Imagine, before your birth, you were placed behind a veil of ignorance that conceals all knowledge about your gender, race, ethnicity, and class. In no way, you could know whether you will be born a Punjabi or Baloch. On the contrary, you might find yourself in the bustling city of Lahore, where the state showers resources, or you might enter the world in Kalat where you encounter the state through checkpoints.
Behind this veil of ignorance, what principles would you use to create Pakistan? Would you construct a system where one ethnic group monopolises the state, commands the military, controls national identity, and uses force against those who question its boundaries? Or, instead, would you create a state where no single group, whether Punjabis or Baloch, is forced to live in permanent oppression?
This is the fundamental moral question that the American political philosopher Rawls grapples with in his influential book A Theory of Justice. According to Ralws, true justice in a society is realised when we build it without prior knowledge of our future position within it. For this, he employs a thought experiment that he calls the “original position” in which rational individuals in the “veil of ignorance” will choose principles that establish justice in society for all.
Imagine now Punjabis and Blaoch were to construct a society without any knowledge about their future place in the power structure. I use these two groups because the former is a permanent majority whereas the latter is a permanent minority in terms of access to power according to the Ethnic Power Relations Data. Would they build a Pakistan where one group dominates forever and the other group is a permanent minority? This is unthinkable, Rawls would argue, for any two rational individuals or groups because none would accept a system in which they would be born into permanent oppression. Contrarily, in the real world, powerful rulers accept injustice because they assume that they will always stay in power. Therefore, following the logic of power, the ruling elites from Punjab have no incentive to change the status quo since they know that the system favors them.
If a system only appears when you are in power, then it was never just to begin with
Now imagine a Pakistan where Balochistan is the center of power. It is the Baloch elites who monopolise the military, bureaucracy, and intelligence. They control the parliament. The economy now serves Balochistan’s interests. Punjab’s wealth feeds Baloch elites who are seated in Kalat in the name of national progress, but its people are abandoned. It is the Baloch elites who decide national policy. Imagine, unelected Baloch elites imposing chief ministers on Punjab. They make sure that no genuine Punjabi leader rises to power in the province. They use national unity as a weapon against Punjabis who demand basic rights. And Balochi assumes national status.
But unfairness does not stop at cultural, economic, and political marginalisation. People from Punjab suddenly emerge as a minority. They now come under the heavy hand of state violence. The Baloch ruling elites treat Punjab as a strategic security zone for militant proxies. In this new world, the Orwellian Blaoch Big Brothers’ oppressive eye always surveils their move. One by one, their young disappeared on baseless charges of betraying the state. The Punjabis' grievances are smeared with accusations of separatism. Death squads see them in the face. Mass graves become a routine. Streets in Lahore brim with grieving mothers begging for their sons. In their talk shows, the Baloch media sneer, “Why can they not integrate into this glorious Pakistan that we, by Allah’s will, have helped create? The question is; would they accept their fate and dehumanisation? Would they accept disappearances? Would they justify militarisation of themselves as a necessary security evil? Would they dismiss their mothers holding pictures of their loved ones as propaganda? Would they defend the state's mantra that unrest in Punjab is fuelled by India? Or would they, finally, realise what it means to be a permanent minority? Would they rise?
This is not just a thought experiment. This is exactly the very conditions that the Baloch have lived in for generations. However, oppression only appears questionable when the tables turn and the dominant group finds itself in the shoes of the minority and is forced to beg for justice. This is exactly what Ralws exposes through his “original position”. He exposes the moral bankruptcy of a system where power dictates justice
Therefore, Rawls's “original position” compels us to consider the harsh truth that no rational individual would willingly enter a system where their rights depend on ethnicity or birth. If the elites from Punjab truly believed in justice and national integration, they would demand a Pakistan where all groups are treated equally. But instead, they cling to power under the illusion that oppression can be permanently sustained. However, we find a different story in history. We find the rise of the oppressed and the fall of the oppressors.
Some might suggest that if Baloch ever came into power, they might have every right to repay oppression. Can that be called justice or just another form of tyranny? If a system only appears when you are in power, then it was never just to begin with. On the contrary, according to Rawls, justice is about eliminating oppression no matter who controls power.
The primary motivation for this exercise is not the role reversal of the Punjabis and Baloch in an alternate Pakistan. It is to demystify the layers of ignorance that shroud the oppression of the Baloch. It is to demonstrate that political exclusion and economic marginalisation result in alienation no matter who faces it. It is to bring home the ruling elite's Rawls' warning that societies based on inequality are inherently unstable because oppression by one group today can breed oppression by another tomorrow. It is already happening in Balochistan. If the ruling elites cannot wish this thought experiment for Punjab, they must ask themselves: why should Balochistan?