Logic of decentralization

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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This is a brilliant article that I think everyone should read and understand. It talks about what Pakistan was meant to be and what it has become and why non punajbis are so alienated by a government that is only pakistani in name. Please read the whole article.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/09/op.htm#1

Logic of decentralization

By Anwar Syed

How very distressing that even after nearly fiftyseven years of independence none of the fundamental questions concerning the form, character, and purposes of our state has been settled. One of the more vexing of these unresolved issues relates to whether we will be fulfilled and happy in a centralized state, a federal union, or a confederation.
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One might have thought that with the secession of East Pakistan the Six Points would pass into the limbo of history. Not so; they are alive and well, claiming the allegiance of certain opposition politicians in Sindh and Balochistan. Sindhi “nationalists” harken back to the Lahore Resolution and its untenable and essentially expediential assurance that the constituent units in Pakistan would be “autonomous and sovereign.” This assurance is in itself worthy of examination, but we will have to defer that task to another time.

We come now to Mr Ataullah Mengal’s proposal for restructuring Pakistan. In an interview reported in this newspaper (March 5), he based his case for a confederation on the premise that a federal system could simply not protect the rights of its constituent units in a country where one “nationality” (Punjab) outnumbered all of the others put together. Mr Mengal would call a directly elected constituent assembly, with equal representation for all the four provinces, to frame a new constitution for a confederate Pakistan.

This constitution, he says, should vest all revenue raising authority in the provinces which in turn would contribute funds to the centre in proportion to their respective populations. Thus, Punjab, having 56 per cent of the country’s population, would defray 56 per cent of the centre’s expenses.

Mr Mengal would give the provinces all legislative and executive authority and allow the centre only a managerial role with regard to functions that they had agreed to place in its care. One may assume that he includes defence and foreign affairs among them. The centre would have nothing to do with the maintenance of public order and the enforcement of laws.

The provinces in the proposed confederation will have equal representation in any deliberative assembly that the centre might have. Mr Mengal also envisions their equal presence in the central services, if any, and the armed forces. Balochistan should not have to pay for anyone other than its own people serving in the army.

Not a confederation but the denial of equal rights to the provinces will wreck Pakistan, he says. “The country will definitely break up, but the responsibility will not be on our shoulders. It will be on the shoulders of those who deny us our rights.”

Are these calls for a confederation merely voices in the wilderness to which our people in the smaller provinces pay no attention? It is hard to tell. When Mujibur Rahman announced his Six Points, hardly anyone among the elite in Punjab, or elsewhere in West Pakistan, took his programme seriously. Nor did any of them anticipate that within less than five years it would capture the hearts and minds of the East Pakistani people to the point of becoming inviolable and non-negotiable.

There can be little doubt that many of our Sindhi-speaking people are alienated from the present “federal” system and the civil and military elite (perceived as Punjabi) who operate it. Numerous groups in Balochistan think the way Mr Mengal does. Separatist pitch had subsided in the NWFP, but the generally authoritarian character of the present regime, its military operations in South Waziristan, and its acquiescence in the killing of Pukhtuns by the “coalition” forces across the border may combine to revive the “Pukhtunistan” slogan.

I am inclined to think that if some significant systemic change is not made fairly soon, the calls for a confederation may revive separatist movements. The current system is much too centralized, and the need for transferring functions and resources to the provinces is imperative. The nature and extent of these transfers will hopefully be the subject of our discussion next Sunday.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.

e-mail: [email protected]

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Re: Logic of decentralization

Hmm, it is thought provoking :k:
Thanks for bringing it up!

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I am a proponent of decentralization to an extent, but some of the ideas seem to a little off base.

the biggest one is going to be the budgeting, an example was that punjab will contribute 56% to the central budget based on its population percentage, I am assuming that the allocation to different provinces will be on the same basis? population.

by allocation and disbursements I am not talkign about the center taking all of the provinces generated revnue and then disburse it, revenue generated in a province could be part of that province's budget, minus any portion they give to the center based on the population. However when loans are secured for infrastructure projects etc, then that disbursement should be made on the basis of population or on the basis of need? because if it is made on the basis of population, some areas will not get served as they ought to be.

additionally then, the payment for a loan building highways in baluchistan should be made by revenue generated by that province and not be paid out of the accounts of Karachi? :)

I would even go a step further, there is no reason that the revenue generated in Karachi should go to fiz issues in larkana and sakkhar when Karachi has its own needs. so as far as allocation of funds even in provinces, it should be then based on districts and cities, otherwise someone is carrying deadweight, for sometime and for some amoutn in the spirit of national and provincial harmony is fine, but when it becomes a parasitic relationship, as is the case of karachi and sindh, then there is a problem.

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Nothing new. What the writer is asking to implement in Pakitan, has been demanding by the leaders of smaller provinces for many years. But unfortunately all of them were dubbed as anti-state and separatists by the central government. Mengal, Bugti, Bacha Khan and GM.Syed are few among them.

