&w=3840&q=100)
Baloch must embrace civil disobedience to resist Pakistan's repression
What options are left when every legal path is blocked, when even mourning becomes a punishable act, and a mother clutching her son's photograph is seen as a danger? When the courts, human rights commissions, and press clubs all turn their backs, what remains is not hope, but a quiet determination to endure and to resist.
The past year has made one thing clear to the oppressed Baloch nation: the state has no interest in dialogue, justice, or reform. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee; the arrests of peaceful activists like Mahrang Baloch, Sibghat Ullah Shahji, and Beebagr Baloch; the brutal response to the long march to Islamabad and the Baloch National Gathering in Gwadar—none of this was accidental.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
It is part of a long-standing campaign to silence and intimidate Baloch voices through brute force. These were not militants, but students, lawyers, doctors and families searching for their missing loved ones. They carried placards, chanted slogans and held photographs. In return, they faced repression, arrests, baton charges, tear gas and complete indifference from the very institutions meant to uphold their rights.
In March 2025, in Balochistan's capital Quetta, families of the missing came to the streets alongside young activists to demand answers. These were families who had spent years searching for their loved ones—sons, daughters, and brothers who had disappeared without a trace. They called for the release of detained members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee and others held without charge. The state responded not with dialogue or compassion but with violence.
Pakistani forces opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing three children in broad daylight. Those who spoke out were arrested, and those who stood in solidarity were harassed and intimidated. Grieving women were dragged and manhandled in the streets, while Mahrang Baloch, a leading voice of the movement, was taken into custody along with others in a wave of unlawful detentions. In a political order where peaceful dissent is met with such force, mass civil disobedience is no longer just a right; it becomes a moral duty.
And now, as Baloch women and sisters themselves are being abducted, harassed and even killed, as they were in Awaran, Kech and Quetta, the red line has been crossed once again. This time, the response cannot follow the same path. It must take the shape of mass civil disobedience. A refusal to continue participating in a system that criminalises identity and grief.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The Baloch must now break the illusion of normalcy that the state depends on. Let teachers resign until the disappeared are returned or at least acknowledged. Let bureaucrats leave their offices and stop lending their labour to a government that erases their families. Let students refuse to sit in classrooms where their accents turn them into suspects. Let shopkeepers shut their stores, transport come to a halt and the roads empty. The state's authority should be met with collective and determined withdrawal.
And let the Baloch people march again, not to courtrooms that offer no justice or press clubs that refuse to speak the truth, but to the gates of military cantonments and intelligence offices, where so many of the disappeared were last seen, where countless others continue to face inhumane torture. Let them stand before the institutions that built this terror and say, 'Abduct or kill us too. You abducted our sons and our daughters. You killed our mothers. We will not live half-lives anymore.'
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
This is not some distant ideal or romantic notion. It has happened before, and it can happen again. From Gandhi's Salt March in colonial India to the sit-ins led by Black students in segregated America, history shows that justice has always advanced when ordinary people chose civil disobedience over silent suffering. When the law serves only power, disobedience becomes the highest expression of civic duty.
Gandhi did not defeat the British with rifles; he broke their hold by daring them to arrest him, knowing thousands more would rise in his place. The Civil Rights Movement did not end segregation through appeasement but through the unbearable moral clarity of young people being hosed down for trying to go to school. The resistance that authoritarian states fear most is not violent—it is moral, disciplined, and impossible to ignore.
Pakistan may fear militants in the mountains, but what it fears even more is unarmed, organised resistance. It fears a protest that refuses to disappear, one that grows stronger each time it is attacked. It fears women like Mahrang Baloch, who stand before cameras and say, 'We are not asking for charity; we are demanding justice. Stop your barbarity in Balochistan and give us answers.' And it fears thousands like her—people who carry no weapons, only the weight of memory and the strength to keep speaking when silence is safer.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The state has made it clear, time and again, that it has no tolerance for peaceful dissent. This is exactly why the leaders of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee were targeted—not because they took up arms or incited violence, but because they refused to be silent. They were not punished for insurrection but for daring to organise within the bounds of the law. They were not arrested for agitation but for remembering the disappeared. When a state begins to treat remembrance itself as a threat, when mourning is labelled as sedition, it becomes painfully clear that the era of appeals, petitions, and commissions is over.
Civil disobedience offers a way forward that does not rely on violence but on collective courage and dignity. Imagine mothers standing in quiet rows outside Pakistani military camps, holding nothing but photographs of their missing children. Imagine students walking out of universities in protest, not for privilege, but because their language or surname has marked them as suspects.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Imagine entire neighbourhoods marching together to the gates of military installations with a clear message: 'We will not cooperate in our own erasure.' This is not disorder or chaos; it is disciplined, purposeful resistance. It is the reclaiming of moral ground in a system built on denial and repression.
