Daily Times

Pakistan came into
being keeping the “two nation theory” at the fore while keeping Mr Jinnah’s personal theory of “Progressive-cum-Secular state” at the bottom. The leadership of the Muslim League happily trapped itself into the international power game that resulted in the partition of the Indian subcontinent. It is, however, a long story and would divert our attention from the topic under discussion; thus we shall focus on the governments of Pakistan henceforth.

Thomas Paine once said, “The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from its government.” This scribe reckons Mr Paine was stating these words looking at the chequered history of Pakistan. The first government commenced its service under the governor-generalship of M A Jinnah. And from the word go, attention was predominantly diverted to the people with high skills in delivering sugarcoated lip service.

The powerful got more power while the weak received wholehearted suppression. The story of the quelling of smaller provinces in Pakistan is as bright as the shining sun. As a son of a deprived, needy and suppressed province named Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (previously known as the NWFP), I would quote history with two glimpses.

The first order for our province from the governor-general was to quash the elected government and the appointment of a bigot named Abdul Qayum Khan to form a ministry, while the first order of Abdul Qayum Khan was to ban his own written book Gold and Guns on the Pathan Frontier. With Mr Jinnah’s extended carte blanche, the latter started a story of corruption and abuse of power in the province.

On August 12, 1948, people peacefully marched to hold a demonstration in Babara, Charsadda against the illegal imprisonment of Bacha Khan. Abdul Qayum ordered the army to open fire at the procession. Men, women and children were killed. The bodies were then thrown into the river so that no one could count the dead. Doctors were taken into police custody so that the injured could be left bleeding to death. Some 700 men, women and children were martyred. The icing on the cake was that after the incident an extra agriculture tax was levied on the farmers of Charsadda with the instructions that the army was short of funds to buy ammunition. In short, the money spent on firing at unarmed people was collected from their relatives.

It was a strange phenomenon that even though Bengal was the largest and most populous province of Pakistan, power was always concentrated in Punjab. The intelligentsia of Punjab was such smooth schemers that to break the hegemony of Bengal, the whole of Pakistan was divided in two on the basis of parity, while this parity was actually ‘disparity’ and the smaller provinces were suppressed to the core with this act. The partition of Pakistan was thus achieved with great success and diligence and “Jinnah’s Pakistan was reduced to the Pakistan of Punjab.”

The partition of Pakistan was a turning point in the history of today’s Pakistan. At last, we managed to develop a constitution in 1973 that was acceptable to all the elected representatives of the country. It was promised that 10 years later the concurrent list given in the constitution of 1973 should be abolished and the smaller provinces would start getting the benefits from their resources.

Then came the hide-and-seek of dogmatic and democratic regimes. In his last days in government, General Musharraf did some right things at the wrong time. To extend his rule, he conducted free and fair elections. As a result, the pro-establishment politicians were wiped out from the face of the political landscape. With it, the heydays of general were over and he had to flee the country to purposelessly dream of a future rule in Pakistan with eyes wide shut.

Over the course of history until that moment in time, the smaller provinces of Pakistan received only one thing from the strong federation: suppression. Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad once made some prophesies while replying to the probing questions of Agha Shorish Kashmiri in April 1946. Maulana, inter alia, stated, “The way the leadership of Muslim League is conducting itself will ensure that Islam will become a rare commodity in Pakistan and the Muslims of India. This is a surmise and God alone knows what is in the womb of the future.”

The government under the presidency of Mr Zardari seemingly brought another bad news for the country. It is a universal truth that nothing in this temporal world is 100 percent negative nor can it be cent percent positive. There are examples of wrong persons doing the right things and vice versa. And the same happened to our beloved country. Mr Zardari amended the future course of Pakistan with a groundbreaking 18th Amendment to the constitution of Pakistan. In April 2010, the National Assembly of Pakistan unanimously passed this amendment to the constitution and fulfilled the most cherished and long-felt desires of the smaller provinces to be owners of their resources within the framework of the Pakistani federation.

A story goes that a thief was digging a hole in the wall of Mullah Naseer-ud-Din’s room. Mullah Sahib saw him and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I am beating a drum,” replied the thief.

“But I am mot hearing the beats,” said the Mullah.

“Don’t worry,” the thief replied, “You would hear its beats in the morning.”

The same goes for the 18th Amendment in Pakistan. The poor and needy people are questioning the outcome of the amendment and linking the issue to the current economic crisis. With the 18th amendment, we received a name that represents us; we have control on the water and electricity of our province; we have control on the gas and other resources of our land, and most importantly, we can now make policies for ourselves and implement them at our own will. Bravo Mr Zardari et al, the small provinces owe a big salute to you. The drumbeats of the 18th amendment would for sure be heard aloud in the years to come.

We, the people of the small provinces, strongly feel that if Mr Jinnah would have managed to pass a law of this nature, Pakistan would have been a shining star among the comity of nations right now. But it is never too late to start. We still have a ray of hope and a brighter Pakistan awaits us if we work hard with commitment and dedication.

The writer is a former research consultant on Afghanistan and is currently running a research and consulting firm, Kaar Pohan, in Peshawar. He can be reached at kaarpohan@gmail.com