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Bugti is a land full of damn terrorists… They deserve to be trampled on… :mad2:

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Same can be said of Jamali, the favorite son of army.

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I figured this linked in with this thread..

EDITORIAL: Provincial neglect is bad economics

On May 8 the Board of Investment held an international investment conference in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province. This should have been an important event in the Pakistani calendar, considering how our leaders never tire of telling the world why Pakistan is among the top emerging markets for investment. But apparently it wasn’t. Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, the prime minister who is a Baloch, didn’t think it necessary to grace the occasion as originally billed. Nor did President General Pervez Musharraf, who has made investment and economic recovery the main plank of his vision for a progressive and modern Pakistan. Both have time for cutting all sorts of ribbons on all sorts of occasions but couldn’t be bothered to take out time for this event. Surely bringing investment to Balochistan — arguably the most endowed province in terms of natural resources — should be Islamabad’s top priority. Why else would BOI hold a conference there? The result: a lacklustre BOI conference which had more dozing and bored bureaucrats than international investors. How does one explain this phenomenon?

There are many factors here. Consider.

Pakistan has seen much bickering over allocation of resources to the provinces, especially the three smaller ones. The tussle over the Sixth National Finance Award is just the tip of the iceberg, though it stands out as a good symbol of that. Hung on this peg is also the issue of political representation and greater autonomy of the provinces. That issue, too, remains unresolved. Taken together, the situation presents an explosive mix. As things stand, we virtually are without a consensus on every important issue from wheat and water to electricity and gas to foreign and local investment to a power-sharing formula.

Some of these issues are embedded in structural problems and will take time to straighten out. Nonetheless, certain things can be done in the short term. One such thing, even though symbolic, would have been for the president and the prime minister to make an appearance at the Quetta conference. This would have got the BOI folks to get up from their haunches and make the show more efficient and impressive. It would also have sent a message to the province that the federal government cares for it and the need of its peoples.

Balochistan’s development lies at the heart of any meaningful progress of Pakistan’s economy as a state that could act as a bridge between Southeast and South Asia and West and Central Asia. Indeed, when we embarked on our Afghan policy and other such Keynesian ventures such as the motorways, the sales pitch was made on the basis of this silver lining at the end of the clouds. Oil and gas pipelines and the prospects of trade routes marked the discourse at the time. That policy was badly handled and it nearly landed us into major trouble. But the situation can be different now with the paradigm shift.

Balochistan is the only province that saw active insurgency in the seventies. Sub-national politics has always lurked just beneath the surface. The state tried to counter it by empowering the Pashtun at the cost of the Baloch and even within the Pashtun community it put its eggs in the rightwing basket. This anomaly, coupled with lack of development and a tribal infrastructure, has led to the province being ruled in terms of areas A and B. Areas A, barely five percent of Balochistan, are the domain of the police. The rest, 95 percent, is controlled by the Frontier Corps, which is hated by the people. This situation clearly is not suited to realising the dream of turning Pakistan into a conduit for trade and pipelines. It also hampers any attempts at developing the province or setting the priorities right.

It is a measure of how bad things have gone that Balochistan, which had largely remained unscathed by sectarian violence in the nineties, has had within a year two of the worst sectarian attacks in its capital. Recently, three Chinese engineers were killed by unknown attackers at Gwadar, the port city we are trying to develop on the mouth of the great highway that is to go into Central Asia. The Baloch hardliners are opposed to it but the moderates too have their gripe about the way the federal government has gone about the whole thing. They want Baloch interests to be co-opted for the project on Baloch soil. Thus far, however, there is no indication that the federal government has tried to do that. Pakistan will be ill-served if this project were to become as controversial as the Kalabagh Dam or the Thal Canal.

The need of the hour is to not only pursue the strategic shift towards Afghanistan, which means defanging the rightwing elements who, given half a chance, would throw a spanner in the works, but to approach the provinces with the empathy that is important for developing a national consensus. Gwadar, for instance, is far too important to be sacrificed at the altar of hubris in Islamabad. If smooth going on it means understanding and integrating Balochistan’s interests in it, so be it. We would not like to repeat the mistake we made in Sui on the natural gas pipeline.

This would require an integrated approach. Part of it relates to law and order, but only a fraction. The rest pertains to politicking and taking a sympathetic approach towards the provinces. This would also require purging Pakistan, even if slowly, of the many structural problems that have crept into the system. General Musharraf must understand that putting forward a vision is easy. Making it work is difficult, especially if the requirements of the vision run contrary to misconceived political-military interests. *
Dailytimes

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Sadly, the attitude of the army walllahs in isloo has been the same towards southern pakistan. They consider sindh and balochistan conquered territories full of enemies of pakistan who must be taugh a lesson in realizing that their boss is pakistan army. I expect no sympathy from islamabad for the sufferings of the people.