Mahrang Baloch: ‘Books are a source of support’: Pakistani activist Mahrang Baloch shares her prison reading list, featuring Indira Gandhi and more

For decades, the people of Balochistan have been fighting for their own. From control over their natural resources to freedom from oppression, generations of families have been struggling for the same. Among them is one woman, who as a teenager joined the protest in search of her father, who was allegedly arrested by security forces and later killed.Years later, the doctor turned activist became one of the most recognisable faces of the movement, demanding answers over enforced disappearances in the province. However, today, she is on the verge of receiving a fate just like her father’s.Mahrang Baloch and fellow activist Sibghatullah Shah were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Monday. They were convicted of terrorism, sedition and murder in connection with the death of a paramilitary soldier during a protest in the town of Gwadar in 2024.Baloch is the leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BBYC) and is an advocate for Baloch rights, campaigning against state practices of enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other human rights abuses in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. In a conversation with Akbar Notezai, she revealed her conditions in prison along with how she has been spending her time.

Life in jail

Baloch shared that the barrack she and her political colleagues have been held in the Hudda jail, was originally built to hold dangerous and high-profile prisoners. “Even though the jail has a separate ward for female prisoners, we have deliberately been kept isolated in a separate barrack. Over the last 14 months, my meetings have been limited to only a few family members and lawyers. This severe restriction is a clear and continuous violation of my fundamental rights,” she said.However, she said her childhood was shaped in the shadow of the state’s torture cells due to her father, Ghaffar Baloch’s freedom struggle. “I visited him here with Eid cards. The torture cells, where thousands of forcibly disappeared Baloch were detained, remained alive in my imagination. Every night, I would mentally reconstruct those dark spaces in my mind,” she added.Solitary confinement for 14 months has also led to Baloch facing severe back pain and radiculopathy. She was transferred to a hospital in February 2026 where she was diagnosed with lumbar disc prolapse, but is still being denied physiotherapy.

Reading has been supportive

According to Baloch, books have been her greatest source of support during her solitary confinement. “Books have strengthened my political consciousness, intellectual depth and belief in resistance. They have expanded my understanding and helped me remain connected to my inner strength,” she shared.Among the 22 books she has read during this period, one interesting choice piques massive interest. Mahrang Baloch has read ‘Indira Gandhi and the Year That Transformed India’ by author Srinath Raghavan. The book focuses on the year 1971 and argues that it fundamentally reshaped the country, South Asia and India Gandhi’s own political legacy. Talking about the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Indo-Pakistan War, the Cold War diplomacy, and domestic politics.Other books in the list are centred around various themes including power, resistance, state authority, colonialism, nationalism and the struggle of the oppressed, forming a perfect reading list for an activist who has been fighting oppression, state authority and working for nationalism. They are:

BYC and the future of Balochistan

According to Baloch, BYC is an indigenous movement of Balochistan. In 2009, the state implemented a “kill and dump” policy, and thousands of innocent people were killed and it was under these conditions that BYC emerged.She claimed that international human organisations and representatives of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances have been denied access to the country for a long time. “The BYC functions simultaneously as a human rights organisation and as a civil rights movement. It has organised major public gatherings such as the March Against Baloch Genocide, the Raji Muchi and the Dalbandin gathering,” shared Baloch.At present more than 50 cases have been filed against her and other BYC leaders across the region. But despite all this, she said that the people of Balochistan have not abandoned peaceful politics.