Forum Pakistan

An Indo-Iranian people inhabiting the historicogeographical area of *Balochistan. Their population i estimated at 6 million (1990). The majority, more than 3 million Balochis, live in the province of Balochistan, about 1.2 million in *Sindh, over 300,000 in *Punjab, 700,000 in the south-west regions of Iran and about 150,000 in south-western Afghanistan. Migrants from Balochistan are found in India and in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Serveral thousand Balochis reside in south-eastern Turkmenistan.

The *Balochi language belongs to the north-western sub-group of the Iranian languages. Since the 1940s written literature has been rapidly developing. The majority of Balochis are *Sunni Muslims. In the Makran division (Balochistan province), the Zikri sect includes several tens of thousands.
The Balochi culture began to form in the middle of the first millenia AD. Balochi migration from the Iranian territories of Kirman and Sistan to present day Balochistan province in Pakistan was a major landmark in their ethnic history. There they mixed with the local Iranian, *Indo-Aryan, and *Dravidian ethnic groups and tribes. Balochis have pre erved many elements of their time-honoured way of life and traditional social structures, such as tribes-'tumans', clans-'pharas', families- 'phallis'. The largest tribes (groups of tribes), are the following: Marri, Bughti, Jamadini, Leghari, Zehri, Rind, Magsi (Magasi), Dombki, Buledi, Khosa, and Gichki. About fifteen per cent of Balochis still lead a nomadic or semi-nomadic life. The Balochi economy is mainly based on irrigated farming (grain-growing, horticulture), extensive cattle breeding, coastal fishing, and the mining of various minerals in the mountains of northern Balochistan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Yuri Gankovsky, 'The Peoples of Pakistan', Lahore 1972; M. PikuLin, 'Balochi', Moscow, 1959 (in Russian); M. LOngworth Dames, 'The BaLoch Race', London, 1904.

Balochi Academy
The first Balochi Academy was founded in Karachi, in 1958 by Akbar Barakzai, Murad Sahir, and Juma Khan Baloch, among others. The Academy publishes collections of poetry and anthologies of Baloch poets and conducts educational activities. The second Balochi Academy was founded in Quetta, to publish books on Balochi linguistics, history, culture and literature. Between 1961 and 1991 the Academy published about 150 books, mainly in Balochi, and also in *Urdu and English, by Balochi researchers writers, and poets, as well as translations from other languages (including translations from Russian works by Chekhov, Gorky, Chinghiz Aitrnatov and others). Works by some Balochi poets have been published in Urdu. The Academy publishes a popular series of pamphlets in Balochi and promotes a better understanding of *Balochi literature.