The veteran Baloch nationalist leader, Nawab Khair Bu Marri, dubbed by many as the “Father of Balochistan”, who died on Tuesday night in a Karachi hospital, remained a galvanizing force for the past six decades in the politics of Balochistan. He was one of those tribal leaders who were tagged as “trouble makers” by the governing elite of the country. But for many others in his home province he remained a symbol of aspiration towards complete provincial autonomy in the early seventies, and then ultimate freedom from the mid-seventies onward.
Born in February 1928 in Balochistan’s district Kohlu, he was educated at Lahore’s colonial-era institution, Aitichison College. Three years after the partition of the Indian sub continent and the coerced annexation of the Baloch state of Kalat into Pakistan, Nawab Marri became chieftain of his tribe, the Marri, one of the most powerful and fiercely independent tribes of the Baloch. The young Nawab is reportedly said to have been indifferent to politics in the early days of his life but Kalat state’s coerced inclusion in Pakistan and later a military operation against the dissident Baloch who resisted the Martial Law of Gen Ayub Khan made him a staunch political worker.
It was in 1958 when the then military ruler Ayub Khan sought to explore the reservoirs of gas and coal hidden under the surface of the desolate, barren and rugged Marri hills and tracts that Nawab Nauroz Khan Zarakzai (called Babu Nauroz by the Baloch, out of respect) rose in rebellion against the move. Later on the military authorities lured him in to find a peaceful solution to the problems putting the Quran in between. But the 90-year-old Sardar was betrayed: He himself was put in Kohlu where he languished for years eventually dying there. His son and four of his comrades were hanged.
Nawab Marri joined forces with the erstwhile National Awami Party in the 60s and fought the historic 1971 election on its ticket. He won both provincial and national assembly seats but retained his provincial assembly seat only. Although disillusioned with the outcome of parliamentary politics, he nevertheless participated in it.
But his experience with democratic politics was cut short by the centre’s overthrow of Balochistan’s only elected government till then. The entire leadership of NAP including Wali Khan, Ataullah Mengal, Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and Khair Bux Marri himself were incarcerated in different jails of the country and the party was banned. Balochistan took up arms in rebellion once again.
The Marri tribe was at the forefront of the resistance which continued from 1973 to 1977. Thousands were killed on both sides but the crisis ended in a stalemate. After the ousting of the Bhutto regime in 1977 by Gen Zia Ul Haq, all the political prisoners including those accused under the Hyderabad Tribunal were released. Nawab Khair Bux, it was alleged, was not going to come out of prison, but thanks to the protest and eventual refusal of Bizenjo to leave prison if Marri was not released with him, he was set free.
After his release Nawab Khair Bux Marri went into self-imposed exile; first in Europe and then Afghanistan. Most families of the Marri tribe also joined him there. But after the fall of the Soviet Union-backed government of Najeebullah in 1992, he was brought back by the government of Pakistan. He could not have continued to live in Afghanistan any longer in the face of the advancing Mujahideen forces which took Kabul that year.
Upon his return to Pakistan he remained inactive in politics. In 2001 he was accused of being involved in the killing of a judge of the Balochistan High Court, Mr Nawaz Marri and put in jail. But was quickly released by the Musharraf government. In the early 2000 another insurgency started in Balochistan after then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf signed several agreements with foreign companies, mainly Chinese, to develop the strategically important Gawadar port and coastal highway. The Baloch saw this move as against their interests and took it as a part of internal colonization. The resistance is said to have had the tacit support of Nawab Khair Bux Marri who by then lived in his Karachi home in DHA.
Although a vocal supporter of freedom for the Baloch and creation of a Baloch homeland, not only from within Pakistan but also Iran and Afghanistan, he never publicly admitted his role in the resistance. A staunch Marxist and nationalist all his life, he was accused by some to be a stubborn politician. But even his opponents could be heard narrating stories of his gentle fondness for birds and dogs.
[quote]"If you are coming as a former Prime Minister of Pakistan to meet me, don't come. But if you are coming as the daughter of Sindh, you are welcome"[/quote]
Most of his life he spent either in prisons or in exile. Unlike other tribal chiefs who are fond of ascribing great deeds to themselves in lengthy sermons, Nawab Khair Bux Marri was famous for his short and concise answers. He rarely met with the media, the last time being on the occasion when former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto went to condole his son Nawabzada Balaach Marri’s death. The extent of his grievances against the state can be judged from his answer to BB’s request for the meeting: “If you are coming as a former Prime Minister of Pakistan to meet me, don’t come. But if you are coming as the daughter of Sindh, you are welcome.”
Analysts present different answers as to what course Baloch nationalism will take after the death of one of its most ardent leaders and its visible symbol. For some, his tribe, the Marri which to date has participated in every insurgency will now abate, as the chieftainship of the tribe will fall into the hands of Nawabzada Jenghiz Marri who is pro-federation. For others only the center of Baloch struggle will change from the Marri area towards the more egalitarian areas of Makran on the coast which is already a hotbed of militancy spearheaded by middle-class educated youth. The intensity of the militancy will increase as the new generation of leaders are ever more fuelled by the idea of independence. The same opinion was expressed by a leading columnist in the Pakistani press who compared Nawab Marri to the erstwhile Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy of East Pakistan who remained a bridge between then East and West Pakistan. But after his death the gulf only widened and eventaully the country broke up.
