Provinces and units

Provinces are political entities based on historic nationhood with all its roots in thousands of years of past heritage and cultural development. These are not simply administrative units. Administrative units are UCs, Talukas, Districts and Divisions. Pakistan is a federation. It’s not a country of just one nation to divide in administrative provinces. The very term ‘administrative province’ is a misnomer. There are already administrative units in each province. One can create even more administrative units, to facilitate good governance and efficient public service delivery. But breaking up provinces based on nations is a criminal demand.

London is half of Karachi’s population but is administratively divided into 34 districts. Karachi should also be divided into at least 25 districts to run it efficiently and on sound and manageable administrative units. This will also create much needed ethnic harmony in Karachi. The UK is a union of four countries/provinces: England with a population of 84.1 percent; Scotland with 8.3 percent; Wales with 4.8 percent; and Northern Ireland with 2.8 percent. Each nation in the UK is dealt with equally, irrespective of their proportion of population. Similarly, Pakistan also is a federation of four nations. You can’t divide nations based on the ill intentions of some people. Neither can you merge these historic nations into one. The One Unit experiment ended badly; hate-mongers divide people and nations by trading in hate.

Gul Metlo

London, UK