ISLAMABAD: All the 22 senators from Balochistan have urged the federal government to accept their demands relating to the rights of their province within six months otherwise they would resort to protest.
The senators met here on Saturday and demanded increased royalty on gas, 40 per cent quota in Pakistan army personnel for Balochistan, federal jobs in proportion to their provincial share, release of water according to the provincial share and provincial autonomy as prescribed in the 1973 Constitution.
The senators belonged to all the parliamentary parties including the ruling PML-QA, having representation in the upper house from Balochistan.
A participant told The News that these senators have written a letter to the federal government listing their demands and emphasising the urgency to accept them.
He said that the Balochistan senators would resort to all kinds of protest if their demands were not met.
The senators decided to work jointly in the upper house to press for their demands. They said the Balochistan province was facing highest unemployment and the main reason was that it has not been given its due share in the federal service.
Before someone says something regarding the comment about 40% representation. There was a similar problem in East Pakistan. Bengalis access to recruitment in the Armed forces was quite low, when recruitmentd rives were launched it did lead to an increase but still far less then the population proportion. The solution proposed? A temporary increase inr ecruitment levels to ones higher then normal till the deficiency is compensated. Personally I'd prefer equal proportion recruitment and representation at the federal level for all organisations.
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*Originally posted by Zakk: *
Before someone says something regarding the comment about 40% representation. There was a similar problem in East Pakistan. ...
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Are you out of your mind or what? How can one compare East Pakistani population to the population of Balochistan? Population of East Pakistan was more than the population of the West Pakistan and in case of Balochistan the population is not even 10% of total Pakistani population.
If these religious cum nationalist senators had demanded a sane percentage people would definitely agree with them as I think it is due.
KS- You misunderstood Khan Sahib, as I explained, to correct an ethnic imbalance there are two ways
1) You substantially increase recruitment for a period and then level it off. That means you might have a substantially high number of Baluchis for a certain number of batches. Then you level it off, till it reaches the desered level. It's basic common sense. You can't increase representation without someone sacrficing something till fairness is achieved. If you fix Baluchi representation ( and I stress Baluchi representation here, not domiciled baluchistan residents) at 10% it'll take forever for the representation to have any effect.
2) You Federalise recruitment, that means equality between the Provinces, every province gets the same share in Federal jobs. That's the basic reasoning of having a Federation and provinces.
At least the provinces are fighting to get themeselves heard... Threats are the only way to get anyone to listen and for anyone to get anything done in Pakistan...
Zakk, in the first method, you will have to decrease the quota for the other people on the cost of Baluchis hence denying them their right and it won't be acceptable to anyone.
Second one is again not according to the distribution of population and it would mean that 10% of Baluchistan getting 25 % quota. I will be happy to give them that but unfortunately it doesn't work like that in the real world.
Then you would have Karachiites shouting that since their population is probably more than the whole Baluchistan so why don't they get the same share.
I think the best solution is to privatise most government institutions as it would increase the talent to come forward and not the "safarshi tattu".
KS: In the first method, other ethnic groups have already been recruited far in excess of their quota, some sacrifice needs to be given to those less represented till the system starts balancing itself out.
In the second way, Equal recruitment is an established fact in COuntries like India. The power rests with the provinces in that way rather then the federal government. Something similar has happened in the US, the Republicans have been advocates of a small federal goverment with powers mostly vesting at the local or state levels.
Bhai, anything that is being proposed should be acceptable to everyone on some basis else it is not practical. If one says it should be promoted on the basis of merit then nobody will have any problem
Indian example can't be implemented here since most of their states are almost equal in population as they had new provinces created. I doubt if anyone will be happy if u do a division of pakistani provinces.
KS: You are actually quite wrong about Indian states. The smaller sates have a tiny fraction of the population compared to for example UP. Similarly they have no problem in creating new states where the lcoals feel the need.
Similarly recruitment in Pakistan is not based on the overall population merit. It does set high standards but because of the way the infrastructure and racist stereotypes are, it is very lopsided.
The number of Baluchis and Sindhis at the higher levels of the "establishment" are next to nothing. While the numbers of Urdu speaking Mohajirs is declining.
