No longer the periphery ….. S. Akbar Zaidi
OVER recent decades, in social and political theory, the notions of ‘core’ or centre, and ‘periphery’ have been challenged and completely upended.
In earlier social science, especially under the hegemony of colonial writings, which morphed into what scholars termed as ‘orientalism’, centre or core, and periphery mattered, primarily to emphasise dominance based largely on racial and religious caricature.
The ‘centre’ was always London or Paris, when it came to British or French imperialism, and the colonies were, literally, the peripheries, inconsequential to how they perceived themselves to be, marginalised. The entire structure of colonialism is based on this lie.
Subsequently, later in social theory, notions of democracy, liberalism, religious and other practices, were also put into a comparative frame of ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ practices (of the West, developed countries), contrasted with more localised, indigenous or evolutionary practices in other parts of the world, away from whatever was considered the core at any particular time. At times, such a core or centre was a physical location, at others an ideology, or a practice or particular way of doing something.
In Pakistan too, this notion of centre/ core and periphery, has had both locational and ideological moorings, the dur-daraz ilaqay, both in terms of where they are and how ‘backward’ they are considered to be. However, the politics of agitation, protest and resistance is reorienting and refocusing such notions completely, overturning outmoded concepts, bringing the periphery right onto the central platform.
Today, both Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, considered to be marginalised, peripheral, ‘out there’, ‘backward’ locations, are rewriting a politics which is taking centre stage and undermining the centre. The periphery speaks truth to power.
The voices of the oppressed people are now increasingly being heard, and the oppressed are finding supporters among those who reside in the locales of power.
Protest movements in both regions, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, both of a very different nature, in terms of locale as well as demands, are countering the centre from where such concerns originate.
Whether it is the disappeared Baloch or the wilful underdevelopment of both regions, the so-called peripheries are drawing the entire country’s imagination away from their own regions towards the heartland. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee literally walked its way into the heart of Islamabad from supposedly faraway Balochistan and housed itself there for many days, despite the severe cold and the treatment meted out to all those who camped in Islamabad, almost all of them women and children.
Even the cruellest form of inhospitality and violence towards those who gathered did not result in their resistance coming undone. Moreover, a triumphant return to the centre of their homeland, in the form of a massive jalsa in Quetta, seen by thousands live and later, underscores how one cannot ignore the so-called peripheries.
The Gilgit-Baltistan sit-in, too, related to issues which emanate from the centre, Islamabad, such as the withdrawal on wheat subsidy or the imposition of taxes, has lasted a month in temperatures which are often sub-zero. The sit-in has moved towards a complete shutter-down strike and closure, with little public transport and protests all over the region.
As is clear to all, the protest by the people of Gilgit-Baltistan is not simply about the price of flour, but is enveloped in many years of marginalisation and neglect emanating from the centre, including the need to recognise the basic constitutional rights of the people of the region. Also similar to Balochistan is the grievance that locals are denied opportunities for employment or economic growth.
It is not just the Baloch or the people of Gilgit-Baltistan who have come to challenge the hegemony and dominance of the centre, of Punjab and Islamabad; importantly and most noticeably, it has been the women, especially from Balochistan, who have emerged as leaders and spokeswomen asking difficult questions and demanding answers from the powers responsible for those who are being disappeared or silenced.
Balochistan is the least developed province of a country which is fast under-developing and losing its economic and social position amongst comparable countries which have now all moved ahead.
Women in general in Pakistan and especially in Balochistan are considered the least ‘educated’ and most ‘traditional’, marginal to all praxis and politics, yet it is the very same women who have led the cause in Islamabad. The myth of the silent, depoliticised woman has been overturned by the supposedly peripheral and expendable Baloch woman.
At a time when a pale and unexciting general election is taking place in the heartland of Pakistan, it is voices coming from the responses to Dr Mahrang Baloch’s rally in Quetta, which have become the voices of all the people in Pakistan. Even from the periphery’s periphery — Turbat — from where the protest march originated following the extrajudicial killing of Balaach Mola Bakhsh attributed to the Counter-Terrorism Department, the bastion of power and privilege in Pakistan, Islamabad, has been awakened by calls from marchers 1,000 miles away. Demands for justice and retribution spoken softly at first, from the inconsequential margins of power, have become much louder in the bastions of power.
Just as social and political theory has been forced to surrender to the hegemony and dominance of the so-called norm, which was always conceived in an imagined and imperious centre, after being challenged by indigenous ideas from indigenous people, so too, the dominant ideas and practices from the centre in countries are being challenged by those supposedly on the margins. The voices of the marginalised and oppressed people of Pakistan are now increasingly being heard, and the oppressed are finding supporters and sympathisers among those who reside in locales of power.
The complacent, secure and comfortable centre in Pakistan — of politics, privilege and policy — is being overturned by those who have been marginalised, oppressed and underprivileged, from the furthest regions in the furthest peripheries of the country, as their voices now increasingly become mainstream.
The writer is a political economist and heads the IBA, Karachi. The views are his own and do not represent those of the institution.
Courtesy Dawn, February 2nd, 2024