Unrest in Balochistan: Causes and Solutions

Likely CSS 2027 question: Balochistan’s unrest is the product of political, economic and security failures rather than foreign conspiracy alone. Critically analyse the causes of the current insurgency in Balochistan and suggest a comprehensive strategy for durable peace.

Variants: “Balochistan: a security problem or a political problem?”; “Why has development failed to win hearts in Balochistan?”

Syllabus topic: XVI, Ethnic Issues and National Integration. This is a predicted question, not a confirmed one.

Short answer

The unrest in Balochistan has mainly internal roots: political exclusion, economic deprivation and a security-first approach. Foreign actors exploit these grievances but did not create them. Durable peace needs genuine representation, justice for the missing, a fair share of resources and lawful, targeted counter-terrorism.

Outline for quick revision

Introduction: richest in minerals, poorest in development; thesis
Background: five insurgencies; the fifth insurgency
Causes: political, economic, security and external
Current situation, 2024-26: violence; human cost; economic cost
Critical analysis: security view, political view, verdict
Strategy for peace: political, economic and security measures
Conclusion

Reference colours:
Quotation / documentPersonality / historySyllabus bookCurrent referenceOfficial report / policy

1. Introduction

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province, its richest in minerals and its gateway to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar, yet it is also its poorest and most troubled. Since 2004-06, a fifth insurgency has grown from attacks on gas pipelines into coordinated, province-wide assaults, a train hijacking and targeted killings of workers from other provinces. At the same time, a peaceful rights movement led by young, educated Baloch has emerged, demanding an end to enforced disappearances.

The question asks whether the unrest is a product of internal failures or foreign conspiracy. This answer argues that external actors exploit the conflict, but its roots are internal: political exclusion, economic deprivation and a security-first approach, and that durable peace requires a political solution backed by justice and development, not force alone.

Official report / policy: According to the Census 2023 (PBS), Balochistan has about 14.9 million people, roughly 6% of Pakistan’s population, on about 44% of its land.

Map: Balochistan: resources, CPEC routes and major militant attacks, 2024-26 — **Map:** Balochistan: resources, CPEC routes and major militant attacks, 2024-26

2. Historical Background

A history of insurgencies

The Baloch have risen against the state five times since 1948, each time over the same issues of autonomy, control over resources and the use of force against political demands. Every insurgency was ended militarily, but none of their causes was resolved, so each generation inherited the grievances of the last.

Personality / history: Balochistan has seen five insurgencies: 1948 (Prince Abdul Karim, after the accession of Kalat), 1958-59 (Nawab Nauroz Khan), 1962-69, 1973-77 (after the dismissal of the NAP government) and the current one since 2004-06, which intensified after Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed in a military operation on 26 August 2006.

The fifth insurgency

The current insurgency began in the mid-2000s over Gwadar, new cantonments and gas royalties, and intensified after the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006. Unlike earlier tribal revolts, it is led by middle-class, educated militants of groups such as the BLA and BLF, and it now targets Chinese projects, security forces and non-Baloch workers.

3. Causes of the Unrest

(a) Political causes

Political exclusion and engineered politics

Many Baloch believe that elections in the province are managed and that real power lies with the security establishment rather than elected representatives. When nationalist leaders who work within the system feel ignored, the argument of the militants, that the system offers nothing, gains ground.

Current reference: On 3 September 2024, BNP chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal resigned from the National Assembly, calling it a vote of no confidence in the system and complaining that Balochistan’s issues were ignored and blacked out, a sign of how nationalist parties feel excluded from mainstream politics.

Enforced disappearances

The disappearance of young Baloch men, often students and activists, is the most emotive grievance in the province. Families’ long protests and the bodies that sometimes appear later have created deep anger, which militant groups exploit for recruitment.

Official report / policy: The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (set up in March 2011) reported that by September 2025 it had received 10,636 cases, disposed of 8,986 (about 84%) and still had 1,650 pending (APP, October 2025). Baloch groups say the real number of the missing is far higher.

Treatment of peaceful protest

The Baloch Yakjehti Committee has mobilised large, peaceful crowds against disappearances, but its leaders have been arrested and prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws. Closing the space for peaceful protest sends the message that only the gun gets attention.

