News reports are not entirely clear if Nawabzadeh Brahamdagh Khan Bugti, today the foremost symbol of Baloch freedom from Pakistan who has been living in self-exile in Geneva, desires Indian citizenship or political asylum in India. What’s not in doubt, though, is that in 2007, after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s Army assassinated his grandfather, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the head of the preponderant Bugti tribe who became the standard-bearer of Baloch freedom, the ISI has organised several attempts on the life of Brahmdagh, who founded the Baloch Republican Party.
That makes Brahamdagh red hot political property — in the context of Balochistan as well as Pakistan as Muhammed Ali Jinnah had forcibly absorbed the territories of the Khan of Kalat (the Balochistan ruler), although the latter had an embassy in Karachi, Pakistan’s first capital, for nearly eight months after August 1947. Interestingly, at the time of the Indian Independence, the Quetta municipality was led by the Congress Party, although Kalat was deemed to be outside the framework of princely states during colonial rule.
Brahamdagh Bugti is politically as sensitive as the Dalai Lama was when he was given asylum by the Nehru government. If Mr Bugti becomes an Indian citizen, his political movement will be constrained, and his activities seen as interference by an Indian national. Asylum is a different matter, however. It means extending open support to the cause of Balochistan’s independence. This is what Pakistan does in Kashmir. But while Pakistan seeks to grab Kashmir in the name of religion, Muslim Balochistan has no wish to be retained inside Muslim Pakistan.
If the Modi government offers asylum to Mr Bugti, it would be the start of a new chapter in the subcontinent’s affairs. Of course, it is not clear to what extent his government is ready to espouse the Baloch cause, and on what terms the Baloch republican leader receives asylum in this country. New Delhi has been tight-lipped about the behind the scenes action. (A question — will the Indian high commissioner in Islamabad attempt to fly to Balochistan to visit resistance leaders, should he be constrained from seeing them at his Islamabad residence?) We should take on board that Beijing won’t be happy with the India-Balochistan equation as it is busy expanding its influence to Balochistan.
