Pakistan’s uncharted territory

Those who think that the recently held local bodies elections in Sindh and Punjab are but a reflection of the local political dynamics based around ‘biradari’ or influence, are reading the tea leaves wrong. Also, the two recent survey by Pildat was trumped by the results that showed the PPP sweeping the polls even if it was rated the lowest for governance in Sindh. Punjab remained a mish-mash, more for its size and the manifested variations that go into a polity of a 100 million people.
The PML-N scored around 44 percent in Punjab, while the PPP won over 75 percent of the polls in Sindh. That is a sweep. So should it be eventually in Punjab where the independent candidates, when aligned with the government for maximising their returns, will enhance the PML-N’s winning margin to around 60 percent. Many independents, jaded by being refused an official nomination, trudged along on the basis of their individual vote-bank with the confidence that their party – the PML-N mostly – would revert to them; only at a higher price this time.
The complete domination of the political scene by the PML-N and the PPP in their respective provinces, with little else to show in other provinces, is a harbinger of yet another transformation in Pakistan’s political scene. The absence of nationally popular parties gives rise to a far greater sense of regionalism where these parties have entrenched their strengths and their interests. And none of them is wary of being strong in their own lairs only and of being largely absent elsewhere. This is a dangerous trend. It also gives rise to subnationalism, far more evident in Sindh, where if the electorate seemed dejected with the governance of the party in power it resorted to voting for it when it became the time to choose another with lesser roots.
Subnationalism, a phenomenon related more to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in recent times – having found expression both in their polity as well as culture – has also emerged as an acute underlying sentiment in the other two provinces. Sindh has had a recognisable history of subnationalism but always on the intellectual plane, never in an active confrontation as an armed expression. But its appearance as a resident expression in the local bodies elections, despite the PPP’s dichotomous – performance vs sentiment – representation, is indicative of such sensibility. The issue of Punjab too is unique and must be examined in this backdrop.
Beyond the loudly proclaimed ethnic or tribal allegiances, Punjab too betrays parochial moorings. The PML-N’s dominating performance, despite the enhanced reputation of a rising PTI, is more an indication of patronising an assured and traditional presence. While historically Punjab, because of its large electoral base, has thrown up non-traditional candidates at the national level, a pervasive presence of the PML-N as the consistent face of Punjab has carved for it an assured place. The process of elections may be local but its manifestation at the national scene is mostly popular – unless a Bhutto comes along, which is rare.
The regionalising of the once mainstream political parties has been wrongly called a reactive process to a centre-province mismatch. In reality it is an entirely new phenomenon yet not experienced in its full consequence as a political event in this nation. The last time it occurred, the country broke up because there wasn’t yet the understanding of the extent to which such movements reached. East Pakistan was lost, damaging the very core of the national construct.
In fact there are two separate experiences from Pakistan’s own political history exemplifying almost a similar trend. One, the Pakistan movement. This was a deliberate and designed struggle for political rights from a platform that was initially meant to seek parity, failing which it called for a separate homeland. The second of course is the break-up of Pakistan itself where political wisdom simply lacked the acumen to appreciate what was coming, external help notwithstanding. It was not a case of the ‘centre’ but a ‘wing’ trying to impose its domination. To correlate then the increasing regionalism of today as corrective evolution to the centre-provincial mismatch is crass misrepresentation.
The remaining Pakistan may have been remodelled into a federation keeping alive the spirit of the 1956 proposals, but it remains a tenuous one for many reasons. Pakistan’s historical experience and its constitution in the four federating units are its biggest vulnerability. The provincial card has been played with callous abandon in our experience while toying with the idea of Pakistan.
The 18th Amendment may have been a political masterstroke serving the ends of strengthening the provinces – all in the name of a constitution that was meant for a full-sized Pakistan – but it has served to weaken the centre to the point of impotence. It remains the single most critical political development in recent decades with a potential to play with the future of Pakistan.
A province that is deviant in its subordination to the federation, or in holding to the germane philosophies of nationhood or of the negation of the popularly perceived common thread around which a nation weaves its coherence, can unravel the federation while the centre can only sit by the side and watch in utter frustration. When in the ongoing operations in Karachi, the Sindh government dithered and connived to restrict the ambit of such operations when linkages were found between terror-crime-and corruption, the centre simply could not find a constitutional mechanism to force it’s will of cleansing the malice. The Sindh government remains ambivalent and uncooperative and only a quasi-military putsch paved the momentum to clear Karachi of malfeasance.
So far, so good. But what can the future hold in such constitutional empowerment where a province – still Sindh, not yet KP or Balochistan – appears to defy the centre’s political and strategic approach. Unless remedied in a constitutional correction it has the making of another constitutional impairment, where in the name of constitutionalism first the federation turns loose and then degrades into a confederation. Pakistan’s weak experience with parochial provincialism can only enhance such angst. It remains a seriously unattended anomaly in our structures.
There are many who tend to perceive civil-military imbalance as a foundational fault-line underwriting all anomalous challenges such as the centre-province chasms and vulnerabilities in the federation’s structures. It is not in denying the provinces their freedom but in ensuring a constitutional remedy to keep the federation intact. The 18th Amendment may be a puritan’s dream but if not handled with care can become a realist’s nightmare. What is being gained in Balochistan must not be lost in Sindh and Punjab.
India is a successful federal experience because of its size and the number of states it has, which makes it practically immune to any breakaway shocks even though it suffers from tens of secessionist movements. Pakistan, with only four constituent structures, can lose 25-50 percent of its total area by losing one or two provinces in the name of self-rule.
The 18th Amendment to the constitution leads us into that zone of vulnerability. Perhaps the antidote to such speculative fears of a nation beset with a fearful past is in making the provinces smaller; along the lines of divisional administrative units as they exist. This will annul the unnecessary clout of a deviant province and mitigate for the state the perpetual fear of a breakaway unit.
My underlying thesis of an existing vulnerability in the union is best explained by reactions to this proposal: divvying up Punjab is kosher and will be taken up unreservedly in a discussion, but it is heretic to think the same for Sindh. Just as the Kalabagh Dam may make economic sense but is an abuse in some other quarters.
We are losing a lot of trees for the wood. At times it is rational to tend to the trees too.
Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com
The writer is a retired air-vice marshal, former ambassador and a security and political analyst.