Making of the Other: Critiquing Baloch Historiography

Abstract

Orientalism is the critique of the European perspective about the creation of colonial discourse and this approach advocates that European colonialism has created a concept of “othering". The Occident and the Orient is a pure European construct, and it would see another world from the lens of Europe and give a verdict of being inferior about all those concepts, cultures and ideologies which are not in conformity with European perceptions. The present work is based on the colonial construction of the history of Balochistan, and colonial scholars had provided the landmark of historiography in Balochistan. These colonial scholars had derived their concepts of the cultures and histories of the indigenous people based on the official documents provided by the colonial masters. So, the primary premise of the colonial discourse was not to do academic research rather it was to control the indigenous people. This premise of colonial historiography was bequeathed after partition as the post-partition and indigenous scholars had followed the footsteps of colonial scholars especial in the theories of ethnic origins. The present work is a historiographical critique of colonial and post-independence historiography into Balochistan, and it has been endeavored to provide main themes of oriental historiography and its counter-narrative which based on a post-colonial perspective derived from primary and secondary sources. The paper is an attempt in opening of new debates in the historiography of peripheral regions like Balochistan and its an effort to shed light on the areas on which there is a historical silence.