactria and Sogdiana, and had them conquered by Craterus (Anabasis Alexandrou
IV). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE) describes the territory of the Paradon
beyond the Ommanitic region, on the coast of modern Balochistan.[22]

Medieval period

During the reign of Arab dynasties, medieval Iran suffered the onslaught of Ghaznavids,
Mongols, Timurids, and the incursions of Guzz Turks. The relationship between the Baloch and
nearly all these powers were hostile, and the Baloch suffered enormously during this long
period. The Baloch encounters with these powers and the subsequent Baloch miseries forced the
Baloch tribes to move from the areas of conflicts and to settle in the farflung and inaccessible
regions. The bloody conflicts with Buyids and Seljuqs were instrumental in waves of migration
by the Baloch tribes from Kerman to further east.[23]

The Hindu Sewa Dynasty ruled parts of Balochistan, chiefly Kalat.[24][25] The Sibi Division,
which was carved out of Quetta Division and Kalat Division in 1974, derives its name from Rani
Sewi, the queen of the Sewa dynasty.[26]

The region was fully Islamized by the 9th century and became part of the territory of the
Saffarids of Zaranj, followed by the Ghaznavids, then the Ghorids. The relation between the
Ghaznavids and the Baloch had never been peaceful. Turan and Makuran came under the
Ghaznavids founder Sebuktegin's suzerainty as early as AD 976-977 (Bosworth, 1963). The
Baloch tribes fought against Sebuktegin when he attacked
Khuzdar in AD 994. The Baloch were in the army of
Saffarids Amir Khalaf and fought against Mahmud when the
Ghaznavids forces invaded Sistan in AD 1013 (Muir, 1924).
Many other occasions were mentioned by the historians of
the Ghaznavids era in which the Baloch came into
confrontation with the Ghaznavids forces (Nizam al-Mulk,
1960).[27] Map of independent Balochistan
under the Brahui Kalat Khanate in
There are only passing references of Baloch encounters with 1730.
the Mongol hordes. In one of the classical Balochi ballads,
there is mention of a Baloch chieftain, Shah Baloch, who, no
doubt, heroically resisted a Mongol advance somewhere in Sistan.

During the long period of en masse migrations, the Baloch were traveling through settled
territories, and it could not have been possible to survive simply as wandering nomads.
Perpetual migrations, hostile attitudes of other tribes and rulers, and adverse climactic
conditions ruined much of their cattle breeding. Settled agriculture became a necessity for the
survival of herds and an increased population. They began to combine settled agriculture with
animal husbandry. The Baloch tribes now consisted of sedentary and nomadic population, a
composition that remained an established feature of the Baloch tribes until recently.[28]

The Khanate of Kalat was the first unified polity to emerge in the history of Balochistan.[29] It
took birth from the confederacy of nomadic Brahui tribes native to the central Balochistan in
1666[30] which under Mir Ahmad Khan I declared independence from the Mughal
suzeraignty[29] and slowly absorbed the Baloch principalities in the region.[30] It was ruled over
by the Brahui Ahmadzai dynasty till 1948.[31][32] Ahmad Shah Durrani made it vassal of the
Afghan Durrani Empire in 1749. In 1758 the Khan of Kalat, Mir Naseer Khan I, revolted against
Ahmed Shah Durrani, defeated him, and made his Khanate independent from the Durrani
Empire.

Tribalism and nomadism

Baloch tribalism in medieval times was synonymous with pastoral nomadism. Nomadic people,
as observed by Heape (1931), regard themselves as the superior of sedentary or agriculturist. It
is, perhaps, because the occupation of nomads made them strong, active, and inured to
hardship and the dangers which beset a mobile life.[33]

The areas of Balochistan where the Baloch tribes moved in had a sedentary population, and the
Baloch tribes were compelled to deal with their sedentary neighbors. Being in a weaker position,
the Baloch tribes were in need of constant vigils for their survival in new lands. To deal with this
problem, they began to make alliances and organized themselves into a more structured way.
The structural solution to this problem was to create tribal confederacies or unions. Thus, in
conditions of insecurity and disorder or when threatened by a predatory regional authority or a
hostile central government, several tribal communities would form a cluster around a chief who
had demonstrated his ability to offer protection and security.[33]

British occupation

The British took over the area in 1839.[34]

