Mirrors and Maps: How the European Gaze Reshaped Religious Identity in 19th-Century Balochistan

 The Horse Trader and the Empire

Imagine, if you will, the year 1810. A young man named Henry Pottinger is making his way across the arid, wind-swept landscape of Balochistan. He isn’t travelling as a British lieutenant, which he is, but is instead disguised as a horse trader. Why? Because in the early 19th century, this region—stretching from the Arabian Sea to the Hindu Kush—was a "nebulous" space in the imperial imagination, a place where, in Pottinger's words, "a European, avowedly such, could not hope to penetrate."

For the next ninety years, a steady stream of British officers, surveyors, and spies would follow in his footsteps. But here is the question we must ask ourselves today:

Were these men merely reporting what they saw, or were they, through their reports and maps, fundamentally reshaping the categories through which society understood itself?

The answer is that they did both—but the act of categorization itself became a form of creation.

Today, we are going to explore how the European "gaze" transformed the social fabric of Balochistan. We will see how a world of fluid, overlapping identities was gradually compressed into the rigid, "fixed and mutually exclusive" religious categories that continue to shape the region’s politics today.

This transformation did not occur simply at the level of ideas. It operated through concrete technologies of power (maps, censuses, legal categories, and administrative routines) that forced people to repeatedly identify themselves in new ways. Over time, these bureaucratic acts made certain identities more visible, more valuable, and more politically consequential than others.

 

The Players: From Adventurers to Bureaucrats

To understand these accounts, we must first understand the men who wrote them. They weren't "disinterested ethnographers"; they were "servants of empire."

In the early days, we had the "adventurers." Beyond Pottinger, there was Charles Masson—actually a deserter from the East India Company named James Lewis—who spent years wandering the region in the 1820s. Because Masson lived within these communities, often in precarious circumstances, his observations were nuanced. He saw economic interdependence rather than religious separation. This is not to suggest that Masson was a neutral or modern ethnographer. His writings were still shaped by Orientalist assumptions and colonial curiosity.

But then, the "Great Game" began—the strategic rivalry between Britain and Russia. The 1857 Indian Rebellion had shaken British confidence in their ability to read Indian society, leading to an obsession with identifying 'loyal' versus 'seditious' communities. The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80) made Balochistan's mountain passes strategically vital. These weren't abstract intellectual shifts—they were responses to genuine imperial anxieties. The more threatened the British felt, the more they needed their categories to be clear, stable, and predictive. Ambiguity became not just administratively inconvenient but strategically dangerous.

How did this shift in political priority change the way Europeans described religion?

As the century progressed, the "adventurer" was replaced by the "professional political officer" and the "survey scientist." Men like Robert Sandeman developed the "Sandeman System" of indirect rule through tribal chiefs or sardars. For these men, knowledge was "instrumental." They didn't care about the poetic nuances of a Sufi's prayer; they wanted to know: "Who is the chief? Who owes him loyalty? And what is the 'nature of their blood-feuds'?"

By the 1890s, the "Survey of India" was mapping the land with "trigonometrical precision," and census takers were arriving with forms that demanded every human being fit into a neat box: "Muhammadan," "Hindu," or "Sikh." As the scholar Nicholas Dirks famously argued, the census didn't just reflect reality; it "played a crucial role in constructing the very categories through which India came to know itself."

In Balochistan, this meant that census officials were instructed to record religion as a fixed, singular identity, even when local informants described themselves primarily through tribe, lineage, or occupation. Ambiguity—so common in earlier travel accounts—was administratively unacceptable.

 

Creating the Monolith: The "Muhammadan" Majority

Let’s look at how this construction worked in practice, starting with the Muslim majority.

In the early accounts of Masson and Pottinger, there is a sense of "enormous internal diversity." They wrote about languages—Balochi, Brahui, Pashto—and tribal affiliations. Pottinger treated the Islamic faith almost as "background information." Masson even noted that some Baloch tribes had religious observances that were "very lax," retaining practices that likely predated Islam.

However, by the time we reach the 1881 Census, this diversity is "flattened". Census handbooks explicitly instructed enumerators to record a single, primary religious identity, even when respondents offered multiple affiliations. The colonial state needed to count people, and "Muhammadan" became an undifferentiated monolith. For example, the 1881 Census of Baluchistan recorded Muslims almost exclusively as ‘Sunni (Hanafi),’ leaving no space to document Sufi affiliations, shrine-based practices, or local ritual variations that earlier observers had noted.

Why does this matter?

