For the last several months, there has been a persistent demand from different quarters for creation of more provinces in the Federation. The renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhawa acted as a catalyst and the process began with the people of Hazara declaring that since they were not Pashtuns, they must break away from the re-named province and have a separate province of their own. For the same reason, political leaders of D.I Khan wanted their region to be a part of the proposed Seraiki Province for which a movement had existed on and off for the past several years. In contrast, many politicians of Bahawalpur don’t want to be a part of the Seraiki province despite the commonality of language and want, on the other hand, that the erstwhile princely state be declared a province on its own, calling it a restoration of its earlier status, just as of other provinces, on the dissolution of One Unit.
At the other end of the political matrix, politicians of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Tribal Regions, despite these having purely Pashtun population, don’t want them to be a part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province and are demanding, instead, that these be grouped together into a separate province. Then there is a separate demand, although somewhat muted, from the predominantly Pashtun area of Zhob to separate from Balochistan and have a province of their own. Furthermore, MQM (Haqiqi) is already on record for its demand for a new province in the south of Sindh. It won’t be a surprise if someday some politicians of the Makran coast stand up and demand for the creation of a province for Makran and Lasbela! It is a pity that inter-party rivalry has escalated to the extent where national interest is obliterated and political leadership is blinded to the existential threats currently being faced by the country. Breakdown of national institutions, deteriorating law and order situation, impending economic meltdown, runaway inflation, burgeoning unemployment, non-availability of electricity and gas to the people, etc- issues which threaten the very existence of the country- seem to have receded to the background and the question of new provinces has somehow acquired the highest priority.
With the passage of the 18th Amendment and the abolition of the concurrent list, complete administrative, fiscal and political autonomy has been given to the provinces, a demand for which all of the politicians have been clamoring for years. But now that they have got it, they are no longer interested in extending the benefit of autonomy to the people and are, instead, preoccupied with the issue of new and more provinces. Incredibly, nobody seems to realise that in order to derive full benefit of the provincial autonomy as envisaged under the 18th Amendment, the provinces (existing and new) would have to have the requisite organizational structure, qualified and experienced personnel, adequate fiscal means and a viable economy based on proper utilization of available material and human resources. Even the existing larger provinces are facing difficulties in this regard and are still struggling to mobilise these resources to reap benefits of autonomy. Fragmentation of existing provinces into smaller units would make matters worse. Smaller provinces, if created, would therefore be looking towards the Center for help on every petty matter of daily business and their de-facto status would be that of glorified municipalities rather than autonomous provinces. That would be, indeed, the very anti-thesis of the 18th amendment. Of course, some petty politicians might benefit by becoming governors, chief ministers, and ministers etc. It is they, it seems, who are making most of the noise.
DANISH HASAN,
Lahore, January 20.