Baloch Culture Day on 2 March is a festival of colour and poetry that now doubles as an indictment of Pakistan’s security state. Even as Islamabad projects images of men in embroidered turbans and women in mirror work dresses, families in Balochistan mark the day by holding photographs of the disappeared instead of dholaks and flags. 

A day of celebration and mourning

Baloch Culture Day, observed each year on 2 March across Balochistan, in other Pakistani cities and in the wider diaspora, is meant to showcase Baloch language, music, dress and history. Its contemporary form emerged around 2010, when calls for marking a dedicated culture day gained traction through Balochi media platforms. That same year, violence surrounding student activities in Khuzdar left two Baloch students dead and several others injured, according to contemporary reporting. Since then, the day has become both an assertion of identity and a reminder that this identity is under siege in a federal structure that marginalises the province even as it exploits its resources and strategic location.

State-sponsored pageantry versus lived reality

Officially, Pakistan touts Baloch Culture Day as proof of “national integration” and harmony, with military run institutions organising dress competitions, walks and musical evenings that frame Baloch culture as a decorative subset of a benevolent Pakistani whole. Yet for many........

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