Re: The Balkanization of Pakistan
Why do anti-Pakistan Ethnic nationalists assume the country will splt in 4 provinces. The provinces do not relfect ethnic lines overall and there are many minorities in each province.
Take for example Punjab - a significant portion of Punjab is Seraiki ie multan, bahawalpur, rahim yar khan, d g khan, bhakkar, mianwali, bahawalpur, bahawalnagar. Then there are the Pahari/Potohari areas of Chakwal, Pindi, Murree, Attock, Talagang, Khushab.
Then with Sindh you have the majority being Sindhi but a large portion being Urdu speaking of Indian origin. You have Tharis, Balochis, Kutchies, Gujaratis too.
Balochistan has a Mekrani belt, Brahui, Pashtun not Just Balochi. Not even 50% of the province is wat its named after.
Nwfp is predominantly pashtun but a large number speak hindko in peshawar, hazara. A lo to people in d i khan speak seraiki and both chitral and kohistan are also non-pashtun.
The northern areas has a shena, burushahski, wakhi speaking people. Azad kashmir probably is dominated by pahari/Kashmiri speakers iover most of the province.
Nationalists have to take into account that there the country might not be split into 4 but much more - surely they would give the right to minorities to join them or not?
And how would control of the Indus be divided? If there are going to be 5 states then the indians might want to do something with the indus upstream. As it passes through Gilgit and Kohisan they may want to do something with it and they could probably dam it too. As the Indus enters what was NWFP the pashtun belt will be to the west and hazara which will probably be more willing to join onto punjab will be to the east. If Hazara sticks to the pashtun belt then of course they could have some control of the indus at terbela. What would happen to terbela if hazara decided not to stick with NWFP? The Indus would be a dispute for Punjab and a Pashtunistan.
But further downstream the Seraikis and Sindhis whose lands the Indus also passes through will not be very happy if any projects on the Indus happen upstream. The Inds would be one of te many worries that will have to be solved.
Thats why a lot of the ethnic tensions ring so hollow... There are so many grey areas, yet people think Punjab is just this great big homogenous thing or that NWFP is just this great big conservative pile Taliban...
Pakistan as country is so much more dynamic then these ethnic nationalist types want us to think.