In pakistan we have 4 provinces NWFP, Punjab, Sind, and Balochistan. As the debate in this forum clearly proves this setup is creating huge differences among people here. Some arguing about discremination based upon ethnical lines and others about one province beeing discreminated and others favoured.
Being a Pothwari from northern punjab i have never thought of being any different or speciel from other pakistanies. Nor has i ever experienced any sort of discremination from others such as punjabi, sindies, baloch, pashtun, saraiki etc. My family today consist of many ethnical people from above mentioned groups and also westerners.
I have realized that most problems faced by pakistanies today in daily life is depended upon the situation in a locally sphere and not upon the socalled ethnical divisions claimed by many politicions. Allmost all daily life issues could be easierly solved within a local framework such as unemployment, environment, infrastructure, education etc. To do so its important that people get more autonomy and responsibility based upon near environment instead of blaming someone sitting in a province assembly several hundreds miles away or people living in other parts of the country.
When i talk about “local” area im thinking about autonomy to areas covering maybe up to 50 miles in diameter or based upon how many people lives there. This change would offcourse need a change of setup so that people living in each “sector” can decide every aspect of there lives and not a provinsiel assembly far away. If you live in a city it dosent matter wheater you are this or that ethnically because load shedding, lack of employment, education and other issuses create the same problems for all living in that area.
I think most of the problems faced by people of pak today is much better solved by people themself. All surveys around the globe shows people interact more when they can see the results of cooperation based upon local lines instead of large entities such as the provinces of pakistan.
This change can only be made by changing the structures of Pakistan so that we dont have 4 provinces but maybe 100-200 locally administred areas.
This topic is only written as a idea of solving some of the problems facing pakistan and not to take rights from anybody. I am sure some of the guppies here can come with ideas maturing this issue or bringing up something whole new.
Re: New Provinces or not?
Surprisingly I never faced any ethnic trouble living in various areas of Pakistan either. Seems like this board is more of a vent for the frustrated sorts :)
On the topic though, yes, we need new provinces, but instead of further subdividing the current ones, we need new ones which should be created along non-ethnic lines. I really can't predict how long that will go to resolve any "tensions" which may exist, but it sure does seem to be a step in the right direction. Parts of Punjab could be merged with areas in NWFP/Sindh etc. Karachi, parts of Sindh and Gawadar could be grouped together in a separate coastal province. A similar treatment could be applied to create a new central province including areas in Northern Baluchistan and Southern Punjab [Bahawalpur etc.]
Re: New Provinces or not?
I don't think we should be asking ourselves what to name the prvinces and hwo big they are to be. What need to be questioned is what people think. Do pakhtuns want to seperate form pakistan or do they want to maintain nwfp or do they want a pakhtunistan.
It is naive to think that pakistan is a homogoneous country - there are many peoples who feel alienated. Personally, as a proud paki jutt, I would want to maintain the racial purity of the jutts - mixing should only be extended to the related-punjabi dialect speakers of the potwar and the saraiki speakers. However, considering this is not feasibly in the present day globalised society, I would suggest that yes there need to be smaller mor enumerous provinces and that they should be named along geographic lines as opposed to ethnic make-up. However, again i should stress that this decision need be taken based on what popular opinion.
Ive always wondered myself if the potwaris of kashmir consider themselves part of pakistan considering rawalpindi is also recognised as being part fo the 'potwari belt'. What's your view?:) :) :)