Because by categorising everyone as "Sunni of the Hanafi school," the British ignored the "living, diverse, and contested nature" of religious life. Tribal codes of honour, Sufi devotional practices, and local folk traditions were dismissed as "superstitions" or "corruptions" of a "true" Islam that existed only in European textbooks. We see here the shift from “description to prescription.” Once the state treated religion as the most salient identity, people were increasingly compelled to respond to that framing—whether to access protection, avoid suspicion, or negotiate authority. Identity was no longer merely lived; it was administratively performed.

 

The "Useful Strangers": Hindu Trading Communities

Now, what about the minorities? The Hindu communities—primarily Lohanas, Bhatias, and Khatris—were concentrated in urban centres like Kalat and Quetta.

European observers were strikingly consistent here: they saw Hindus almost entirely through their "economic function". Masson called them the "monied and commercial class." To the British, the Hindu was the "Useful Stranger."

What was the narrative purpose of this stereotype?

It served a dual function. First, it explained why Hindus were in a Muslim region: they were there because their "commercial skills" were needed. Second, it reinforced the Victorian "martial race" theory—the idea that the Baloch Muslims were "martial and pastoral," while Hindus were "commercial and sedentary."

The British were obsessed with the "security of property." Lieutenant Thomas Postans noted in the 1840s that Hindu traders were "indulged with perfect security" but were forbidden from owning land. By the late 19th century, the census was even breaking these communities down by "caste," assuming that caste was the "fundamental organizing principle" of Hindu society, even when the reality on the ground—cross-caste marriages or shared religious practices—suggested otherwise.

 

The Puzzles: Zikris and Brahuis

Some groups, however, simply refused to fit into the British boxes. The Zikris are a perfect example. They followed a 15th-century Mahdi, favoured zikr over prayer, and congregated at a sacred mountain.

How do you classify a group that claims to be Muslim but diverges from what colonial and Sunni orthodox authorities defined as the central pillars of Islam?

The British were baffled. Masson hedged his bets, calling them "a sect of Muhammadans." When the census came around, the debate became "pressing." If they were "other," they needed different laws. If they were "Muslim," they fell under the majority. Eventually, the 1891 Census just listed them as "Muhammadan" with "peculiar tenets". This administrative convenience "obscured the contested nature of Zikri identity" and the very real tensions between them and orthodox Sunnis.

Then there were the Brahuis. They spoke a Dravidian language—related to South Indian languages—but were surrounded by Balochi speakers. This "linguistic anomaly" sent Victorian "racial scientists" into a frenzy of speculation about "ancient migrations."

In the European mind, race, language, and religion were often conflated. Thomas Holdich wrote in 1901 that the Brahuis were "descendants of some ancient Dravidian race," adding almost as an afterthought that they were "Muhammadans." This structure is telling: Race and language were seen as "essential," while religion was just a "later accretion." This racial classification had real consequences. Some British officials argued that Brahuis, as 'racially distinct' Dravidians, might be more amenable to British rule than 'pure' Baloch tribes, leading to differential treatment in administrative appointments and land policy. Here we see how multiple colonial classification systems—religious, linguistic, and racial—could intersect and compete, creating complex hierarchies that indigenous actors had to navigate

 

The Great Debate: Tolerance vs. Fanaticism

As we examine the relations between these groups, we find two competing narratives in the European archives: the "Tolerance Narrative" and the "Fanaticism Narrative."

The early "Tolerance Narrative" was rooted in economics. Masson and Sandeman saw a "transactional but stable" relationship where the Khan of Kalat protected Hindu merchants because they provided the revenue he needed to rule. They saw Muslims and Hindus "mingling freely" at public festivals.

But as the British grew more worried about their own security, a darker "Fanaticism Narrative" took hold. The word "fanatic" starts appearing everywhere in military reports to describe mullahs who preached jihad against British expansion. This is not to deny the existence of religious tension or militant preaching. Rather, it highlights how colonial officials increasingly interpreted all social conflict—economic, political, or tribal—through a religious lens that served imperial security concerns.

Crucially, these weren't mutually exclusive narratives in British minds. The same official might emphasize tolerance when justifying indirect rule through local khans, then invoke fanaticism when requesting military reinforcements. The narratives were tools, deployed strategically depending on whether the British wanted to minimize or justify intervention at any given moment.

Do you see the political utility of this "fanaticism" label?

It justified British intervention. If the "fanatical" Muslim majority was a constant threat to the "vulnerable" Hindu minority, then the British were not just conquerors—they were "civilizers" and "protectors".

