the centre, which they could have done by forming a coalition with the National Awami Party in the western wing. The popular mandate of the people of Pakistan was disregarded and treated with contempt. East Pakistanis received contemptuous treatment all along as an ethnic group by the state establishment dominated by the West Pakistanis, besides being economically and politically marginalised for over two decades but not accepting their democratic right proved to be the final blow to the Pakistan created in 1947.
Not even a decade had passed when another popular political leader of the people was unconstitutionally sacked and then killed after a mock judicial process. In the ensuing years, working class, women, religious minorities and people belonging to smaller provinces were treated with horrid contempt. Laws were made against those who were weak and such policies were pursued that resources were snatched away from the common people.
Today, as has been the case many times in the past, the Baloch citizens of the state of Pakistan continue to be treated with contempt. Bullet-riddled bodies are found, men are missing and communities live in fear. Balochistan is seen as a mass of land full of minerals and not as a part of the country where people are living for centuries. Pakhtuns are either seen as cartridges to be used against the enemy or branded as brainless terrorists. What else is this but contempt?
There is contempt for Shia Muslims, for non-Muslim Pakistanis, for the poor, for women and for anyone who is different from the mainstream affluent Pakistani male with orthodox views.
The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and author.
Email: harris.khalique@gmail. com
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