New Delhi: Mahrang Baloch, a prominent human rights activist from Balochistan has been named one of TIME100 Next but some Pakistanis remain unconvinced and have labelled her ‘the Malala of the West’.
“Another malala investment by west,” one Instagram user commented on Niche Lifestyle’s post, while another user said she was honoured for “promoting hate”. Others said this was a result of “foreign funding” and that “all her activism is an act”.
Recognised for her peaceful advocacy and her march to Islamabad in December 2023, where she led hundreds of women demanding “justice for their husbands, sons, and brothers”, Time Magazine said Baloch “represents hope”.
“With many of the community’s men missing or dead, women like Mahrang are now at the helm advocating peacefully for Baloch rights,” the magazine wrote.
Baloch dedicated the honour to “all Baloch women human rights defenders and the families of those who have been forcibly disappeared.”
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Who is Mahrang Baloch?
Thirty-one-year-old Baloch has been protesting against the abduction of Baloch people since 2006. Three years after, in 2009, her father, Ghaffar Longove, a political activist, “disappeared”. His tortured body was discovered in 2011. However, it was the abduction of her brother in 2017 that motivated her to begin actively campaigning, and participating in marches and sit-ins. Though her brother was returned to the family in 2018, Baloch continued her fight for justice, despite facing intimidation and threats.
In 2019, she founded the Balochistan Yakjehti Committee (BYC)—“which has attempted to highlight the alienation of Balochistan’s educated youth in a peaceful and constitutional manner”.
Since then, she has organised small grassroots meetings in communities to foster discussions about the issues facing the Baloch people.
Balochistan, a resource-rich region, has long faced political turmoil and calls for greater autonomy or independence from Pakistan.
Born in Kalat, Balochistan, Baloch is also a doctor, having earned her MBBS from Bolan Medical College. Soon after she began actively protesting, she became a leading figure in the Baloch resistance movement. Her work focuses on combating enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights violations in the region.
“It is often said that the Baloch women are at the forefront of the movement against enforced disappearances. I disagree because these are not just women — they are unfortunate wives, mothers, sisters and children. Some are lucky enough to have memories of their fathers to return home to. But there are also those who were still in their mothers’ wombs when their fathers were taken away,” she wrote in Dawn in July 2024.
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‘Face of Baloch spring’
In July this year, the Balochistan Yakjehti Committee (BYC) organised a gathering in Gwadar in July under the banner of the ‘Baloch Raji Muchi’ [Baloch National Gathering]. Hundreds of protesters from across Balochistan and other Baloch-majority areas of the country participated, despite state-imposed restrictions aimed at preventing them from reaching Gwadar.
Baloch has criticised the lack of support that Balochi protests receive.
“It is rare for such mainstream groups to talk about missing persons and human rights abuses. Perhaps they do not care about what happens in Balochistan, just like most Pakistanis,” she told journalist Shah Meer Baloch in 2021.
Journalist Muhammad Akbar Notezai in his June 2024 article, ‘The Women of the Baloch Spring’ called her “the face of the Baloch Spring”.
“Mahrang has been drawing tens of thousands of Baloch men and women to her protests and gatherings—because they see in her a strength that is giving voice to their decades of grievances. Whether she wanted it or not, she has now become the face of the ‘Baloch Spring’,” he wrote.
Journalist Sushant Sareen echoed similar thoughts in his June 2024 article, ‘The Baloch Awakening’ published on the Observer Research Foundation website.
“The poet Habib Jalib’s words “darte hain bandookon wale ek nihatti ladki se (the men with guns are terrified of an unarmed young girl), which was used to great effect to shame the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan after the attack on Malala Yousafzai, applies even more to Balochistan where the articulate, feisty, and indefatigable Dr Mahrang Baloch has become the face of the Baloch awakening,” he said.
However, Mahrang is often a subject of state punishments, threats, and assassination attempts. She does not know if she will live to see her state out of turmoil.
Around 25 FIRs have been filed against her and her organisation, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. During a sit-in in Islamabad, then government falsely labelled her brother as a commander of a terrorist organisation, a claim echoed by state-sponsored media, as well.
Mahrang calls her activism ‘a battle of survival’ and her politics ‘a responsibility’.
“For me, the most progressive aspect of our resistance is that thousands of women across generations, from young teenage girls to their mothers and aunts to their grandmothers and even great-grandmothers, have joined the cause,” Mahrang told The Guardian.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)