In the wake of the death of one of the leading voices of the Baloch nation, one expected a starting of a meaningful debate which could possibly find a solution to the sore problem of Balochistan. But it seems that neither the high-ups nor the ‘experts’ of everything under the sun are ready yet.
Begum Salma Ahmed bids farewell to Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri
“Baloch leader Khair Bakhsh Marri dies” read a headline of June 11. In the same issue, an “Obituary” was entitled “A Fighter All the Way.” I had heard the news earlier from Murtaza Bugti, son of late Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti.
I knew Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri much earlier in life. A quote from my autobiography “Cutting Free” on page 34: “About this time Cheemi’s (Naseem Hussain Qureshi) Baloch friends entered the scene. Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti was his classmate from Aitchison College and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri was a year senior. Khair Bakhsh Marri was extremely handsome, but very silent.”
I cast my mind back to what seems aeons ago and I remember KB’s fetishes, and his likes and dislikes. I remember him going to Karachi’s Saddar and picking up “qulfis” from there. He’d return to my house and enjoy the sweet ice-cream with his friends.
Another habit he had was to wash his hands after shaking them with strangers, when he was done. He had a hang up or rather a fetish for clean hands.
I remember another occasion from days gone by, when someone remarked to me, you have three Nawabs in your house today – of course two of them were Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, and his very good friend Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti.
Here’s another quote from “Cutting Free”: “I met up with Ahmed Nawaz, whenever he came from Balochistan. Some time earlier, Bhutto had gone on a visit to Balochistan to meet Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, sister of the Shah of Iran, who was the guest of the Balochistan Government. Half way through dinner, Bhutto asked Hafeez Pirzada to get up and dance to the strains of ‘Ho Jamalo’. Hafeez in turn asked Sardar Ataullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri to do the same. After they refused for the third time, he was told by Khair Bakhsh ‘I have a gun in my hand. The next time you ask a Sardar to dance, I will shoot you.’ Sardar Ataullah Mengal narrated this to me.”
Years ago, I asked to see Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri in his Defence Home in Karachi. I had to wait for a while; then I was called in. KB had a coverlet over his legs.
I gave him a copy of my autobiography “Cutting Free”, and he asked me to inscribe it for him. I wrote something like this: “To the handsomest Baloch I know – KB Marri.”
He then asked me about my land in Jhimpir, and said, “If you have any trouble there, let me know, I have my people in the area.”
And I never saw him again.
Adieu, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Adieu dear friend, you don’t have to wash your hands any longer, you are free from all the “dirt in the world”. Fare thee well.
Born in February 1928 in Balochistan’s district Kohlu, he was educated at Lahore’s colonial-era institution, Aitichison College. Three years after the partition of the Indian sub continent and the coerced annexation of the Baloch state of Kalat into Pakistan, Nawab Marri became chieftain of his tribe, the Marri, one of the most powerful and fiercely independent tribes of the Baloch. The young Nawab is reportedly said to have been indifferent to politics in the early days of his life but Kalat state’s coerced inclusion in Pakistan and later a military operation against the dissident Baloch who resisted the Martial Law of Gen Ayub Khan made him a staunch political worker.
It was in 1958 when the then military ruler Ayub Khan sought to explore the reservoirs of gas and coal hidden under the surface of the desolate, barren and rugged Marri hills and tracts that Nawab Nauroz Khan Zarakzai (called Babu Nauroz by the Baloch, out of respect) rose in rebellion against the move. Later on the military authorities lured him in to find a peaceful solution to the problems putting the Quran in between. But the 90-year-old Sardar was betrayed: He himself was put in Kohlu where he languished for years eventually dying there. His son and four of his comrades were hanged.
Nawab Marri joined forces with the erstwhile National Awami Party in the 60s and fought the historic 1971 election on its ticket. He won both provincial and national assembly seats but retained his provincial assembly seat only. Although disillusioned with the outcome of parliamentary politics, he nevertheless participated in it.
But his experience with democratic politics was cut short by the centre’s overthrow of Balochistan’s only elected government till then. The entire leadership of NAP including Wali Khan, Ataullah Mengal, Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and Khair Bux Marri himself were incarcerated in different jails of the country and the party was banned. Balochistan took up arms in rebellion once again.
The Marri tribe was at the forefront of the resistance which continued from 1973 to 1977. Thousands were killed on both sides but the crisis ended in a stalemate. After the ousting of the Bhutto regime in 1977 by Gen Zia Ul Haq, all the political prisoners including those accused under the Hyderabad Tribunal were released. Nawab Khair Bux, it was alleged, was not going to come out of prison, but thanks to the protest and eventual refusal of Bizenjo to leave prison if Marri was not released with him, he was set free.
After his release Nawab Khair Bux Marri went into self-imposed exile; first in Europe and then Afghanistan. Most families of the Marri tribe also joined him there. But after the fall of the Soviet Union-backed government of Najeebullah in 1992, he was brought back by the government of Pakistan. He could not have continued to live in Afghanistan any longer in the face of the advancing Mujahideen forces which took Kabul that year.
