I'm sure you are aware what mud-slinging means. It is something that you and Prashant were engaged in; accusing each other's country and media for things going wrong in your native countries.
There will always be externalities of such scenarios but accusing fellow country-men of not knowing enough just because they're abroad doesn't really solve the issue or show any effort on part of those who are still back there in the subcontinent to really change things. If you bore the brunt of all what is happening in Balochistan, why didn't you and people like you do something about it? That is the problem in Pakistan (being a Pakistani it is difficult to accept this but I have to). People accuse everyone 'else' for being the cause of their troubles while they clearly IGNORE the fact that them not doing anything themselves against what is going on in their homeland, is the biggest cause and crime.
Why aren't there mass rallies (peaceful) in support of the government or in support of the Balochis' rights (excluding the selfish sardars)? Why aren't Pakistanis taking sides instead playing safe by being neutral like it doesn't even matter to them? Why don't we rally in support of minorities when their Churches are burnt down and Synogogues torched? It is because we fear the opposing side (mostly the radical Islamists) and stay locked up in our houses. It is only when we overcome this fear will we be able to bring about a revolution to stabilize our motherland and clearly make it 'the land of the pure'. We need national mobilization but not behind the mad Mullahs. The moderates and liberals need to further their efforts in order to eradicate Zia Ul-Haq's legacy of religious fanaticism and intolerance.
Zeeshan S: What can we do (regarding Balochistan)? For starters, it would be better if we just learnt from history and avoided a repetition of 1971. I am against the sardars myself but the average Balochi is someone I can sympathise with. For too long they have been denied their rights as have people in other provinces with Punjab in full command of everything.
Now I'm a 'nationalist liberal' if I were to define my political views (meaning Pakistan comes first and ethnicity; whether Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pakhtoon, Mohajir doesn't matter because at the end of the day, we're all Pakistanis) but at the same time you have to give thought to the dominance over others by one province. I think our successive governments and Punjabi members of those establishments forget that Pakistan was created because of Hindu majority's stubborness and unwillingness to co-operate with the minority Muslims. Here we deal with the same situation, the dominant Punjab has to realize that it has to compromise and be willing to give up certain aspirations to obtain the goodwill of smaller provinces. The power cannot be just given entirely to the central federal government. Provinces need to be given more autonomy. Take the exampe of Canada or any other 'federation' type nation-state. Autonomy is central to solving all disputes.
Why is the average Baloch angry and unhappy? Because the central government exploits their province's natural resources and pays them meagre royalties. There are other issues as well. Discrimination is also a problem to some extent. There's so much unemployment among the Baloch (because of rampant illiteracy) that when a sardar offers Rs. 6000/month to a youngster in exchange for his services in that sardar's private militia, there's no doubt that the youngster would take up the offer (to support his family or for other reasons) because the opportunity cost of not taking up that offer is too high for that poverty stricken youngster plus all he has to do is go out a couple of times a month with his AK-47, fire a few rounds at a Frontier Corps. check post and return. The central government has to lure these young men away by giving them better incentives such as subsidized or even free education and job training so that they become economically productive instead of leaving them to waste their lives for the selfish cause of a particular sardar.
