The new wave of violence in Balochistan, particularly with the rise of the internationally listed terrorist organisation Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and its associated groups funded and facilitated by external forces, their main financier being India (see Seema Khan’s recent book, Balochistan and the Mélange of Violence, published in 2024), has gripped the state of Pakistan with strategic panic.
The region has long been marked by ethnic, political, and socio-economic tensions, with the BLA, challenging the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. The roots of this conflict can be traced back to the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, when the British imperial exit plan, known as the Mountbatten Plan, divided the region into India and Pakistan. The princely states, including those in Balochistan, were given the choice to join either India or Pakistan based on the majority formula stipulated in the partition plan interchangeably known as the Mountbatten plan. While three out of four Baloch states, being Muslim majority obligated by the Mountbatten plan to join Pakistan, Kalat, in particular, resisted the union.
Over time, weak state-building driven by various structural factors including Balochistan’s slow development, structural marginalisation within the state, demands for greater autonomy, the issue of missing persons, extra judicial killings and also the state’s poor policy responses over the decades had cumulative effects and contributed to an increased sense of ethnic and political disenfranchisement, fuelling insurgency in Balochistan, allowing internal as well external forces to exploit Pakistan’s vulnerabilities.
My primary focus in this article will be to examine the narrative constructed by the BLA, certain Baloch activists, and some self-exiled tribal leaders, which claims that the State of Kalat refused to accede to Pakistan and that the ruler of Kalat was forced to join Pakistan. However, this claim is nothing more than a complete distortion of history, intended to fuel the insurgency, and a product of wishful thinking. Like other princely states that acceded to India and Pakistan during Partition, the Baloch states, including Kalat, were part of the legal and constitutional framework that established Pakistan as a sovereign nation. This claim not only undermines Pakistan’s territorial integrity, particularly in relation to strategic regions like Gwadar, but also challenges the very basis of the Partition Plan—a plan that determined the political future of about 565 princely states integrated into India and Pakistan.
To understand the historical perspective of the Balochistan issue, we must empirically examine the Partition project, which was supervised by the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. During the Second World War, the British had resolved to leave the subcontinent and devised plans to exit this religiously and culturally complex region peacefully. There were about 565 nominally sovereign princely states indirectly governed by the British Crown, including the four Baloch princely states—Kalat, Kharan, Lasbela, and Makran—that existed at the time of Mountbatten’s arrival in the subcontinent. Mountbatten, appointed after Lord Wavell’s resignation, was sent with one urgent task: to facilitate Britain’s graceful and peaceful exit from the subcontinent. To simplify matters, the Mountbatten Plan was agreed upon and subsequently approved by the recently elected Labour Party-led government in London. The newly elected post-war Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had realised that Britain could no longer administer the Indian colony and made its intentions clear to leave the region no later than 1948. Consequently, Mountbatten set the date for independence as 15 August 1947.
What was Mountbatten’s Plan?
After the continuous disregard for the demands of the All India Muslim League, culminating in the rejection of the Cabinet Mission Plan by the Indian National Congress—yet another betrayal by Jawaharlal Nehru—the British, under the June Partition Plan, decided to divide the region into two dominions, India and Pakistan, primarily based on religion through the Mountbatten Plan. The Plan stipulated that the princely states, which were indirectly ruled by the British, would have the freedom to choose which dominion to join—India or Pakistan—with no option to remain independent. The decision was to be based on Hindu-Muslim demographics. The Mountbatten Plan explicitly stated that Hindu-majority states would join India, Muslim-majority states would join Pakistan, and no princely state could retain independence.
In reaction to this, various princely states across India objected to the Partition Plan. Examples include the Nawab of Junagarh, a Muslim ruler who declared his intention to join Pakistan; the Nizam of Hyderabad; Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Congress leader from the NWFP who initially opposed Partition but later raised the slogan of an independent Pashtunistan after being abandoned by the Congress; Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir; and later Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru’s close friend, who protested the unjust treatment of Kashmiris and was subsequently placed under house arrest far from his home in northern India. Additionally, Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the Unionist Chief Minister of West Punjab and head of the Unionist Party, demanded that Punjab remain an independent state. The Khan of Kalat’s reluctance and various other cases also emerged.
