From what I understand, the ones on the Iran side are a beleaguered and largely crushed lot. More caveman smugglers and dacoits than what your army is facing.
No one can rightly compare the scale (of the insurgency) on both sides.
I was unaware that Balochistan (yours) is majority Pashtun.
If so, it makes India's future moves crystal clear.
This may well be oil and water separating, as they always have, and will, along the civilizational cleave line of the Indus.
The insurgency in Iranian Sistan-Balochistan region is indeed smaller in scale, but that doesn’t make it insignificant. Jundullah, Jaish alAdl, and other groups have carried out high-profile attacks (e.g the 2019 Zahedan suicide bombing, the 2022 Rask police station assault). The ‘caveman smugglers’ narrative is wrong as it downplays Tehran’s own counterterrorism operations.
Why would IRGC deploy brigades to the region if the threat were trivial? The difference is of scale.Pakistan has much larger Baloch population than Iran and India’s proxy war exacerbates it.
And Balochistan is majority Pashtun but a census would never show that cause of obvious political dynamics. Pashtuns are concentrated in Quetta, Pishin, Zhob, and Loralai Division ( The Northern Balochistan ). Brahuis comprise the Kalat Division and Naushki district ( Central Balochistan ). Rest are Baloch territories.
But your broader point about ‘oil and water separating’ is flawed. The ‘civilizational cleave line of the Indus’ is a romanticized fiction. Punjabis, Sindhis, and Pashtuns are deeply integrated into Pakistan’s polity. Even if India exploits ethnic tensions (as it does in Balochistan), Pakistan’s state structure and military cohesion are far more resilient than 1971 redux fantasies.
Punjab itself has a heavy pashtun population. Southern Punjabis ( Seraikis ), they themselves are Baloch who speak a dialect of Punjabi. And they constitute entire southern half of Punjab, from Multan to RYK. Half of Sindh is populated by Baloch tribes who got Sindhified. Zardari Family for example. Karachi has the biggest Pashtun population in planet, has Pashtun MNAs, MPAs. There's hundreds of years of and recent, successful examples of integration.
If India’s plan is to bank on Pashtun Baloch divides, it’s recycling a failed strategy. The TTP’s anti Pakistan insurgency got zero traction in KPK because Pashtuns reject foreign backed destabilization. Pashtun Lashkars of FATA fought a brutal war against TTP, Chechens and Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Al Qaeda etc for an entire decade. They want nothing to do with India or Afghanistan. Just see the heavily armed rallies Pashtuns led recently during Indo Pak conflict. And let’s not pretend Delhi’s Balochistan meddling (e.g., Kulbhushan Jadhav) has yielded anything but embarrassment.
And you’re right that Iran has crushed much of its Baloch insurgency; but that’s precisely why it cooperates with Pakistan on border security. Neither of us wants an independent Balochistan. India’s fantasy of balkanizing Pakistan along ethnic lines is a geopolitical pipe dream. The real ‘civilizational cleave’ is between states that fuel separatism (India) and those that crush it (Iran, Pakistan).
Afghan Defense
.. once in a while I'll go have dinner with the old folks and they's always glued to these.
