Balochistan, Pakistan

Balochistan () is a province in Pakistan. The capital of Balochistan is Quetta. Balochistan has a population of about 10 million people and an area of 134,051 mi2 or (347,190 km2). It covers 45% of Pakistani territory; in terms of area the province of Balochistan is greater in area than Republic of the Congo but smaller than Germany. 

Baluchistan (Chief commissioners province) - seceded from British India and became part of Pakistan in 1947.  On the 30th of June in 1947 the Khan of Kalat joined Pakistan; tribal gathering and municipality of Quetta also declared for Pakistan.  Baluchistan States Union - The BSU was formed after the formal Accession of four individual princely states into the new Dominion of Pakistan on the 31st of March in 1948, apart from the enclave of Gwadar that was in cessation from Oman to Pakistan on the 8th of September in 1958.  Both CCP & BSU became the New Province of Balochistan on the 1st of July in 1970, after the dissolution of the former West Pakistan and is an “Integral Part of Pakistan”.

In common with the other provinces of Pakistan, Balochistan has a parliamentary system of government.  The ceremonial head of the province is the Governor, who is appointed by the President of Pakistan on the advice of the provincial Chief Minister.  The chief executive of the province is the Chief Minister who is normally the leader of the largest party or alliance in the provincial assembly. The unicameral Provincial Assembly of Balochistan comprises 65 seats of which 4% are reserved for non-Muslims and 16% for women only. The judicial branch of government is carried out by the Balochistan High Court, based in Quetta, and headed by a Chief Justice. For administrative purposes, the province is subdivided into 30 districts:

 Etymology 
The Baloch people once referred to their land as Moka or Maka, a word which later became Makran. Moka might have been an adaptation of Mahi-khoran, Persian for "Fish-Eaters", an appellation used by the Persians of the west for the people of coastal Perso-Pak region of Balochistan province. Arrian, in his Anabasis Alexandri, referred to the people of the region as the Ichythophagi, a Greek translation of Mahi-khoran. Balochistan is referred to in Pashto as Gwadar or Godar (also Godar-khwa, i.e., The Land by the Water “Arabian Sea”). The Ancient Greeks, who derived the names of Iranian lands from the Bactrian language, Hellenised it to Gedrosia. During the time of Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), the Greeks called the land Gedrosia and its people Gedrosoi, terms of unknown origin. Using etymological reasoning, H. W. Bailey reconstructs a possible Iranian name, Uadravati, meaning "the land of underground channels", which could have been transformed to Badlaut in the 9th century and further to Balōč in later times. This reasoning remains speculative.

In an 11th-century Sanskrit compilation of Jataka tales (Avadānakalpalatā) by Kshemendra of Kashmir, the land is called Baloksh (बलोक्ष). From Baloksh, the name evolved and was Persianised to Balochistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch (or Baluch, Balouch, Balooch, Balush, Balosh, Baloosh, Baloush) tribes, an Iranian people, who moved into the area Since the Baloch people are not mentioned in pre-Islamic sources, it is likely that the Baloch were known by some other name in their place of origin and that they acquired the name "Baloch" only after arriving in Balochistan sometime from the west from Syriac Kurdistan around 1000 A.D in the late 10th century. All natives are considered Balochi even if they do not speak Balochi; Pashto, Persian, and Brahui languages are also spoken in the region. The southern part of Balochistan is known as “Makran” in the Persian plateau. There are also relatively smaller communities of Iranian Baloch, Hazaras, Sindhis and other settlers, including Punjabis, Uzbeks, and Turkmens. The name Balochistan means "The Land of the Baloch" in many regional languages of Pakistan respectively. Although during the Stone and Bronze Age and Alexander the Great's Empire an indigenous population existed, the Baloch people themselves did not enter the region until the 14th century CE. A theory of the origin of the Baloch people, the largest ethnic group in the region, is that they are of Median descent.M. Longworth Dames, Balochi Folklore, Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 3 (29 September 1902), pp. 252–274

Johan Hansman relates the term "Baloch" to Meluḫḫa, the name by which the Indus Valley civilisation is believed to have been known to the Sumerians (2900–2350 BCE) and Akkadians (2334–2154 BCE) in Mesopotamia.: "The identification of Meluhha with the Greater Indus Valley is now almost universally accepted." Meluḫḫa disappears from the Mesopotamian records at the beginning of the second millennium BCE. However, Hansman states that a trace of it in a modified form, as Baluḫḫu, was retained in the names of products imported by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BCE). Al-Muqaddasī, who visited the capital of Makran, Bannajbur, wrote  985 CE that it was populated by people called Balūṣī (Baluchi), leading Hansman to postulate "Baluch" as a modification of Meluḫḫa and Baluḫḫu.

Asko Parpola relates the name Meluḫḫa to Indo-Aryan words Mleccha (Sanskrit) and milakkha/milakkhu (Pali) etc., which do not have an Indo-European etymology even though they were used to refer to Non-Aryan people. Taking them to be proto-Dravidian in origin, he interprets the term as meaning either a proper name Milu-Akam (from which Tamilakam was derived when the Indus people migrated south) or Melu-Akam, meaning "High Country", a possible reference to Balochistani high lands. Historian Romila Thapar also interprets Meluḫḫa as a proto-Dravidian term, possibly Mēlukku, and suggests the meaning "western extremity" (of the Dravidian-speaking regions in the Indian subcontinent). A literal translation into Sanskrit, Aparānta, was later used to describe the region by the Indo-Aryans.


 Language 
The Balochi, Pashto and Brahui languages are spoken in the balochistan province, Sindhi language is also spoken by indigenous Sindhi people of Balochistan since ancient times, the Jadgali, Lasi, Siraiki & Khetrani are few major dialects of Sindhi language which are spoken in south and eastern parts of balochistan. The southern part of Balochistan is known as Makran. There are also relatively smaller communities of Iranian Baloch, Hazaras, Dehwars and other settlers, including Punjabis, Uzbeks, and Turkmens.

Geography

Balochistan is a country in South Asia. The area is . The province is bordered by Afghanistan to the north and north-west, Iran to the south-west, Punjab and Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north-east. To the south lies the Arabian Sea. Balochistan is located on the south-eastern part of the Iranian plateau. It borders the geopolitical regions of the Greater Middle East and Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South-central Asia. Balochistan lies at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz and provides the shortest route from seaports to Central Asia. Its geographical location has placed the otherwise desolate region in the scopes of competing global interests like Afghanistan for all of recorded history.

The capital city Quetta is in a densely populated portion of the Sulaiman Mountains in the north-east of the province. It is situaed in a river valley near the Bolan Pass which has been used as the route of choice from the coast to Central Asia, entering through Afghanistan's Kandahar region. The British and other historic empires have crossed the region to invade Afghanistan by this route.Bolan Pass – Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

Balochistan is rich in exhaustible and renewable resources; it is the second major supplier of natural gas in Pakistan. The province's renewable and human resource potential has not been systematically measured nor exploited due to pressures from within and without Pakistan. Local inhabitants have chosen to live in towns and have relied on sustainable water sources for thousands of years.

+ Provincial symbols of Balochistan (unofficial) National flag Flag of Balochistan 50px Provincial seal Emblem of Balochistan 50px National animal Camel 50px National 
bird MacQueen's bustard 50px Provincial fish Rohu 50px Provincial insect Tamarisk leaf beetle 50px Provincial tree Silver date Palm 50px Provincial flower Wild tulip 50px Provincial fruit Peach 50px Provincial dish Sajji 50px Provincial dance Jhumar Provincial instrument Suroz Provincial sport Tent pegging

Related pages
 Provincial Government of Balochistan

 References