When Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani stood outside the Balochistan High Court this week and called the Mines and Minerals Act a "law of plunder," he was making a claim that deserves to be taken seriously. Balochistan's resources have been extracted for decades without dignity or justice for the people who live above them.

His High Court petition is a legitimate challenge to legislation that bypasses provincial rights. But the details that emerged from that same hearing tell a more complicated story. The chief minister's executive order supposedly halting the Act's implementation exists, it seems, only on someone's mobile phone — not on a court record, not shared with the public.

Raisani's counsel noted dryly that the government appeared to be "running the province through mobile phones." Meanwhile, Raisani's own letter to the Mines and Minerals director requesting basic licence details has gone unanswered. Miners in Duki still die in unsupported coal pits, without good wages, pensions or legal protection. Sovereignty is invoked loudly. The people it claims to protect remain in the dark.

This pattern is not unique to Balochistan. Rights claimed in public, power exercised in private — and when rights are claimed at all, they shelter a coterie of powerful elites while millions of poor........

© The Friday Times