Daily Times

Sindh needs to have a new social and political Magna Carta shaking out of the primitive tribal, ethnic, social, economic, political and ideological clutches which have been impeding its journey to modernization. It does not have a growing middle class nor has made any strident progress into industrial economic structure. It is chronically dependent on the agricultural economy marred by growing gap between haves and haves-not. This gap has kept growing since the farce land reforms by General Ayub Khan and the feudal socialist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The society has grown like a pyramid. We have elites at the summit and the poor hopelessly swarming at the base.

The tribal and ethnic affiliations have been stunting the collective resolve of the people to chart out a new political path to deconstruct and redesign the outdated political, economic and social structures.

Unfortunately, the nationalist ideology of G.M. Syed has ended in political and social muddle than a clear charter for national salvation. His followers are fragmented into many ideological factions incapable of emerging as a political force to reckon with. They have directly or indirectly cemented the prevailing oppressive social, political and economic structures while contenting themselves with the meager ideological followings and nominal political clout. By their political inertia, ideological division and compromise, they have damaged the Sindhi society more than the other political and economic exploiters.

The industrial economic structure is confined to mega cities leaving the rest of the province to the tender mercies of the landowners who wield enormous influence in their fiefdoms and on their tribes in the well-entrenched tradition of chieftainship introduced by the British colonial power to control the huge subject populations through a few cadre officers with the help of their chosen tribal chiefs or titled landlords soliciting them as junior and compliant partners in political power. In its bid to win a separate homeland for Muslims, the All India Muslim League co-opted all these tribal chiefs and titled landlords in its fold and put them in the forefront of Pakistan movement. With these scroungers, the Quaid won independence but could not found the social welfare state of Pakistan.

We are more interested in over concentration of powers in Islamabad than devolution to the provincial capitals.

Soon, they conspired with the military and civil bureaucracy to elbow out the middle class and ideological Muslim Leaguers. This nexus between these three powerful segments have since continued holding the country hostage to their ossified social, political and economic interests. Now they consider this privileged position as their ancestral right or class oriented heritage, and have set up many mafia-like centres to force the people to resign to perpetual subordination to their domination; resist fiercely any probable change in political and economic structures and protect their self-arrogated privilege with all the wherewithal at their command to the peril of the state and democracy.

The small federating unit -KPK and the dominant Punjab, to some extent, have shaken out of the iron clutches of the elites. The urge for changing political masters in KPK is praise-worthy. They have dumped the traditional nationalists and given the second consecutive chance to PTI to rule. The PTI has been delivering well as compared with the past corrupt rulers. The Punjab also dared to reject the political domination of one dynasty after long years. However, the people of Sindh and Balochistan have not displayed this urge to throw out the political and economic elite even after seven decades. The elite in these lands have proved more clever and manipulative than those in KPK and Punjab. The federal authority, with the connivance of the ubiquitous establishment, has always helped compliant elites perpetuate their power.

Since there has always been a nexus between the federal authority, establishment and Punjab to chip away the political and economic autonomy of these two small provinces, there is this historic controversy and disharmony in the country. The 18^th Amendment reduced the liability of the federal authority in terms of education, health, local government, food security etc. but our leaders’ over obsession with power has continued stoking this controversy. We are more interested in over concentration of powers in Islamabad than devolution to the provincial capitals. This controversy has defied all the constitutional mechanisms for resolution particularly because of the myopic vision of our provincial and central leaders.

Over the decades, in Sindh and Balochistan, the education has continued to slide into a farce; the healthcare centres have hopelessly deteriorated; the law and order situation has become precarious; the safety of life, property and honour  perilous; the district administration including the police is today more callous and inhuman; the people are more powerless, disillusioned and despondent casting their votes mechanically at the behest of their tribal chiefs and landlords and expecting nothing in return. For them life has been dull, hopeless and miserable. Leaders, by design, are callously oblivious to their miseries.

The time for big talk and debate is almost over; the dark clouds are gathering over the horizon of Sindh and Balochistan; the despondency is clearly thickening; the night raids of the federal authority on the political and economic resources of these lands remain relentless. What to do then? The conscious sons and daughters of Sindh and Balochistan come together in a political organization holding high the banner of liberty and fraternity and streaming from place to place to divert the anguish of the poor masses to a non-violent political and economic change within a new social, political and economic magna carta. This hope is not farfetched. The powder keg is there; it has only to be ignited. From the ashes of this rotten system, a new future will dawn.