Pakistan’s
Inter-Provincial Rivalries and National Security
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Danville, California
Thirty-three
years ago, inter-provincial rivalries led to the
secession of East Pakistan. Even today, no other
problem genders as much controversy among Pakistanis,
whether resident or expatriate. Four viewpoints
are commonly expressed. One, that the problem
does not exist. Second, that it is not caused
by Punjab’s dominance. Third, that it can
be remedied by reorganizing the provinces. And
fourth, that the problem is beyond remedy.
I lean toward the third explanation. The problem
is real. Tensions surfaced in Balochistan and
Frontier during the tenure of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,
in Sindh under Zia ul Haq, and in all three provinces
under Nawaz Sharif. They are visible today, with
the controversy over the Kalabagh Dam being the
most vivid manifestation.
Admittedly, Punjab is not a monolith and is riven
with sub-cultural and sub-ethnic rivalries. However,
it is the perception of its dominance —
demographic, economic, political and even linguistic
— that triggers insecurities in the other
provinces. Moreover, a disproportionately large
share of federal spending appears to benefit the
residents of Punjab.
This problem can be solved, as seen by the experience
of other countries. With a population of a billion
people, India has continued to divide the nine
states it inherited at independence to retain
a national balance. To accommodate inter-regional
conflicts, India created a States Reorganization
Commission that suggested the creation of additional
states along linguistic lines.
Initially, this proposal was met with apprehension
by the leaders in the Center, who feared it would
lead to the breakup of the Indian Union. However,
ultimately they realized that not dividing the
provinces posed an even bigger threat. In 1956,
most of the states were re-drawn along linguistic
lines. This has been an ongoing process and the
Indian Union now consists of 26 states.
Bombay was reorganized in 1960 to create Maharashtra
and Gujarat for Marathi and Gujarati speakers
respectively. Not all Gujaratis were happy with
the creation of their state, since they lost Bombay
to Maharashtra. Punjab was split in 1966 to create
a smaller Punjab and Haryana. In the smaller Punjab,
Punjabi speakers have a slender majority. Haryana
is also a Punjabi-speaking state but one dominated
by Hindus while the Sikhs dominate Punjab. Assam
was parted a few times to create Nagaland and
Manipur, effectively reigning in the separatist
tendencies in those regions. In the year 2000,
three new states were cr eated from parts of Bihar,
Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Today, the largest state in the Indian Union is
Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for 16 percent of
the population, followed by Bihar with 10 percent,
and West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
with about 8 percent each. There is continued
talk of further subdividing the states in order
to accommodate regional aspirations. In one scenario,
that was put forward in 1992, India would consist
of 52 states.
Other nations have found ways to deal with ethnic
domination. For example, to deal with the domination
of Germans who account for 70 percent of the population,
Switzerland, with a population of only 7 million,
is divided into 26 administrative cantons, each
with its own constitution.
Iran, with a population of 69 million, consists
of 28 provinces. Tehran is the largest province,
accounting for 17 percent of the population. Like
in most countries, the number of provinces remains
flexible. A law was passed in the parliament in
May of this year to divide the province of Khorasan
into three new provinces.
Turkey, also with a population of 69 million,
consists of 81 provinces. The largest, Istanbul,
accounts for 13 percent of the population. Afghanistan,
with a much smaller population of 29 million,
has 34 provinces.
The US is a federation of 50 states. While some
states like California, New York and Texas are
much larger than other states like North Dakota
and Rhode Island, no single state accounts for
more than 10 percent of the national population.
In addition, the states are given significant
political and financial rights relative to the
federation, as part of the US constitution.
For a federation to operate successfully, there
should be a mechanism to regulate ethnic conflict.
Failure to do this resulted in the breakup of
federations in Central Africa, Czechoslovakia,
Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria and Pakistan. As Katherine
Adeney puts it, inter-provincial problems arise
when there are substantial differences in size
between provinces, a small number of provinces
and a dominant elite in the federation.
Provincial boundaries in Pakistan are outdated
and do not reflect the geographical and strategic
diversity of the country. Even the Pakistan army
has divided itself into nine Corps, of which five
are located in Punjab, two in Sindh and one each
in Frontier and Balochistan.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz should establish a
Provincial Reorganization Commission to examine
the issue. This commission may wish to take a
staged approach to the division of provinces,
based on linguistic, ethnic, demographic and administrative
criteria.
According to Tariq Rahman, there are six ssmajor
languages in Pakistan and 57 minor languages.
Punjabi is spoken by 44 percent of the people,
followed by Pashto (15 percent), Sindhi (14 percent),
Siraiki (11 percent), Urdu (8 percent) and Balochi
(4 percent). This suggests that a point of departure
for reorganizing the provinces would be to review
the administrative districts within each province.
For example, the most populous Hazara district
in the NWFP is dominated by Punjabi speakers while
Dera Ismail Khan includes Siraiki speakers.
It may make sense to reorganize Punjab into five
provinces, centered on Bhawalpur, Faisalabad,
Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi. Punjabi is the
primary language in the second, third and fifth
provinces and Siraiki in the first and fourth.
Sindh would be reorganized into four provinces,
centered on Hyderabad, Karachi, Khairpur/Nawabshah
and Sukkur. In the first and fourth, Sindhi is
the primary language, in the third a good percentage
of the population speaks Siraiki while Urdu dominates
in the second. At a later stage, following the
same principles, Balochistan could be reorganized
into two provinces, centered on Quetta and Khuzdar
and the Frontier into thre e provinces, centered
on Dera Ismail Khan, Mardan and Peshawar.
As Yunas Samad points out, there would still be
a need to ensure that new provinces do not recreate
a problem of local domination, since none would
be ethnically homogeneous. This problem may be
avoided through the promotion of consociational
decision making rules that rely on consensus building,
pluralism and bargaining rather than majoritarian
rule making.
Re-organizing the provinces would not solve Pakistan’s
various security dilemmas but by bringing harmony
to inter-provincial ties, it would resolve a very
important and obdurate one.
Author's e-mail: faruqui@pacbell.net
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