A Misunderstood Blame
The Baloch people are often confronted with a pointed accusation: "It is your Sardars who hold you back." This refrain, echoed by both state officials and mainstream commentators, suggests that Balochistan's misery is self-inflicted, the result of its tribal leadership. But this narrative is not only simplistic; it is historically misleading. It erases the long, complex transformation of the Sardari system—a transformation from indigenous leadership grounded in accountability and communal consent to a system co-opted by colonial powers and later absorbed by the Pakistani state.
The Tribal Roots of Leadership
The Baloch are believed to have originated as Aryanic nomadic tribes, migrating to the regions of southern Sistan, Makran, and Turan in response to religious persecution and socio-political pressures in the Iranian plateau. These early migrants carried with them a secular and autonomous ethos, forged by centuries of conflict with semi-nomadic and sedentary groups. Their settlement in the region restructured its political and social landscape, forming the early foundations of Balochistan. Initially, Baloch society was based on tribal organization and military cooperation. Tribes acted as localized communities where power was decentralized, distributed among elders and leaders based on consensus rather than coercion. Leadership was not inherited but earned, typically based on age, wisdom, or competence in warfare and diplomacy.
Each tribe was organized into a hierarchy: at the base were families led by Safaid Rosh (white-beards), above them clan heads known as Takkri, followed by the deputies or Naibs, and ultimately the Sardar at the top. These Sardars were not autocrats but custodians of tradition, checked by councils of elders and bound to the code of Rasm o Rawaj—a system of customs governing everything from justice to conflict resolution.
The Khanate of Kalat: Institutionalizing Tribal Authority
The tribal confederations eventually found a centralizing figure in the Khanate of Kalat during the mid-17th century. The Khan did not function as a monarch but rather as a unifying authority for the diverse tribes of Balochistan. His legitimacy was anchored in mutual respect rather than taxation or coercion. Tribes offered fighters in times of need, and in return, the Khan allotted land and upheld tribal autonomy. Importantly, the Khanate did not extract surplus from the people. Instead, it served as a symbolic and administrative center, connecting regions such as Makran, Lasbela, Western Balochistan, and parts of Sistan and Derajat under a loose political arrangement. The Riwaj, a document codifying tribal rights and obligations, was upheld almost as sacred law.
The Colonial Disruption: Sandeman’s Forward Policy
This indigenous order faced a major rupture with the arrival of the British in the 19th century. Robert Sandeman, tasked with stabilizing British interests in the frontier regions, implemented a strategy known as the Forward Policy. Instead of direct rule, Sandeman chose to govern through local power brokers—the Sardars. He bypassed the Khanate entirely, granting unprecedented powers to tribal chiefs. Under British patronage, Sardars could arrest, punish, or pardon their tribesmen at will. In return, they received land, resources, and prestige. The jirga system was subordinated to colonial aims, and tribal leaders who once represented their communities became state auxiliaries.
Sandeman's approach entrenched a new hierarchy in Balochistan. The tribal leadership was no longer accountable to its people but to the colonial administration. Loyalty was rewarded, dissent punished. A system once based on communal checks and balances was converted into a mechanism of top-down control.
From Empire to Nation-State: The Continuation of Co-optation
At independence, Pakistan inherited the colonial administrative framework without fundamentally altering its structure. Rather than dismantling the colonial-era Sardari system, the state repurposed it. Sardars became elected representatives, intermediaries for federal ministries, and brokers of development funds. They were no longer accountable to their tribes but to Islamabad. The state found it convenient to maintain this arrangement. Instead of engaging with a diverse and often restive population, it could work through a few powerful individuals. This enabled the continuation of extractive policies without broad-based resistance. The same Sardars who once mediated between the people and the Khan now mediated between the state and their own communities—but with different allegiances.
Who Do the Sardars Serve Now?
It is within this historical context that the current critique of the Sardari system must be understood. To claim that Baloch Sardars are responsible for all of Balochistan's ills is to ignore the structural forces that transformed them. The tragedy is not simply that these leaders have failed their people, but that they were gradually removed from the organic structures that once made them accountable. Today, many Sardars operate more as administrators than tribal custodians. Their roles have been institutionalized into the state apparatus. Their legitimacy is drawn not from the jirga or the code of Rasm o Rawaj, but from their utility in the political economy of state control. In this capacity, they serve as a buffer between the state and the governed, often suppressing dissent in return for political and economic benefits.
Reclaiming the Narrative
To move forward, Balochistan needs more than criticism of its traditional structures. It needs a historical reckoning. The Sardari system, in its original form, was a community-based institution with moral and political checks. Its degradation into a tool of state power should not be mistaken for its essence. Reclaiming the past does not mean romanticizing it. It means understanding the roots of leadership, the shifts in legitimacy, and the role of external powers in shaping internal dynamics. Only then can new forms of accountability and representation emerge.
Conclusion
The narrative that blames Baloch Sardars for Balochistan's misfortunes ignores the slow and deliberate transformation of those leaders. Once grounded in the will of their communities, they have become functionaries in a system designed to manage, not empower, the Baloch people. Their authority, once earned through consensus, is now maintained through coercion or political expediency. To say "it is your Sardars" is to overlook the reality that they are no longer ‘their’ Sardars. They are the Sardars of the state. If the Baloch people are to reclaim their future, they must also reclaim their history—and with it, the power to define leadership on their own terms.
