Daily Times

The Constitution being the basic law of a country defines the functions and delimits the parameters of the mandate or the jurisdiction of all the state institutions including the parliament; the executive; the opposition; the superior courts; the civil bureaucracy; the security establishment; the intelligence and law enforcing agencies. With the parliamentary oversight, administrative checks, legal mindedness of the people and the fear of public opprobrium, these constitutionally determined contours are generally respected in developed societies without an exception barring a few transgressions by rogue and corrupt and dishonest elements in an institution. However, they cannot escape the law. The process of accountability takes its course and places them in the dock. These constitutional and legal checks and balances are the sine qua non for good governance in any polity – federal or unitary or quasi federal with a parliamentary or presidential form of government.

The Western countries, learning from their past mistakes and following their catastrophic setback in the Napoleonic wars and particularly in the two World Wars, took apocalyptic decisions to shun their foreign possessions and rebuild their societies on social democratic basis. With the USA Marshall Plan, they succeeded in achieving political and economic stability and re-integrating into a unified entity with common trade markets, customs and tariffs, financial institutions and currency etc. The developing countries, some of them excessively rich in hydrocarbon resources, minerals and wealth remained embroiled in primitive way of governance denying to their people the universally valued right to choose their rulers and hold them accountable for transgressions. Sense of impunity is the ruin of any polity or institution. Human societies prosper in a well structured balancing system of reward and punishment. The Monarchies, dictatorships, autocracies in the developing world having no fear of accountability and public opprobrium gradually turn into oligarchies capturing the state resources and institutions to perpetuate their repressive rule and strengthening the division of their polity into the two distinct classes of elite and hewers of wood and drawers of water. The political and constitutional history of Pakistan, I am afraid to say, paints a gloomier picture – only comparable to the badly ruled African and Arab countries. The military dictatorships apart, even the elected civilian governments have not come up to the minimum constitutional and democratic standards.

Their autocratic and inefficient rule, skewed national policies, corrupt practices and blatant abuse of power went a long way to set a bad role model in the society strengthening the sense of impunity in the governmental institutions. There has been a tug of war among the institutions of the country – the executive, the judiciary and the security establishment – to amass power and space beyond their constitutionally delimited jurisdictions. With this war for capture of state power and resources raging since long, the clamour of the people of the small federating units for the ownership of the resources of their provinces cannot be wrapped under the carpet without any grave setback to the federal harmony. When the people do not get just and fair treatment within the state; see their constitutional and legal rights trampled upon; feel to be starkly discriminated in the distribution of economic and financial resources, public sector social development projects; jobs, career building, promotions and postings over years, they become more radical losing hope in the Federation. The radical nationalism in Sindh in the early 1970s was comparable to that of Bengal. Z.A. Bhutto, having come on the national scene and being more popular, dealt with the nationalists tactfully and restrained their movement from becoming a frightful tempest. The Sindhi nationalists did not forgive him for sabotaging their movement until his execution at the hands of a military dictator. The Sindhi youth is becoming desperate and radical once again as their recent twitter trends against the Bhasha Dam and bogus domicile scandal showed. The people of Balochistan have been facing the fourth military operation. It is a pity that we have not been able to work out a political arrangement with the Baloch leaders since the independence. The violence is not the solution of any problem. What is needed in case of Sindh and Balochistan is a sincere process of dialogue, understanding, accommodation, transparency and justice. They do not want more than what is constitutionally due to them. How long shall we fight our own people? The adversarial powers are taking undue advantage of the turmoil within our ranks.

The PTI regime will be well advised to form a Grand Commission for Inquiry and Reconciliation with terms of references to be worked out with the genuine representatives of Sindh and Balochistan. The Commission should be mandated, broadly speaking, to enquire and find out: a) the ratio of the people of smaller province in the federal jobs – including Ministries, corporations, public sector enterprises (about 200) etc in consonance with the article 38 (g) of the constitution; b) their representation at all levels in the Army being a national institute as given in the article 39 of the constitution and their appointments on merit and in open competition in the Army’s industrial, commercial, financial institutions and educational institutes; c) the number of the bogus domiciles and Permanent Residence Certificates issued from Sindh and Balochistan in the past three decades in order to cancel these fake documents and to initiate necessary legislation at the federal level to stop this scandalous practice; d) the due share of the small province in the dividends and jobs of the mineral and hydrocarbon development industries such as Gas and oil, coal and gold, precious metal and stones exploited from Balochistan and Sind; e) the extent of the under-representation of the coastal provinces of Balochistan and Sindh in the management of the Seaports and their administrations with suggestions how to compensate them. The Commission, in consultation with the stakeholders, can consider abolishing the quota in Sindh in provincial and federal jobs, admissions in colleges and universities of the province. This quota has been widening the fissures within the polity of Sindh.

(Concluded)

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books