Umair Javed
At the time of writing, 12 people were reported to have been killed, and another 29 injured, after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a rally protesting against the idea of a Muhajir province. While the spontaneous, and now seemingly endemic, nature of violence in Karachi remains a pressing matter, what is perhaps even more telling is that the violence erupted on an issue that doesn’t exist in any meaningful form. 12 people, most of them innocent by-standers, have been killed over anonymous graffiti advocating a separate province for the Muhajir population of Sindh.
This is Pakistan – where wall chalking is enough to paralyze a city of 20 million people.
The concepts of autonomy, identity, and spatial claim, which dictated both the graffiti and the Sindhi nationalist reaction, have characterized Pakistani politics since independence but the issue of new provinces has become an important rallying point for sub-national political actors over the last 3-4 years. More than that, these last few years have seen a steady, and complementary rise in the formal acknowledgement of this debate - by mainstream political actors, by the media, and by the intelligentsia in general. Depending on where you find yourself, the sanctity of having just 4, constitutionally ordained provinces has ceased to exist in the public realm.
The Historical Roots of Provincial Politics in Pakistan
Like many other things in this country, the demand for sub-national political autonomy can be traced back to the politics of the colonial era, and to Partition itself. India, till formal colonization in 1858, had historically existed as a loose confederation of semi-autonomous fiefdoms, connected to a distant center through taxes, and a vague idea of allegiance to an Emperor. All of this changed after colonization as the British got to work installing a modern, hierarchically arranged system of political and administrative organization, while still using the village as a basing building block. The major difference, apart from the codification of law, and property rights, was that the village now found itself within a much-expanded domain of politics. Above the village was a tehsil and then, ultimately, the district. For many matters, such as revenue, rights-based mobilizations, and litigation, the district, and finally the province, became the new frontiers of the Indian political imagination.
Given the way that the British devolved administrative authority, it comes as little surprise that the initial bursts of political demands were organized at the local and provincial level, and sought avenues for provincial participation. The Congress, while boasting a strong All-India presence, ultimately relied on its provincial and district cadre for its actual politics, and in the the case of the Muslim League, the demand for Pakistan, and its eventual success was premised on the provincial elections of 1946, and the strength of the party in the provinces of Punjab, NWFP, Sindh, and Bengal.
The provincial nature of the independence movement ultimately gave way to a new contradiction in the post-1947 scenario. Pakistan found itself in the rather uncomfortable position of balancing out the exigencies of a seceding state – as determined by a migrant elite, which had no geographical base in the new country - and the demand for greater resources, autonomy, and recognition by the various provincial and indigenous ethnic groups. Between 1947, and the secession of Bangladesh in 1971, the language of politics revolved around ethnicity, representation, exploitation, and the demand for greater autonomy. Fighting the center, both in terms of its socio-economic reach, and its cultural hegemony (Islam, anti-India, Urdu) became organic outcomes of the political landscape in Pakistan.
The Legal Roots of Provincial Politics in Pakistan
Despite peddling centralizing legal and socio-cultural frameworks, each military regime has been unsuccessful in killing off the confederative essence imbedded in Pakistani politics. Just because the state wanted to imagine a unified Pakistani nation - huddled under religious slogans, the Urdu language, and united in its dislike for India - into existence, didn’t mean that it would be particularly successful at this task. If anything, the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the nation-building project was drastically exposed by the secession of East Pakistan.
Since then, various governments have attempted to reign in sub-national sentiment through a variety of means – all of which have proven to be mostly unsuccessful. The fact remains that the constitution, even prior to the 18th amendment, clearly delineated Pakistan as a federation, and now with provinces being granted a much fairer degree of fiscal, legislative, and administrative authority, and with provincial political stakes much higher, there exists an added incentive for provincial and sub-national movements to exert their demands.
The Demand from Below
If you talk to people belonging to the middle and upper middle classes in North and Central Punjab, they’re most likely to reduce the Seraiki, Hazara, Muhajir or Bahawalpur movement as a product of elite manipulation and instrumentalization. ‘they’re making fools out of simpletons for their own gain’, they’ll say, without hesitation. There are multiple reasons for this dismissive reaction, chief amongst them being this particular demographics’ adoption of the statist narrative regarding Pakistani identity. Some of the more earnest ones will respond by saying ‘but why can’t we just forget all these primitive divisions and just become Pakistanis…’. In either case, cynical belligerence or earnest ignorance, one can see exactly why movements that stand in opposition to such views become genuinely popular and, ultimately, confrontational.
The popularity aspect is built on two main strands of reasoning found within each of the provincial movements currently active in Pakistan. The primary strand, emotive and suitably vague, focuses on cultural and historical reasons for a new province. The Seraiki movement, for example, uses a narrative of foreign subjugation, Sufi culture, their language, and civilizational homogeneity to construct its case. The much more recent Bahawalpur movement has a some-what distorted view on history as it calls for a ‘restoration’ of its provincial status. This particular understanding is patently false - Bahawalpur was subsumed under the one-unit as a princely state and never enjoyed provincial status - but it remains widely popular in both Bahawalpur and Rahimyar Khan district. The Muhajir movement, once popular during the early 90s, and threatening to re-emerge again, is premised on a narrative of migrant sacrifice, patriotism, and the projection of a strong, middle class ethos.
The secondary strand, i.e. the crass, reality driven one that ultimately determines the movement’s viability, is based on the contestation over political and economic resources. In Rahim Yar Khan for example, the business community, most of which is non-Seraiki, is very mindful of exactly what it stands to gain if Bahawalpur is declared a province. Similarly, economic interests, whether they are ruthless business related pursuits, or noble quests for eradicating poverty and underdevelopment have become important determinants in the Seraiki province movement, the Hazara movement, and as has always been the case, in Muhajir nationalism.
The added advantage of such projections is that they appeal to segments of the middle class population in these areas. Bahauddin Zakariya University, for example, has seen a strong surge in the total number of students who openly advocate for the bifurcation of Punjab. The identity question, coupled with growing disenchantment with a sinking economy, fortifies their view that a new province could very well be the most appropriate panacea. The question of provinces, it seems, has become closely tied with the middle-class demand for better services, more jobs, and fiscal justice.
Conflict and Compromise
There is no way of predicting whether we’ll see new provinces in a few months, next year, or ever. The movements, especially in South Punjab, are strong, have popular appeal, and strong economic backing by the business and agrarian elite. The demands, in this specific case are mostly legitimate, and can be backed by a degree of indicators, which show a clear core-periphery pattern between North/Central and South Punjab. Yet its actualization is hostage to the codified process of bifurcation, which is tedious, requires an incredibly broad-based agreement, and has important consequences on the political framework at the federal level.
That aside, the news around in the South is that a compromise might be obtained between the Bahawalpur and Seraiki movements by making the former the capital of a unified South Punjab province. That in itself does not fully address the palpable tensions between Seraiki and non-Seraiki speakers (abadkars) in the entire region, but could potentially prevent the emergence of conflict.
Processes, compromises, and politics aside, people all over Pakistan have made one thing very clear: the coerced consent to a centralizing state, at any level or in any domain (cultural or economic) is well and truly over. Devolved authority, and localization remains the natural impulse of politics in many parts of the country, and will continue to be so, regardless of whether these existing movements become successful or not. All of this tells us one thing, which is that the language and boundaries of democratic politics in Pakistan have transformed rapidly over these last few years, and most certainly for the better.
The writer is based in Islamabad. Read more by him at http://recycled-thought.blogspot.com, send an email to [email protected] or a tweet @umairjav
