Second Opinion: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_25-9-2002_pg3_4
Khaled Ahmed’s Tv Review
The Sindhis first struggled against the dominance of Hindus who were in majority in the cities. The muhajirs moved into Sindhi cities to occupy the higher urban status abandoned by the Hindus. The MQM has postponed this “assimilation” for the muhajirs under Pakistan ideology. If the MQM gets a separate province, all the cities of Sindh will fall to the muhajirs
One big problem with Pakistan has been the majority province of Punjab. It is 62 percent of the country in population and has always been hated by the smaller provinces, triggering separatist movements in them. Usually the big majorities are easy while discussing matters with the minorities, allowing the latter to vent their feelings, secure in the feeling that their majoritarianism will win the day in the end. But the Punjabis in Pakistan are always uptight when confronted with the plaints of the “smaller” provinces. They assert ideology and rely on the device of “treason” to silence what they think is cry-baby nonsense. Any suggestion that Punjab do something realistic to whittle down its size raises hackles, implying that any effort in this direction would break up the country.
ARY DIGITAL (18 September 2002) held a “discussion” on inter-provincial relations with four personalities: Chief editor “Khabrain” Zia Shahid, Tahir Rasheed of PML(N), Dr Muhammad Anwar of MQM and Dr Ishrat of MQM. The MQM stance was that the establishment in Pakistan was Punjabi-dominated and no one could rule without its assent. This establishment controlled the elected governments and forced them to undertake actions that discriminate against the smaller provinces and deprive them of their rights. Punjab was too big and got the lion’s share of the resources — resources that often originated in the smaller provinces. For instance, 67 percent of the state revenue accrued from Sindh but Sindh got only 20 percent from the divisible pool while Punjab got 58 percent from the 40 percent that is allocated to the provinces by the centre. Editor Zia Shahid said that Punjabis did not “plan” to become such a large majority. He was of the opinion that the province of Punjab must be divided further to rationalise its size. He said, in India, a much smaller Punjab province was divided into three states, but in Pakistan the federation was seen to be in danger every time this question was put forward. Tahir Rasheed said that Sindh was not made up of only Sindhis but was home to all nationalities who worked there to create its wealth. The imports on which duties were levied in Karachi were the imports that went to all the provinces. Dr Anwar raised the point that today Punjab asserted its majority but in the 1956 Constitution the Bengali majority in East Pakistan was deprived through the principle of parity, which meant that the Punjabis did not observe the rule of majority when it did not suit them. Tahir Rasheed emotionally asserted that the MQM was created by the army, to which host Dr Masood added that that the Nawaz League too was a creation of the army. Tahir Rasheed vehemently denied that. He said it was Nawaz Sharif who brought the Biharis from Bangladesh and settled them in Mian Channu in Punjab, to which Dr Anwar said that the chief minister Wyne who organised this migration was thereafter killed. The discussion frequently declined into non-intellectual emotionalism, mainly through ill-chosen rhetoric by Dr Muhammad Anwar and Tahir Rasheed.
The discussion was a shameful demonstration of how ignorant and emotional the leaders from both sides were about the problems faced by Pakistan. They cut each other in mid-sentence and resorted to what in the common parlance is called “bull****”; and even Dr Muhammad Anwar, who began rationally, used language not appropriate for the dialogue. Minorities live on fear and assert this fear when under democracy. Muslims of India went through this experience vis-à-vis the Hindu majority. An uptight Hindu majority led by Congress made the mistake of not being easy with this assertion. Today, India wants no one to come into South Asia, while Pakistan wants outside powers to come in and arbitrate. G.M Syed of Jiye Sindh and Ghaffar Khan of NAP wanted India to come in and arbitrate, and Punjab did not like it. Now MQM has common interests with PPP, PML and the Nationalists, but also has points of disagreement. In 1988, MQM reached an agreement with the PPP in power, based on the joint stand about the rights of the “locals” in Sindh against Punjabis, but fell out with it soon afterwards because of its condition of “separate” nationality for the “muhajirs” and acceptance of more Biharis from Bangladesh.
As narrated by M.S. Korejo in his book “A Testament of Sindh” (OUP), in 1989, it reached another agreement with PML after supporting a no-confidence vote against the PPP government in the National Assembly. This agreement, asking for the transfer of “stranded Pakistanis” from Bangladesh, was against the Sindhis who vehemently opposed it. It made shipwreck in 1990 and the ethnic mayhem started in the cities of Sindh. In 1992, the army stepped in and hunted down the ethnic terrorists. In 1993, another MQM-PPP agreement on the basis of 19 MQM demands could not be concluded, but the PML(N), coming to power in 1997, began to let off MQM convicts in order to build itself up in Sindh against the PPP.
The MQM’s separatists at one point also joined up with Jiye Sindh against Punjabis. MQM’s demand for a separate province in Sindh parallels the demand of Sindh National Front (led by Mumtaz Bhutto) that Sindh be treated as a sovereign state as mentioned in the Pakistan Resolution of 1940. Under the 1989 agreement with MQM, PML(N) settled 67 Bihari families from Bangladesh in Mian Channu in Punjab ignoring an almost unanimous opposition expressed by the Sindhi press. Within months, these families fled to Karachi. Chief minister Wyne was not killed because he settled the Biharis in Mian Channu. The need for the creation of new provinces in three “smaller” provinces in Pakistan may be unfeasible, but the logic of dividing Punjab three ways is irresistible. Punjab too is suffering because of its size. Funds and infrastructure that should go to the South and the plateau of Potohar get “smuggled” to Lahore because politicians from these regions have started living in Lahore because of the location of the Punjab Assembly. The High Court serves these regions inefficiently through “benches”. The MQM remains a non-intellectual set-up because of the semi-literate personality of Altaf Hussain. As a movement MQM plays the other parties against one another and has not grasped the tragedy of the Sindhi in his own province.
Suhail Zaheer Lari in his book “An Illustrated History of Sindh” (Heritage) tells us that the Sindhi majority first struggled against the dominance of the Hindu minority who were in majority in the cities. The muhajirs, whose minority in India had formed urban majorities there, moved into Sindhi cities to occupy the higher urban status abandoned by the Hindus. The Sindhis themselves are not all ethnically Sindhi but outsiders who have been assimilated. The MQM has postponed this “assimilation” for the muhajirs under Pakistan ideology. If the MQM gets a separate province, all the cities of Sindh will go to them.
It must be mentioned that when the muhajirs arrived in Sindh in 1947, the Sindhi feudals bullied them and made at least a million out of the over-all seven to return to India. The same feudals looted the Hindu refugees fleeing to India. The Punjabis began by ruling Pakistan in tandem with the muhajirs because of their shared anti-province “Pakistan Ideology” under One Unit. Today PML(N), a product of the Pakistan army, and the MQM, another product of the Pakistan army, are at cross purposes, and the Sindhis are divided into nationalists and supporters of the PPP, the last increasingly seen by the Pakistan army and the Punjabis as a “security risk”. People like Tahir Rasheed will bring shame to any province they represent.
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