De-gendering the “Chairman’s Chadar”: The Rapidly Growing Symbol of Resistance and Solidarity among Baloch

This paper explores the “Chairman’s Chadar’s” (covering veil) evolving symbolism as a material and performative act of resistance within the Baloch struggle for justice and visibility. Investigating its journey from the shoulders of Martyr Ghulam Muhammad to its contemporary use by Dr. Mahrang Baloch and fellow political and human rights activists. Chadar is analyzed as a fabric transformed into symbol of unity, memory into resistance, and tradition into revolution. This Chadar, beyond a marker of cultural identity functions as embodied dissent, uniting diverse Baloch communities across borders against state oppression, gendered silencing and cultural erasure. Using Diana Tylor’s concept of the repertoire and Judith Butler’s theory of performative assembly, the research argues that Chadar functions as a visible demand to the “right to appear”, transmitting collective memory through protest and everyday practices. It refashioned from a male-oriented symbol of dignity into a de-gendered voice of dissent has empowered women political and human rights activists entering public political spaces without abandoning cultural modesty, thereby contesting tribal and patriarchal restrictions. The Chairman’s Chadar among Baloch has emerged universally identified emblem of peaceful resistance, emotional collectivity and intergenerational continuity embodies rebellion, remembrance and collective mourning intertwined into pride. This paper adopts a qualitative, ethnographic and case study approach investigating Chairman’s Chadar how it functions as a symbol of resistance. Further it includes participant observation, pictorial presentation and in-depth interviews to analyze the performative practices and spatial interventions analyzed the narratives, symbolic meanings and language attached to these sartorial acts of political and human rights activists. By ensuring methodological rigor, thematic coding was used for recognizing patterns across cases and enabled systematic study of affective, symbolic, performative impact, materiality and visibility.