Pure‐istan: Gender and Genocide in Pakistan

ABSTRACT This study examines the ongoing genocidal violence against the Baloch nation. It highlights how the Pakistani state has weaponized Islamic doctrine to construct a vision of a homogenized, “purer, more Islamic state” that excludes and others those deemed incompatible with its vision of purity. This logic of purification is deeply gendered. It targets men and women in distinct yet interconnected ways, shaping both the forms of violence inflicted and the strategies of survival and resistance that emerge. Using personal recollections and testimonies from Baloch women who participated in a sit‐in protest that evolved into the “Long March Against Baloch Genocide,” I illustrate how Baloch women, despite being targeted, continue to resist. Grounded in the frameworks of Critical Kashmir Studies and Feminist Political Geography, I argue that a gendered lens is crucial to understanding how genocidal violence serves as a mechanism to produce a rigidly purified nation‐state: the Pak, pure‐istan.