More Provinces, Stronger Federation
By Khalid A.
London UK
We need some fresh thinking 'out of the box'. The 'old box' here is our set p of four unequal provinces. Historically, the present provincial boundaries are fairly recent. Sindh used to be part of the Bombay province. The old Punjab included East Punjab but Bahawalpur State was not part of the province. Similarly, Qalat and Swat etc were autonomous states. Also, for several years, we had no provinces at all, except One Unit of West Pakistan.
If we look across the border, several new provinces have been created in India in 1956 under an act of Parliament. Another very relevant example is Nigeria. They had four provinces and one out of four decided to secede from the federation. This led to the Biafaran civil war in the 1960s. After the war, it was realized that that if the country persisted with the setup of four provinces, each province would continue to have a feeling of self-importance, and any complaint of real or perceived injustice, would lead to a threat of secession. Therefore, soon after the end of the civil war, the Nigerian government created 12 provinces. Thus, the threatening posture of any province was no more existent. They have many more provinces now.
If India could be divided into Bharat, Pakistan and Bangladesh; and also if Punjab and Bengal could be sub-divided in 1947, there is no reason that our present provinces cannot be sub-divided. Of course, such a decision should be based on the merits of the proposal. There seems to be a strong case for having about 10 provinces. Thus the problem of domination by 'big brother' will be eliminated.
If the choice is between the breakup of the Federation or the sub-division of the provinces, all patriotic Pakistanis should opt for the latter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