Current reference: On 22 June 2026, an anti-terrorism court in Quetta, sitting in jail, sentenced Dr Mahrang Baloch of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee to life imprisonment over the 2024 Baloch Raji Muchi gathering. Amnesty International said the verdict showed anti-terrorism laws being “cynically misused to silence peaceful dissent”.

(b) Economic causes

Deprivation amid wealth

Balochistan has gas, copper, gold and the Gwadar coast, yet it has the highest poverty and the weakest schools and hospitals in Pakistan. Sui gas was supplied to the rest of the country for decades before many Baloch towns received it, a fact that symbolises the Baloch sense of exploitation.

Official report / policy: Pakistan’s first official Multidimensional Poverty Index (Ministry of Planning with UNDP and OPHI, June 2016) found that about 39% of Pakistanis were multidimensionally poor, but 71% in Balochistan and 73% in the former FATA, against 49% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 43% in Sindh and 31% in Punjab; rural poverty (54.6%) far exceeded urban poverty (9.3%).

Control over resources

The Baloch want a say in, and a fair share from, projects such as Reko Diq, Saindak and Gwadar. Laws and agreements made without broad local consent, such as the Mines and Minerals Act, reinforce the belief that the province’s wealth is decided elsewhere.

Current reference: The Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act 2025, passed by the provincial assembly in March 2025 to attract investment, was attacked by nationalist parties as handing control of the province’s minerals to the centre; in September 2025 the chief minister suspended its implementation and sent it back to committee after talks with the opposition.

Development without ownership

CPEC and Gwadar have brought roads, an airport and a port, but local people complain of fencing, checkpoints, water shortages and few jobs. Development that people do not own can deepen alienation instead of reducing it.

Current reference: The New Gwadar International Airport, built at a cost of about Rs 66 billion with a Chinese grant covering 67%, began commercial operations in January 2025.

(c) Security and external causes

A security-first approach

For decades the state has treated Baloch grievances mainly as a law-and-order problem, relying on military operations, checkpoints and internet shutdowns. Force can contain militancy, but it also causes collateral harm that produces new recruits.

Foreign exploitation

Pakistan accuses India of backing Baloch militants, citing the arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav in 2016, and says militants find sanctuary in Afghanistan and Iran’s border areas. The state now calls them “Fitna al-Hindustan”, but foreign support exploits grievances; it does not create them.

Current reference: On 11 March 2025, the BLA hijacked the Jaffar Express in Balochistan with more than 400 passengers on board; 26 hostages were killed before security forces ended the siege. The state now calls the TTP “Fitna al-Khawarij” and Baloch militant groups “Fitna al-Hindustan”, signalling that it sees them as foreign-backed.

4. The Current Situation (2024-26)

Escalating violence

Militant groups have moved from hit-and-run attacks to coordinated offensives across many districts at once, including the Jaffar Express hijacking of March 2025 and the “Herof” campaigns of 2024 and 2026. The targeting of Punjabi workers and travellers shows an attempt to turn a political conflict into an ethnic one.

Current reference: On 26 August 2024 the BLA’s “Operation Herof” struck across Balochistan, including the killing of 23 travellers from Punjab pulled off vehicles at Musakhail, leaving more than 70 dead. In “Herof 2” (30 January to 5 February 2026), coordinated attacks hit at least nine districts, including Quetta, Gwadar, Pasni, Mastung and Nushki; officials reported 216 militants, 22 security personnel and 36 civilians killed, the UN Security Council condemned the attacks, and mobile internet was suspended across the province.

The cost to the state and the people

Security forces are suffering heavy losses, and the province has become the main theatre of counter-terrorism operations. Ordinary Baloch suffer too, from violence, internet shutdowns, closed roads and lost livelihoods.

Current reference: At a briefing on 31 July 2026, the DG ISPR said terrorism had killed 497 security personnel and 322 civilians so far in 2026, and that most intelligence-based operations, about 31,000, had been carried out in Balochistan.

The economic cost

Insecurity is driving away the very investment that could transform the province. Attacks on Chinese nationals threaten CPEC, and even Reko Diq has been slowed.