Consider the "Case of the Debt" in 1850s Kalat. A group of Baloch tribesmen refused to pay back Hindu creditors. The Khan intervened to enforce the debt. A British agent wrote that this proved the Khan could "protect the Hindus when he chooses". But look closer: was this a religious conflict? Or was it just a standard dispute between a debtor and a creditor? By the late 19th century, the British were increasingly viewing every social conflict through a "communal lens," even when the participants themselves might not have.

 

The Counter-Perspective: What the British Missed

To see the distortions of the European gaze, we can turn to indigenous sources—though we must remember that Persian chronicles also reflect the perspectives of political elites and court historians, not necessarily ordinary Baloch experiences. Still, these texts reveal a fundamentally different hierarchy of identity

In Persian chronicles like the Tarikh-e-Masumi, the hierarchy of identity is completely different. These texts don't start with religion; they start with political authority and lineage. When they mention Hindu merchants, they focus on their role as "protected subjects" of the Khan, not their religious taxonomy.

We also have terms like qaum. The British translated this as "tribe" or "community," but in Balochistan, qaum was "flexible and context-dependent." A person could belong to a tribal qaum, an occupational qaum, or a religious qaum all at once. This multiplicity stood in stark contrast to the colonial demand for singular, stable identities—an epistemological mismatch that produced chronic misunderstanding

And then there is the priority of the Tribe. For many in Balochistan, tribal affiliation—not religion—was the "fundamental and consequential identity". Land rights, water access, and blood feuds all followed tribal lines. As Robert Sandeman himself admitted in a rare moment of clarity: "The Biluch is before all things a tribesman... Religion, while important... does not override tribal allegiance in political affairs."

In the indigenous world, religious difference was managed through the Mayar—the Baloch code of honour. A chief protected a Hindu merchant not out of "religious tolerance," but because the code of hospitality and protection of guests was absolute, regardless of the guest's faith.

 

Strategic Adaptations: How Locals Navigated New Categories

But we must be careful not to portray Baloch society as merely a blank canvas for colonial inscription. Indigenous actors weren't passive. Some tribal leaders strategically emphasized their 'Muslim' credentials to gain British favor or legitimacy against rivals. Others maintained deliberately ambiguous identities to avoid surveillance or taxation. Hindu merchants sometimes leveraged their classification as a 'protected minority' to secure favorable trading agreements. The Zikris' eventual acceptance of the 'Muhammadan' label—however contested—may have been a pragmatic choice to avoid legal vulnerability rather than genuine self-identification. In other words, colonized peoples weren't just categorized; they also learned to work within, around, and sometimes against these categories for their own ends.

 

Conclusion: The Long Shadow of the Census

As we conclude, we must ask:

What is the legacy of this 19th-century "mapping?"

The "communalism" that colonial officials claimed merely to "observe and manage" was, in many ways, produced by the very technologies they used to observe it. By allocating seats on committees by religion, by funding schools along communal lines, and by counting heads in the census, the British "institutionalised" religious identity.

The fluid, overlapping identities of 1810 were increasingly constrained by the hardened boundaries of the 20th century—boundaries that structured political life without fully eliminating older forms of belonging.

How should we, as social scientists, approach these sources today?

We must read them "against the grain." We must recognise that every act of classification is an "act of power." The archives of Pottinger, Masson, and Sandeman are not neutral windows into the past; they are "mirrors" of the imperial mind and "maps" of a reality the British were actively trying to create.

Understanding this genealogy doesn't solve today’s conflicts in Balochistan, but it does "denaturalise" them. It shows us that the way we see ourselves and others is not "inevitable"—it is the product of historical processes that could have unfolded differently, and, perhaps, could still be reimagined. This isn't to say that religious difference didn't exist before colonialism—clearly Muslims, Hindus, and Zikris had distinct practices and beliefs. Rather, colonial administration made religious identity administratively and politically salient in ways it hadn't been before, creating incentives and pressures that gradually hardened these boundaries.

When we look at Balochistan today—its ethnic tensions, the Baloch nationalist movement, sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'as, and the marginalization of Hindu minorities—we're not looking at ancient, primordial conflicts. We're looking at political struggles fought in a language of identity that was, in significant part, created by colonial administration and then inherited, intensified, and weaponized by postcolonial nation-states. Pakistan's own census categories, its allocation of political representation, and its legal definitions of minorities all trace back to these 19th-century precedents.

Let’s understand this with a metaphor: The British arrived in Balochistan wanting to take a photograph of the society as it was. But the flash of their "camera"—their census forms, their gazetteers, and their racial theories—was so bright and so intrusive that it actually changed the expression on the face of the subject they were trying to capture. Our job is to look past that glare and try to see the original features of the land once more.

Our task, then, is not to recover a pure precolonial past, but to understand how power reshaped the terms through which identity itself became thinkable.