Sir: The latest demand of MQM chief Altaf Hussain is to create more provinces. This has been followed by the Imran Khan-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s resolution in the provincial Assembly on declaring Hazara a separate province. The move is apparently popular but only politically. It will certainly open a Pandora’s box and Punjab will be asked to follow suit. One is convinced that there was no need of funding and fuelling insurgency in parts of Pakistan and sending a proxy wing of the Taliban into our territory with the aim to dismember Pakistan. The easiest way was to put the country into mazes of intrigue, i.e. the demand for new provinces. One can justify that, administratively, it would be easy to govern the provinces if created but, in my mind, it is an escapist policy oozing out of sick minds that have done nothing in the past to integrate Pakistan from within. Places like FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan where there is still no direct control of the state needed political acumen from the very start. The rulers have never thought of bringing changes in the laws made by the British Raj. Resultantly, we are doomed now to remain in the past even after 66 years.
Kathy Gannon’s Associated Press report on September 7, 2013 says it all. She says that the next battle for Afghanistan post-2014 will be fought on the plains of Punjab. This is spine-chilling and startling. One can foresee the future scenario. Already an undeclared war with multiple fronts — a water war by India, economic meltdown war by collaborators, war on terror by the US, war of cultural invasion, cyber war through Facebook, text messages and Twitter, and changes in the curriculum, etc — has been unleashed. To me, Altaf Hussain’s statements are a barometer of the future of the greater conspiracy. He is the one who has been opposing the Kalabagh Dam. On the other side of the border, Yashwant Sinha demanded from then secretary of state Collin Powell to give surety that Washington would not let Kalabagh Dam be built. This means that interests lie somewhere else. It was Altaf Hussain who recommended the six-point level of provincial autonomy via the 18th Amendment. He succeeded on both occasions. How he anticipates is not surprising because it all seems to be preplanned.
MARYA MUFTY
Lahore