The question is no longer whether the Baloch should resist but how to resist in a way that is effective, principled, and enduring. The answer lies in resistance that is nonviolent, collective, and unwavering. Continuing to beg a state that responds only with indiscriminate firing, tear gas, batons, and silence is a slow and suffocating death. Mass disobedience is never easy. It requires discipline, sacrifice, and unity that reaches across cities, communities, and generations, from Awaran to Kech, Gwadar to Quetta, Panjgur to Pasni. Yet it remains the only form of protest that carries both moral legitimacy and the power to shake the foundations of repression.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Let the state be forced to choose between acknowledging its violence or exposing its fear of peace. Let it come to understand that if it continues to criminalise grief, then grief will grow beyond its control. Let it face the reality of Baloch mothers who no longer beg but who will not walk away either. And let it be clear that if the state insists on erasing the Baloch, then the Baloch will step away from the very system that depends on their silence and cooperation.
This is what settles in when people have tried everything—waited outside courts, knocked on every door, held up photographs, but nothing changed. When silence and oppression are all the state offers, the only thing left is to say no, together. This is not a call to destroy but a call to sit down, to disrupt the system peacefully and refuse to be pushed aside any longer. And if the state sees even that as a threat, then let it do what it has done to so many before. Let it abduct us too. Let it kill us too. But we won't be silent, and we won't fade away like our lives don't matter.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Dilshad Baluch is a journalist from Pakistan's Balochistan Province and a graduate of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @DilshadBaluch. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
From Kargil to Operation Sindoor: Two decades of military transformation in India
As India commemorates 26 years of victory at Kargil, it draws comparison to Operation Sindoor. The valour, courage and determination of the Indian Armed Forces remain the same, but in terms of technology and warfare, the Indian Military has come a long way from Operation Vijay to Operation the summer of 1999, Indian soldiers fought a very difficult war against Pakistan in the inaccessible peaks of Kargil that continued for more than two months and three weeks between 3 May and 26 July. India lost 527 Bravehearts in the Kargil war. On 26 July 1999, India declared victory by recapturing all points across a stretch of 150 kilometres. 26 years later Pakistan was again countered in a fierce operation this year after the Pahalgam massacre. While Kargil was a long battle majorly fought by infantry in direct combat and artillery regiments, Operation Sindoor is a non-contact operation with missiles, air defence and lethal response to the terrorist attack on Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor was launched, and terror camps were targeted inside Pakistan. This year's Kargil Vijay Diwas is the first celebration of the victory over Pakistan after Operation Sindoor. Even though the Kargil War and Operation Sindoor are very different operations, in terms of intensity and warfare technique, both started to defeat Pakistan's misadventures of infiltration and terrorism. The Pakistani army was given a befitting reply in the Kargil war and Operation Sindoor with the same force but in a different style. After the Indian Armed Forces struck nine terror bases, the Pakistani military tried to target India's military and civilian bases. To which the Indian Armed Forces gave a befitting reply and destroyed many airbases and air defence sites in infiltrating Kargil in 1999, Pakistan tried to internationalise the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. The motive was the same when Pakistan-backed terrorists attacked Pahalgam. Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir had made an inflammatory statement raking up the Kashmir issue right before the Pahalgam Operation Vijay to Operation Sindoor, the Indian Armed Forces have changed not only in terms of their modern weapons and niche warfare technology but also in terms of their military posturing. While Operation Vijay was defensive, Operation Sindoor has been an offensive message against terrorism as the Indian Armed Forces struck terror targets inside Pakistan. Operation Vijay lasted from May to July and there was a fierce battle for several weeks. In Operation Sindoor, strikes were carried out on 9 terrorist hideouts in 25 minutes. Pakistan asked India for a ceasefire in just four days, although India has said that Operation Sindoor is still going experts say that there are different generations according to the way war is fought. For example, in the first-generation war, there was a face-to-face battle. In the second generation, artillery guns were also used along with direct combat. Third generation warfare is non-linear i.e. facing the enemy in one place and surrounding him from another place. The most important number of wars in the fourth-generation war is the technique, method, and tactics of fighting the war. In this, the enemy is taken on by fighting. In this, manoeuvring (changing place) is important. The Kargil War was a Fourth Generation War, in which force was used on the entire Western Front and all kinds of arms and artillery were Operation Sindoor went beyond that. It is called Generation 4.5. It used mostly technology. India carried out surgical strikes on the hideouts of terrorists using precision guided weapons. The purpose was fulfilled by using technology. Pakistan also used technology. Sent drones which were foiled by India's air defence system. During the Kargil war, Pakistan did not violate its airspace. Operation Sindoor was also a test of India's air defence