I don't wanna go into the discussion of Mohajir, Punjabi Pathan but I do agree that there are biases and I strongly believe with that quota system they increase.
I think there shouldnt be any quota system at all. One of the things that the MQM spoke vehementlyagainst was the quota system. THeir contention was that the jobs and seats in educational and other institutions should be filled on merit and merit alone instead of allocating a fix number of seats for the students and people from the interior Sindh in karachi.
Nonetheless, this issue is debateable as there is a stark difference in the educational system of the urban and rural areas and hence the youth from such areas cannot compete with that of the urban areas. Thus, they cannot be selected on merit and merit alone. :(
Do you know that Muhajirs are also the beneficiaries of quota system? The parity between rural and urban education is so large, that the government has no choice to carry on the system to provide jobs to unprivileged class. Unless the level of education is equal at rural and urban level THE SYSTEM IS FULLY JUSTIFIED. The only thing is to look for is that no Muhajir or Punjabi of Karachi or Lahore get the domicile of rural Sindh. There are many examples of this moral dishonesty and bankruptcy by such privileged people who get the illegal rural domiciles and get the government jobs thus denying the rights of educated persons from backward area.
By the way Quota System also exists in NA for brown people like you who are discriminated and deprived to get government jobs. Do you know that?
Aren’t you little bit embarrassed by giving example of MQM which is known as robbers and terrorists’ party whose leader is enjoying luxurious life in England with the money extracted by his goons from people of Karachi? This is not a political party but bunch of opportunist thugs who always think of themselves and “Mulk jaaiay jahanum main”.
The present quota system is anyway quite flawed and generally has done little to change the plight of under developed areas. But the fact is the biases are there and the other groups need better representation. Using a fixed level per province would solve that matter. That would ensure every province has at least 25% proportion in the federal government. COmpetition would be restricted to within the provinces.
The Indian stat example is simple enough, just compare the tiny state of Himachal Pradeh with UP. Despite that federal recruitment is done in a very balanced way. I agree that such things shouldn't be done at the Armed forces level like the Indians (i don't think any of us want the quality of our Armed forces to reac the Indian level!) have done but in any other structure it is a must.
Just a general point, over centralising things never makes a country stronger. All the fastest growing countires and strongest are those with a small central authority, maximum representation to all groups at the central level and maximum devolution of power.
I agree with Zakk on the size of the federal govt. and the responsibilities.
In US, the federal govt's main responsibilities are
a. Defence
b. Monetary policy
c. Foreign policy
d. to some extent Environment Policy (though states have their own powers in this)
Rest of the day to day running of the country is left to State, City and Boroughs (or Wards/ Councils).
For this reason the US is quite flexible in the way it progresses.
Top heavy govt are doomed to failure as the public do not feel enfranchised and feel they do not have power to control their day to day lives. Decentralisation allows public to assert themselves and control the way their lives are managed.
For this reason I supported the decentralisation drive by Mushy. Pakistan has been to top heavy in govt. for far too long.
And that is exactly what many people have been saying for so many years now, but we are called traitors by those who don't want to give up their power and perks.
Even Mushy is afraid to give reaql power directly to the provinces, but wants to bypasss the provincial govnts when giving power to districts. That is not the right approach.
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*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
And that is exactly what many people have been saying for so many years now, but we are called traitors by those who don't want to give up their power and perks.
Even Mushy is afraid to give reaql power directly to the provinces, but wants to bypasss the provincial govnts when giving power to districts. That is not the right approach.
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aa shawdupp already... Your anti-Pakistani rhetoric makes no sense now...
Remember the time when some Baluchis sent invitations to Pakistani Central Govt. to discuss their relations with the country, LOL May I remind you how they were dealt with?
The examples which are being given so far are of fully developed nations.... the problem with Pakistan is that it is not fully developed, as such the central government needs to be strong so that it can pool all the resources and put them in certain development projects, Gwadar etx.... on the other hand the problem is Pakistan has a large population with deverse needs, hence I belive that it would be benficial to provide power in law and order sense all the way down to the cities, and some money not the major chunk should be given to the cities, while the major money should be used for large development projects,.... if you go a bit back in history,,,in the fifties teh Soviets made huge leap forward by the centralized system, since they devoted mass money into large capital projects....