Baluchistan

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BALUCHISTAN

Literally "land of the Baluch"; the name given to the region of approximately half a million square miles that straddles southeastern Iran, southwestern Pakistan, and southern Afghanistan.

Although its precise boundaries are still undetermined, it is generally thought to stretch from the edge of the Iranian plateau (the Dasht-e Lut), including parts of the Kirman desert east of Bam and the Bashagird mountains, to the coastal lowlands of the Gulf of Oman, up to the rugged Sulaiman range in the East, at the edge of the western boundaries of the Pakistani provinces of Sind and Punjab. The volcano of Kuh-i Taftan (13,500 ft. [4,104 m]) located on the Iranian side is considered Baluchistan's most spectacular peak. Its most important cities are Iranshahr (formerly Fahraj), the capital of Iranian Baluchistan and Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan.

Due to the nature of its divergent topography, Baluchistan appears to have been divided throughout its history between Iranian "highland" and Indian subcontinent "lowland" spheres of influence. Indeed, its hybrid population, comprising Baluch, Brahuis, Djats, and other South Asian elements, thought to amount to a little more than two million, reflects this. In particular, the region has been influenced greatly by the politics of the neighboring areas of Kerman, Sistan, Kandahar, Punjab, Sind, and Oman.

The Baluch are generally divided into two groups, the Sarawan and the Jahlawan, separated from each other by the Brahuis of the Kalat region. The exact origins of the Baluch are unclear. It is generally thought that they migrated to the region either from the east, beyond Makran, or from north of Kerman sometime in the late medieval period. The earliest mention of them occurs in an eighth-century Pahlavi text, while a number of the medieval Muslim geographers mention a group called the "Balus," in the area between Kerman, Khorasan, Sistan, and Makran.

When they actually began to see themselves as a distinct cultural unit is another matter of debate. The idea of a single, politically unified Baluchistan seems to date back to the eighteenth century and the time of their only successful indigenous leader, the Brahui Nasir Khan, who attempted to consolidate all the Baluch into one unified nation. This idea of a single Baluchistan was further fueled by the British—who began to take a great interest in the area in the nineteenth century and formally incorporated large sections of it into their subcontinental empire as part of their divide-and-rule policy. Indeed, it was the British who first began extensive mapping of the area, promoted scholarship on the Baluchi tribes, and negotiated the formal international boundaries with Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in 1947, ultimately spurring Iranian and Russian interests in the area.

Regardless of the debates, it can be said with certainty that a distinct ethnic and social entity, complete with an independent language, Baluchi, and a distinctive social and political structure based on a primarily nomadic way of life, emerged in the region known as Baluchistan.