system. During this time, it was tested how effective India's air defence system is in protecting military and civil assets. Long-range missiles were used from both sides. It was a non-contact conflict in which the enemy was attacked from a Operation Vijay in 1999, the Indian Armed Forces relied heavily on legacy systems, with infantry soldiers primarily equipped with INSAS rifles and Dragunov sniper rifles, while heavy lifting was done by Bofors howitzers that proved crucial in high-altitude warfare. Artillery support came from 105 mm Indian field guns and mortars, and close combat often involved AK-47s and Carl Gustav rocket launchers. On the other hand, air support was provided by aircraft like the MiG-21s and to Operation Sindoor, India's military capabilities have seen a significant technological leap. The infantry is now equipped with more reliable and powerful weapons such as the SIG716i and AK-203 rifles. Artillery has been overhauled with the induction of Dhanush howitzers, M777 ultra-light guns ideal for mountainous terrain, and self-propelled K9 Vajra systems. Precision targeting and surveillance have improved drastically with the integration of advanced drones, loitering munitions, and AI-assisted battlefield management systems. Additionally, modern air defence systems, including Akash SAM batteries and indigenous radars, were deployed during Operation Sindoor to neutralise aerial threats—highlighting a shift from reactive to proactive defence the Indian Army commemorates Kargil Vijay Diwas, India Today witnesses the mood and preparedness on the ground. The 26th anniversary of Operation Vijay holds greater significance due to the recent Operation Sindoor. This happened to be the biggest event on the front lines amid the Operation Sindoor that is still going Operation Sindoor, the Indian Army deployed additional air defence guns and equipment to counter threats from across the border. These threats were effectively neutralised in the region. Leh based 14 corps was also one of the targets of the Pakistani drones during Operation Sindoor. Dras, Kargil also remains on a heightened alert amid ongoing operations.- EndsMust Watch


The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Rahul Gandhi terms Telangana's survey visionary, inclusive
Heaping praise on Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and the Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has said the Telangana model of socio-economic survey is visionary, inclusive and powered by 21st century data. Mr. Rahul Gandhi's praise for the Telangana CM and his cabinet colleagues came for the second time in two days as he addressed OBC leaders at a meeting in New Delhi on Friday. 'It is social justice 2.0 and it will define how India moves forward,' Mr. Gandhi said. The Congress leader recalled how Ms. Sonia Gandhi's fight to create the State of Telangana cemented deep emotional connection to the people, the language and the culture of this beautiful State. 'I am filled with immense pride as I witness the remarkable efforts of the Congress government in conducting the Socio-Economic Caste Survey,' he pointed out. 'Their commitment to a sincere, inclusive, and consultative process has set a new benchmark — one that should guide future Census exercises across the country,' he added. Mr. Gandhi also noted that based on the survey, the Telangana government had taken a historic step in recommending 42% OBC reservation in local body elections and educational institutions. Mr. Revanth Reddy and other Congress leaders had already drawn praise from Ms. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Priyanka Gandhi and AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge for the landmark socio-economic survey.
&w=3840&q=100)

First Post
2 hours ago
- First Post
China foreign minister urges Pakistani Army Chief to protect nationals, Belt and Road projects
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Pakistan to protect the safety of Chinese nationals and projects, as he met with Pakistan's army chief who was on his first visit to Beijing since his country's recent clashes with India. read more China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on Pakistan to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals and infrastructure projects during his meeting with Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir who was visiting Beijing for the first time since recent clashes with India. Over the years, China has invested billions in Pakistan's infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative. However, security concerns have grown amid repeated attacks targeting Chinese workers, which Beijing has labelled as 'terrorist attacks.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD During the Thursday meeting, Wang expressed China's support for Pakistan's efforts to fight all forms of terrorism and stressed the importance of protecting Chinese personnel, projects and institutions. He also emphasized the 'ironclad' friendship between the two countries and reaffirmed China's commitment to prioritizing Pakistan in its regional diplomacy. 'China supports Pakistan in resolutely combating all forms of terrorism and hopes that the Pakistani military will continue to make every effort to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, projects, and institutions,' Wang said during the meeting on Thursday with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry. He reaffirmed China's 'ironclad' friendship with Pakistan, saying that Beijing would continue to prioritise the country in its neighbourhood diplomacy. Munir also met with China's Central Military Commission vice chairman Zhang Youxia on Friday, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. Beijing has pushed Pakistan to allow its own security staff to provide protection to Chinese citizens on the ground, after a car bombing in the southern port city of Karachi that killed two Chinese engineers in October last year, Reuters reported. With inputs from agencies