Pakistan’s fourth and most recent military leader, General Pervez Musharraf, imposed martial law in 1999. Musharraf failed to offer a new NFC award formula that addressed the concerns of the smaller provinces. Despite announcing his intention to improve interprovincial relations in his first speech as the chief executive, Musharraf failed to offer a new NFC award that addressed provincial concerns about the mechanisms for allocating federal funds, and took no alternative measures to address the grievances of Balochistan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. During Musharraf’s tenure, Balochistan’s struggle for political and financial autonomy fomented an insurgency and a secessionist movement after the former Balochistan governor Nawab Akbar Bugti was assassinated in a 2006 Pakistani military operation. Both national and international media condemned the assassination, naming it the “military’s second biggest blunder after Bhutto’s execution” and a “political nightmare.” Some have even equated Bugti’s death to the East Bengal crisis of 1971, in which military violence ultimately led to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Pakistan’s series of military rulers fostered the rise of ethnic politics by ignoring concerns of the federating units in the policies they enacted, specifically the use of force on numerous occasions in smaller provinces. This diminished the potential for a national Pakistani identity by fuelling anti-government sentiments within the smaller provinces that internally rallied around sub-national identities as alternatives to national Pakistani allegiance. Efforts of military dictators to solve interprovincial issues by force led to the separation of East Pakistan, and subsequently to exacerbated tensions in Balochistan. Compared to Pakistan’s democratically sanctioned leadership, military dictators frequently promote regional and ethnic identity formation.
Punjab’s influence on the federation and thus the perception of exploitative policies towards the other provinces is often termed by Pakistanis as “Punjabi elitism.” Ethnic and cultural differences distinguishing Punjab from the other three provinces, combined with Punjab’s unequal structural development and disproportionate share of financial resources, has advanced a narrative of Punjab versus the rest of Pakistan’s population. Punjab played a key role in the freedom movement, but after independence the 1954 establishment of the One Unit System marked the beginning of clear Punjabi dominance in the country’s economic affairs and political influence at the centre.
Punjab owes much of its comparatively developed infrastructure and institutions to the British colonial Raj. Compared to Pakistan’s other provinces, Punjab’s infrastructure, road and railway networks, canal system, educational institutions, and hospitals are better funded and deliver a higher quality of services. Punjab’s institutional advancement during the country’s colonial era, as well as its dominant role in the Pakistani military, owes in part to the British Raj’s preference for including Punjabis in the British army over Pakistanis (then Indians) from other provinces, on their perception that the Punjabis were a “more martial race.” In turn, Punjab’s resulting military, bureaucratic, and economic roles in Pakistan contributed to perception by other provinces of Punjab as an oppressor.
One of Pakistan’s most accomplished social scientists, Hamza Alavi, meticulously analyses the nuances of Pakistan’s ethnic politics in his seminal article, “Politics of Ethnicity in India and Pakistan.” Alavi’s study highlights that at the time of independence, mohajirs (Muslims who immigrated to Pakistan from India after the partition) constituted a small portion of Pakistan’s population, but held a relatively disproportionate portion of all government jobs. One reason for the success of mohajirs in Pakistani politics is their Urdu expertise. After Pakistan’s independence in 1947, Urdu became the country’s official language, even though for a majority of Pakistan’s ethnic populations, Urdu was not their first language. Linguistically, Punjabis and mohajirs were the most familiar with Urdu. This advantage further enabled these communities to accumulate political power in Pakistan’s immediate post-independence phase, as they had advantageous access to government jobs.
Many mohajirs settled in Karachi, the provincial capital of the Sindh province, and the seat of the government until 1959. Since the mohajirs had linguistic advantage over the Sindhis, their presence in the province resulted in the relative exclusion of Sindhis from major roles in early statecraft. Thus, there was a tendency for mohajirs to enjoy privileges of participation in state machinery, while Sindhis found themselves jobless. Even though the mohajir political dominance has subsided over time, they continue to receive jobs by a quota system, a policy that further aggravates ethnic tensions in Sindh.
Karachi, the largest port of Pakistan, is the country’s economic hub. As a result, the city has attracted multiethnic immigration by those seeking jobs and economic opportunity. As immigration to the city increased, so did local competition for political and economic space. This competition often manifested itself in an ethnic framework, which thereby stoked local ethnic rivalries. Due to their aforementioned waning political influence and the concurrently increasing economic and political competition among ethnicities, mohajir students founded the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) political party in 1984, which sought to preserve the group’s identity and social position. Today, the MQM is the largest opposition party in the Sindh legislature. The MQM controlled the Karachi city government from 2005 to 2009, and continues to be a dominant force in Karachi’s politics.
In attempting to maintain mohajir influence, the MQM has in effect worsened ethnic tensions in Sindh. Altaf Hussain, the self-exiled leader of the MQM, has often called for the separation of Karachi from Sindh, which provides a clear example of this trend. His rhetoric includes calls for the federal authorities to stop interfering in Karachi. The boldness of these assertions, which regularly call for distinction rather than integration of ethnic communities, as well as MQM’s notable influence in Sindh politics and its propensity for violence, have put all other Sindhi ethnic groups on their back feet.
The 1971 separation of East Pakistan also had the effect of inciting new separatist movements in the rest of the country. For example, in 1972 the renowned nationalist leader G M Sayed formed a separatist movement in Sindh that sought an independent Sindhi state named Sindhu Desh. Sayed wrote a book titled Sindhu Desh, in which he promoted the idea of Sindhi separatism and highlighted Sindh’s cultural strengths. He argued an independent Sindh could grow more prosperous as a separate state. Moreover, he criticised Punjabis for what he decried as their inequitable share of financial resources, describing Punjab’s power over Sindh as imperialist rule.
(To be concluded)
This article originally appeared in the SAIS Review of International Affairs, Journal of John Hopkins University, Summer-Fall 2015, and is published in the form of opinion article for the general interest of the readers
The writer is a lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the author of Democracy in Pakistan: From Rhetoric to Reality (Islamabad: Narratives, 2015)