In the 1870s, Baluchistan came under control of the British Indian Empire in colonial India.[35]
The fundamental objective of the British to enter into a treaty agreement with the Khanate of
Kalat was to provide a passage and supplies to the "Army of Indus" on its way to Kandahar
through Shikarpur, Jacobabad (Khangadh), Dhadar, Bolan Pass, Quetta, and Khojak Pass. It is
interesting to note that the British imperialist interests in Balochistan were not primarily
economic as was the case with other regions of India. Rather, it was of a military and
geopolitical nature. Their basic objective in their advent in Balochistan was to station garrisons
so as to defend the frontiers of British India from any threat coming from Iran and Afghanistan.
[34]

Beginning from 1840, there began a general insurrection against the British rule throughout
Balochistan. The Baloch were not ready to accept their country as part of an occupied
Afghanistan and to be ruled under a puppet Khan. The powerful Mari tribe rose in total revolt.
The British retaliated with excessive force, and a British contingent under the command of
Major Brown on May 11, 1840, attacked the Mari headquarter of Kahan and occupied Kahan
Fort and the surrounding areas (Masson, 1974). The Mari forces withdrew from the area,
regrouped, and in an ambush wiped out a whole convoy of British troops near Filiji, killing more
than one hundred British troops.[34]

During the time of the Indian independence movement, "three pro-Congress parties were still
active in Balochistan's politics", such as the Anjuman-i-Watan Baluchistan, which favoured a
united India and opposed its partition.[36][37]

Post-colonial history

In 2021, there was an earthquake that killed dozens of people. This came to be known as the
2021 Balochistan earthquake. There were other major earthquakes in 2013 (2013 Balochistan
earthquake and 2013 Saravan earthquake).[38]

Culture
The cultural values which are the pillars of the Baloch
individual and national identity were firmly established
during the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, a period which
not only brought sufferings for the Baloch and forced them
into en masse migrations but also brought fundamental
sociocultural transformation of the Baloch society. An
Baloch children photographed in
overlapping of pastoral ecology and tribal structure had
Ashkutu, Iran, in March 2017
shaped contemporary Baloch social values. The pastoralist
nomadic way of life and the inclination to resist the
assimilation attempts of various powerful ethnic identities
shaped the peculiar Baloch ethnic identity. It was the persecution by strong and organized
religions for the last two thousand years that has shaped their secular attitude about religion in
social or community affairs. Their independent and stubborn behavior as the distinctive feature
of the Baloch identity is consistent with their nomadic or agro-pastoral past.[39]

Med o Maraka, for resolution of disputes among the Baloch, is a much-honored tradition. In a
broader context, it is, in a way, accepting the guilt by the accused or offender and asking for
forgiveness from the affected party. Usually, the offender himself does this by going to the home
of the affected person and asking for forgiveness.[40]

Dress code and personal upkeeping are among the cultural values, which distinguish a Baloch
from others. The Baloch dress and personal upkeeping very much resemble the Median and
Parthian ways. Surprisingly, no significant changes can be observed in the Balochi dress since
the ancient times. A typical Balochi outfit consisted of loose-fitting and many-folded trousers
held by garters, bobbed hair, shirt (qamis), and a head turban. Generally, both hair and beard
were carefully curled, but, sometimes, they depended on long straight locks. A typical dress of a
Baloch woman consists of a long frock and trouser (shalwaar) with a headscarf.[41][42]

Music

Zahirok is one of the most important and well-known balochi song genres, often described as
the “Balochi classical music” by the Baloch themselves.[43][44]

Instruments in traditional Balochi music include suroz, donali, ghaychak, dohol, sorna, rubab,
kemenche, tamburag and benju.[45][46][47][48][49]

Religion
Historically, there is no documented evidence of religious practices of the Baloch in ancient
times. Many among the Baloch writers observed that the persecutions of the Baloch by the
Sassanid emperors Shapur II and Khosrow II had a strong religious or sectarian element. They
believed that there are strong indications that the Baloch were the followers of Mazdakian and
Manichean sects of Zoroastrianism religion at the time of their fatal encounters with Sassanid
forces. No elaborate structure of religious institutions has been discerned in the Baloch society
during the Middle Ages. The Baloch converted to Islam (nearly all Baloch belong to the Sunni
sect of Islam) after the Arab conquest of Balochistan during the seventh century.[50]

