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The News International Editorial
Division of Punjab
The demand for a separate Seraiki province within the territorial boundaries of Punjab and the decision of the federal government to postpone the local bodies elections to a future date have raised some important questions about the state of Pakistan as a federation and not for the first time. Only this time, perhaps, they need clear answers.
We ignored these questions and faced the separation of the Eastern wing -- that constituted more than half the country, in terms of population, in 1971 -- only 24 years after the country's creation. The questions raised then were almost similar -- of language and culture, of provincial rights, of regional autonomy, of allocation of resources. And of course, the central question -- about the armed forces of Pakistan -- and how it dominated all other questions ever raised.
Our subsequent political history shows there were no regrets and obviously no lessons learnt. Perhaps the only lesson learnt, and articulated as well, was that we need more and not less repression along with co-optation where necessary. The suspension of Balochistan Assembly in 1973, the military action, the suppression and co-optation of Baloch leaders, the crushing of Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in Sindh in 1983, the simultaneous rise of a movement in urban Sindh on ethnic grounds leading up to the recent military action in Balochistan are only a few highlights of this tumultuous history.
What comes out clear is that the document created to solve all the questions raised above -- the Constitution of 1973 -- was hogwash. Article 6 of this document could not prevent the military coup of 1977 and the concurrent list was not abolished ever after (the promised year was 1983).
We believe, as hinted before, that certain basic issues, or anomalies if you may, need to be sorted out. We need, at the risk of sounding clichéd, a paradigm shift. We cannot buy the argument that "Pakistan is a successor state to British India which had a unitary rather than a federal form of government" as raised by A.K. Brohi in an article written in response to the one written Ghaus Bux Bizenjo in 1977. Brohi may be factually right in stating that we asked for a centre by making a demand for Pakistan which then "delegated powers to the provinces for the sake of administrative convenience" but can we continue to run a federation along these lines? The turn of events has proved that we can't.
Brohi's arguments assumed that Pakistan was created on the basis of religion and there were no nationalities in this country. This weaved in well with the broader ideology of Pakistan argument which was the dominant discourse in only one part of one province, i.e. the Punjab. The rest of the provinces including eastern Bengal never believed in this and refused to surrender their identity the way the Punjab did.
A paradigm shift, we suggested. The security state paradigm needs to change. All other issues – be they of redrawing boundaries to create ethnically homogenous provinces, or distribution of resources or democracy or even territorial integrity of the state – pale before this predominant reality. For instance, in the half-hearted efforts at creating parity between the two wings of the country, the Eastern wing of the country did not get equal representation in the military.
The solution, as suggested by I.A.Rehman, lies in a consensus on democracy. If democracy works, so will a federation, he rightly points out. And in a federation the federating units voluntarily surrender their powers to the centre and not vice versa. In a federation the centre does not decide how to allocate resources – through bodies like National Finance Commission – but the federating units control their own resources and sell it at the price they like, as Dr PervezTahir tells us. That's how a federation works.
A federation envisages devolution of power down to the local level. The local tier is not dependent on the centre or the provinces; it draws its power from the constitution directly.
Therefore, a new social contract to run this country as a federation is what we need. The major issues are discussed separately in this Special Report.
The News:SundayJuly 19, 2009
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