Even in the Cabinet Mission Plan, British Balochistan was grouped with Muslim Punjab, Sindh, and the NWFP, and this grouping, as per the Plan, was fixed and non-negotiable
The most notable and legitimate case was that of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who, according to Time magazine, was the richest man alive at the time. Hyderabad possessed its own standing army, bank, bureaucracy, railway, and state currency, meeting all the basic criteria required for sovereign statehood. The Nizam argued against the Mountbatten Plan, seeking to keep Hyderabad an independent unit, and opted for independence in 1947. However, India invaded Hyderabad in September 1948 through a military operation codenamed Operation Polo, ending the Nizam’s rule.
Similarly, the seizure of Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state that, under the Mountbatten Plan, was to join Pakistan, was another instance of Nehru and Mountbatten’s connivance and betrayal. Mountbatten, under the influence of his wife Edwina—who was infatuated and obsessed with Nehru—pressured Sir Radcliffe, the head of the Boundary Commission, to transfer the Muslim-majority districts of Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, and Kashmir to India. Mountbatten not only threatened the Kashmiri ruler but also deployed Indian troops to Kashmir before the state could declare its intention to join either India or Pakistan.
Since the Mountbatten Plan was based on the principle that Muslim-majority areas should form a separate state, the four princely states of Balochistan—being Muslim-majority regions—had no choice but to join either India or Pakistan, with no option to remain independent. Given that Balochistan had no geographical contiguity with India and was predominantly Muslim, all four states voluntarily opted for Pakistan, with the sole exception of Kalat. The Nawab of Kalat initially resisted joining Pakistan but later acceded in March 1948. Geographically, all four Baloch states fell within the proposed territories of Pakistan, thereby establishing the legal basis for Pakistan’s federation as a nation-state. Even in the Cabinet Mission Plan, British Balochistan was grouped with Muslim Punjab, Sindh, and the NWFP, and this grouping, as per the Plan, was fixed and non-negotiable.
The era of the princely states effectively ended with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. By 1950, almost all principalities had acceded to either India or Pakistan. The accession process was largely peaceful, except in the cases of Hyderabad, Junagarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and the two Muslim-majority districts of Ferozepur and Gurdaspur—which, according to the Boundary Commission’s criteria, should have been part of Pakistan but were transferred to India. Sir Radcliffe himself later admitted to altering the boundary, largely due to the collusion between Nehru, Mountbatten, and Edwina Mountbatten. The correspondence, exchanged letters, and diaries between Nehru and Edwina confirm their relationship, which significantly influenced the politics of Partition—a process that displaced millions and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, an act for which Mountbatten should have been impeached.
Regarding the case of Gwadar, Prime Minister Feroze Khan Noon, who hailed from District Khushab in Punjab, secured the port of Gwadar in 1958 after complex and difficult negotiations with the state of Oman, purchasing it for $3 million. Noon’s leadership was instrumental in integrating Gwadar, a strategically vital region, into the Federation of Pakistan.
Today, insurgents and those collaborating with foreign forces—as part of the geopolitical "Great Game" being played in the region—scheme to obstruct development in Gwadar, falsely claiming that it is Baloch territory that must be "liberated." This delusional narrative ignores the historical fact that Gwadar was lawfully purchased and incorporated into Pakistan under the premiership of Feroze Khan Noon. Thus, the false narrative propagated by terrorist organisations, activists, and self-exiled tribal leaders—who seek to portray the accession of Baloch princely states as disputed and controversial—is nothing more than wishful thinking.
If we entertain the historically false narrative of Baloch insurgents—that Kalat and other Baloch princely states formed an independent Balochistan prior to Partition—then the same logic could justify the independence of all 565 princely states under British rule. These states acceded to the Mountbatten Partition Plan, adhering to the principle of joining either India or Pakistan, thereby relinquishing their independence.
If the right to independence were granted based on merit, only the largest states—such as Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Kashmir, and Baroda—would have qualified. However, two of these states were integrated into India, while two others (Jammu and Kashmir and Hyderabad) were forcibly annexed against the will of their people and rulers, respectively. In comparison, the case of Kalat holds no merit whatsoever.