Governance and political disputes

The Balochistan region is administratively divided among three countries, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Iran. The largest portion in area and population is in Pakistan, whose largest
province (in land area) is Balochistan. An estimated 6.9 million of Pakistan's population is
Baloch. In Iran there are about two million ethnic Baloch[51] and a majority of the population of
the eastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province is of Baloch ethnicity. The Afghan portion of
Balochistan includes the Chahar Burjak District of Nimruz Province, and the Registan Desert in
southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The governors of Nimruz province in Afghanistan
belong to the Baloch ethnic group. President Pervez Musharraf and the military are responsible
for the worsening of the conflict in Balochistan.[52]

The Balochistan region has also experienced a number of insurgencies with separatist militants
demanding independence of Baloch regions in the three countries to form "Greater
Balochistan".[53] In Pakistan, insurgencies by separatist militants in Balochistan province have
been fought in 1948, 1958–59, 1962–63 and 1973–1977, with a new ongoing low-intensity
insurgency[54] beginning in 2003.[55] Historically, drivers of the conflict are reported to include
"tribal divisions", the Baloch-Pashtun ethnic divisions, "marginalization by Punjabi interests",
and "economic oppression".[56] However, over the years, insurgency waged by separatist
militants declined as result of crackdown by Pakistani security forces, infighting among the
separatist militants and assassinations of Baloch politicians willing to take part in Pakistan's
democratic process by the separatist militants.[57] Separatist militants in Pakistan demand more
autonomy and a greater share in the region's natural resources. The Baloch population in
Pakistan has endured grave violations of human rights, which include extrajudicial killings,
enforced disappearances, and torture. These actions are purportedly perpetrated by state
security forces and their associates.[58] In 2019, United States declared Baloch Liberation Army,
one of the separatist militants fighting the government of Pakistan, a global terrorist group.[54]

In Iran, separatist fighting has reportedly not gained as much ground as the conflict in Pakistan,
[59] but has grown and become more sectarian since 2012,[51] with the majority-Sunni Baloch
showing a greater degree of Salafist and anti-Shia ideology in their fight against the Shia-
Islamist Iranian government.[51] Separatist militants fighting in Iran demand more rights for
ethnic Baloch living in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan Province.[60]

See also
▪ Mehrgarh
▪ Bolan Pass
▪ Seistan Force
▪ Baloch nationalism

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Bibliography
▪ Hansman, John (1973), "A Periplus of Magan and Meluhha", Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, 36 (3): 553–587, doi:10.1017/S0041977X00119858 (https://do
i.org/10.1017%2FS0041977X00119858), JSTOR 613582 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/6135
82), S2CID 140709175 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:140709175)
▪ Hansman, John (1975), "A further note on Magan and Meluhha (Notes and
Communications)", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 38 (3): 609–610,
doi:10.1017/s0041977x00048126 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2Fs0041977x00048126),
JSTOR 613711 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/613711), S2CID 178684667 (https://api.semanti
cscholar.org/CorpusID:178684667)
▪ Parpola, Asko; Parpola, Simo (1975), "On the relationship of the Sumerian toponym
Meluhha and Sanskrit mleccha" (http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/StOrE/article/view/49874/14912),
Studia Orientalia, 46: 205–238
▪ Parpola, Asko (2015), The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization
(https://books.google.com/books?id=_eykCQAAQBAJ), Oxford University Press,
ISBN 978-0-19-022692-3
▪ Tandon, Pankaj (2006), "New light on the Pāratarājas" (http://people.bu.edu/ptandon/Paratar
 ajas.pdf) (PDF), Numismatic Chronicle, 166: 173–209, JSTOR 42666407 (https://www.jsto
r.org/stable/42666407)
▪ Thapar, Romila (January 1975), "A Possible Identification of Meluḫḫa, Dilmun and Makan",
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 18 (1): 1–42, doi:
10.1163/156852075x00010 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F156852075x00010),
JSTOR 3632219 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632219)

Further reading
▪ Axmann, Martin (2019). "Baluchistan and the Baluch people" (https://referenceworks.brillonli
ne.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/baluchistan-and-the-baluch-people-COM_25188?
s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-3&s.q=baluch). In Fleet, Kate;
Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of
Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1873-9830).
▪ Fabry, Philippe (1991) Balouchistan, le désert insoumis, Paris, Nathan Image, 136 p., ISBN
2-09-240036-3

External links
▪ Baluchistan (https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11749/#q=Balochistan) is a map published by The
Century Company
▪ Afghanistan, Beloochistan, etc. (http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2676) is a map from 1893
published by the American Methodist Church
▪ Balochistan Archives- Preserving our Past (https://web.archive.org/web/20150614012814/ht
tp://balochistanarchives.gob.pk/)

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