Upon his return to Pakistan he remained inactive in politics. In 2001 he was accused of being involved in the killing of a judge of the Balochistan High Court, Mr Nawaz Marri and put in jail. But was quickly released by the Musharraf government. In the early 2000 another insurgency started in Balochistan after then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf signed several agreements with foreign companies, mainly Chinese, to develop the strategically important Gawadar port and coastal highway. The Baloch saw this move as against their interests and took it as a part of internal colonization. The resistance is said to have had the tacit support of Nawab Khair Bux Marri who by then lived in his Karachi home in DHA.
Although a vocal supporter of freedom for the Baloch and creation of a Baloch homeland, not only from within Pakistan but also Iran and Afghanistan, he never publicly admitted his role in the resistance. A staunch Marxist and nationalist all his life, he was accused by some to be a stubborn politician. But even his opponents could be heard narrating stories of his gentle fondness for birds and dogs.
[quote]"If you are coming as a former Prime Minister of Pakistan to meet me, don't come. But if you are coming as the daughter of Sindh, you are welcome"[/quote]
Most of his life he spent either in prisons or in exile. Unlike other tribal chiefs who are fond of ascribing great deeds to themselves in lengthy sermons, Nawab Khair Bux Marri was famous for his short and concise answers. He rarely met with the media, the last time being on the occasion when former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto went to condole his son Nawabzada Balaach Marri’s death. The extent of his grievances against the state can be judged from his answer to BB’s request for the meeting: “If you are coming as a former Prime Minister of Pakistan to meet me, don’t come. But if you are coming as the daughter of Sindh, you are welcome.”
Analysts present different answers as to what course Baloch nationalism will take after the death of one of its most ardent leaders and its visible symbol. For some, his tribe, the Marri which to date has participated in every insurgency will now abate, as the chieftainship of the tribe will fall into the hands of Nawabzada Jenghiz Marri who is pro-federation. For others only the center of Baloch struggle will change from the Marri area towards the more egalitarian areas of Makran on the coast which is already a hotbed of militancy spearheaded by middle-class educated youth. The intensity of the militancy will increase as the new generation of leaders are ever more fuelled by the idea of independence. The same opinion was expressed by a leading columnist in the Pakistani press who compared Nawab Marri to the erstwhile Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy of East Pakistan who remained a bridge between then East and West Pakistan. But after his death the gulf only widened and eventaully the country broke up.
In the wake of the death of one of the leading voices of the Baloch nation, one expected a starting of a meaningful debate which could possibly find a solution to the sore problem of Balochistan. But it seems that neither the high-ups nor the ‘experts’ of everything under the sun are ready yet.
“The most handsome Baloch I know”
Begum Salma Ahmed bids farewell to Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri
“Baloch leader Khair Bakhsh Marri dies” read a headline of June 11. In the same issue, an “Obituary” was entitled “A Fighter All the Way.” I had heard the news earlier from Murtaza Bugti, son of late Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti.
I knew Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri much earlier in life. A quote from my autobiography “Cutting Free” on page 34: “About this time Cheemi’s (Naseem Hussain Qureshi) Baloch friends entered the scene. Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti was his classmate from Aitchison College and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri was a year senior. Khair Bakhsh Marri was extremely handsome, but very silent.”
I cast my mind back to what seems aeons ago and I remember KB’s fetishes, and his likes and dislikes. I remember him going to Karachi’s Saddar and picking up “qulfis” from there. He’d return to my house and enjoy the sweet ice-cream with his friends.
Another habit he had was to wash his hands after shaking them with strangers, when he was done. He had a hang up or rather a fetish for clean hands.
I remember another occasion from days gone by, when someone remarked to me, you have three Nawabs in your house today – of course two of them were Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, and his very good friend Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Bugti.
Here’s another quote from “Cutting Free”: “I met up with Ahmed Nawaz, whenever he came from Balochistan. Some time earlier, Bhutto had gone on a visit to Balochistan to meet Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, sister of the Shah of Iran, who was the guest of the Balochistan Government. Half way through dinner, Bhutto asked Hafeez Pirzada to get up and dance to the strains of ‘Ho Jamalo’. Hafeez in turn asked Sardar Ataullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri to do the same. After they refused for the third time, he was told by Khair Bakhsh ‘I have a gun in my hand. The next time you ask a Sardar to dance, I will shoot you.’ Sardar Ataullah Mengal narrated this to me.”
Years ago, I asked to see Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri in his Defence Home in Karachi. I had to wait for a while; then I was called in. KB had a coverlet over his legs.
I gave him a copy of my autobiography “Cutting Free”, and he asked me to inscribe it for him. I wrote something like this: “To the handsomest Baloch I know – KB Marri.”
He then asked me about my land in Jhimpir, and said, “If you have any trouble there, let me know, I have my people in the area.”
And I never saw him again.
Adieu, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Adieu dear friend, you don’t have to wash your hands any longer, you are free from all the “dirt in the world”. Fare thee well.