More Provinces
By M. Waqas (Ex MPA) • Jul 9th, 2009 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 14 CommentsCurrently debate for more provinces is going on. Some people think that division is necessary for smooth administration and for decentralization of authority, and to grant relief to the common man of Punjab. They argue that Punjab is bigger than most of European countries, its population is exceeding from 70 million, and it is virtually impossible for administration to coup the challenges of such a huge population. Some other based their argument on ethnicity and culture. They think that seraiky belt has its own distinct culture and a separate province for seraikies is their long-standing demand. Landlords of that area are loudly speaking for this demand because they want to seize the opportunity and grab the power of the new province.
But both the arguments are not valid on following grounds.
Firstly division is not the proper solution of the problems faced by the common man; rather decentralization is the proper one. Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees greater provincial autonomy but unfortunately it is not practically granted to the provinces.
Secondly by division the federation will gain more strength
Thirdly if Punjab is divided into two or three provinces constitutionally each new province will get equal number of seats in senate of Pakistan resultantly as a whole Punjab will get a huge share and will secure overwhelming majority in this house and other provinces will feel deprived as a consequence.
On ethnic ground the situation is more worst .if the principle of ethnicity is accepted than one can not stop even minor ethnic groups to claim separate provinces for themselves, like pothoharians, hindku speaking belt of hazara in NWFP pushtoon belt of Balouchistan and Urdu speaking in Sindh.
Thus we need more provincial autonomy rather than more provinces.
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Salam,
sir u r a fool .and so are the others who are calling for differnt provices.pakistan as a state is in jeopardy and politicians like u want more provinces.are u crazy.if there is no pakstan then ur provinces will rot in heell dammit.let us fight the commion f threeat before we involve ourselves these issues.
@javee please read the passage once more and try to understand and than comment
@javee
This is standard of our mantality that without understaning anything we got exploited.
I tend to agree….decentralization is the key !
I suggest more provinces for a sizeable section of people based on their cultural and ethnic identities, constitutional amendments to create an electoral balance and finally autonomy for each province.
For manageability, the notion of more provinces is not that bad, but I dont trust the intentions of Muhammad Ali Durrani, the crony of Musharraf.
One Question to you all, if we cant manage 4 provinces how on earth we see our selves managing more provinces keeping in view the system re-newel and infrastructure build up along with a new team for admn, health, education, security etc can we afford it or for that we have to beg friends of Pakistan!
@6 is quite right in her observation as durrani never raised this issue in musharf regime.Ruling class always sells dreams to poor class for achieving their positions and poor get trapped of it.When elite get the positions through such acts of divide and rule then poor are again kicked back to their original place that is for crying, begging and demanding their rights.
Punjab must be divided to form a Saraiki Province….part of manifesto of Muttahida.
“One Question to you all, if we cant manage 4 provinces how on earth we see our selves managing more provinces”-=I dont agree with this statement,–You are right in saying that we cant manage 4 provinces but when you divide a certain province it would also mean a separate set of administrators to govern —- Of course the autonomy should be there,—Not a bad Idea at all if properly executed and not on ethenic basis.
Although I do not undermine “Decentralization” but I would say “De-militarization” is more of need of the day. Until we stop the role of military in our politics, Pakistan can not come out of troubles.
On more provinces issue I think this has to happen otherwise God forbid we might see situations like Bangladesh. There should be no province comprising more than 20 million population. Therefore, for 160 million of population there should be 8 provinces in Pakistan.
If the people of Seraiki areas wish to have their own province then why not, after all they are not our ‘colony’. And if that will diminish Punjab’s power in the Federation, so be it. Perhaps it is even better for Pakistan, all the smaller provinces tend to blame Punjab for playing the ‘Chaudhry’, after all, Punjab takes away almost 68% of the resources on the basis of its population and its ‘rulers’ in Lahore spend it where & how it suits their whims. Once, it’s divided into couple of smaller units, nay smaller provinces, and every province has autonomy over its affairs, I think we will have more cohesive Federation, where every area would feel and have the power to run its day to day affairs and be accountable to its people without blaming someone in Lahore.
lol@javee, did u even read what the author said before jumping to the conclusions?
Wow another genius argument on your part Aftab, kudos to you. Really do you even marginally understand maths? I mean really do you. Even if you break punjab into three provinces which is not only ridiculous but impossible. The new provinces will still take 68% divided by 3 equals 22% each (putting it simply). In reality nothing will change on the ground except for perception.
Oh lets not forget this will give an excuse to racist morons of MQM to demand for a province made up of Karachi and Hyderabad. By the way your argument about demands of Siraiki people is one step beyond absurdity to say the least. Please for once in your life visit rural Punjab and you will see the people there are as impoverished as in any other part of Pakistan.
Waqas:
you have rightly said that decentralization is the solution to the problem rather then more provinces. But then again by doing so this will be putting more power into peoples hand some thing the establishment would never want.
Mac *** whatever! you can laugh as much as you like. There is no quota on this - at least not so far!
I guess I do understand maths to the extent that if 68% is divided to 3 newly created provinces from the one province, each get 1/3 of this and are empowered to use / invest / spend on their region & people according to their own aspirations & do not have to look upto Lahore. I would have thought this is ideal ‘decentralization’, after all ‘decentralization’ just can not mean concentration of all resources & power in few hands in Lahore. By the way, I personally have no problems with one national unit of Pakistanis where we live together and together we die with asense of sharing our pains & pleasures together; however, I fail to see the ‘impossibility of breaking’ Punjab into further units of the Federation of Pakistan. Why indeed? Is there some ‘holy’ injunction endangered here, too? Tell me it will be a conspiracy against Islam & the Muslim Umma if Punjab is devided into 2 or 3 or 4 new provinces ! Let me just enlighten you a little, at least let me make an attempt. When we, Pakistanis, desired we “broke” a country which has a history back to ancient times, when we fingered East Pakistanis beyond their limit of thresh hold, they “broke” Pakistan and created a country. It is the will & wishes of the people which decides who and as what they wish to be identified.
There’s no denial that life is subhuman for our people in the rural areas of our whole country and that’s why I have always tried to point out economy as the main culprit & worst divisive factor here. Let’s jointly effort for economic growth and share the outcome.