Current reference: Reko Diq in Chagai, Balochistan, one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits, is a $6.6 billion project (Barrick Gold 50%, federal and provincial governments 50%). In 2025 the ADB approved a $410 million package; first production had been targeted for 2028, at 200,000 tonnes of copper a year. But in April 2026 Barrick slowed development and extended its review to mid-2027, citing worsening security, proof that insecurity can stall even Pakistan’s biggest projects.

The cycle of unrest in Balochistan

Grievance: exclusion, poverty, control of resources
Militancy: BLA/BLF attacks, exploited by foreign actors
Force: operations, disappearances, shutdowns, which feed new grievance

5. Critical Analysis: Security Problem or Political Problem?

The case for the security view

The state is right that militants who kill civilians and workers must be defeated, and that foreign intelligence agencies and sanctuaries across the border sustain them. No state can negotiate while terrorists dictate terms by force.

The case for the political view

Yet five insurgencies show that military victories do not last when grievances remain. The militants are a small minority, but the anger over disappearances, poverty and exclusion is widespread, and that anger is what the militants need.

Syllabus book: Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia (1995), shows how the dominance of the military and bureaucracy over elected institutions led the state to treat regional demands as security problems rather than political ones.

Verdict

Balochistan’s unrest is primarily a political problem with a security dimension, not the reverse. Force is necessary against those who use violence, but only politics, justice and development can isolate them from the people.

Syllabus book: Katharine Adeney, Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan (2007), argues that ethnic conflict is inflamed when a federation is centralised and dominated by one group, and contained when power is genuinely shared, the core lesson for Balochistan.

6. A Strategy for Durable Peace

(a) Political

Genuine representation

Allow free and fair elections and let the province be governed by leaders the people trust, including nationalist parties. A government that the Baloch see as their own is the strongest weapon against the militants’ narrative.

Dialogue with all who reject violence

Open a structured dialogue, led by Parliament with the support of the military, with nationalist parties, tribal elders, students and civil-society groups such as the BYC. Peaceful protest should be answered with engagement, not prosecution.

End enforced disappearances

Make the Commission of Inquiry effective, bring every detainee before a court, and pass and enforce laws that criminalise enforced disappearance. Justice for the families of the missing would do more for peace than any operation.

(b) Economic

A fair share in resources

Give the province real ownership of its minerals and ports: transparent royalties, a provincial stake in projects such as Reko Diq, and laws on minerals made with broad provincial consensus, as the 18th Amendment intended.

Official report / policy: The 18th Amendment (April 2010), passed unanimously, abolished the Concurrent List and devolved its subjects to the provinces, removed the President’s power to dissolve the National Assembly (Article 58(2)(b)), renamed NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, strengthened the Council of Common Interests, barred any reduction of the provinces’ NFC share, and added new rights such as free education for children aged 5-16 (Article 25A) and the right to information (Article 19A).

Jobs and services for local people

Reserve jobs and training in CPEC, Gwadar and mining projects for local youth, and invest first in water, schools, health and electricity in the districts where projects are located. Implement the unfulfilled promises of earlier packages.

Official report / policy: The Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan package, presented to a joint sitting of Parliament on 25 November 2009, promised 5,000 new jobs, Rs 120 billion of gas development surcharge arrears, a halt to new cantonments, a stake for the province in Gwadar and political dialogue, but implementation fell far short.

(c) Security

Targeted, lawful counter-terrorism

Replace broad operations with intelligence-led action against militant cells, strengthen the provincial police and CTD rather than relying only on federal forces, and protect civilians and fundamental rights during operations.

Border management and diplomacy

Secure the borders with Afghanistan and Iran, and use diplomacy with both to deny sanctuaries to Baloch militants, while exposing foreign support with evidence at international forums.

7. Conclusion

The unrest in Balochistan is the product of long-standing political exclusion, economic deprivation amid great natural wealth, and a security-first approach that has produced disappearances and alienation, conditions that hostile foreign actors exploit but did not create. Five insurgencies have shown that force alone cannot bring lasting peace. A durable solution lies in giving the Baloch a genuine voice, justice for the missing, a fair share in their resources and lawful, targeted security. Only then will the Quaid’s vision of citizens who are “all Pakistanis” become a reality in Balochistan.