DERA GH AZI KH AN: Reacting to the recent statement of FederalInterior Minister Mohsin Naqvi regarding the establishment of multiple administrative units to make the governance better, Seraiki nationalists have rejected the suggestion while reiterating the demand for creation of Seraiki province.
SpeakingtoDawn, SafdarKlasra, central secretary of the Seraiki Lok Saanjh, says the current debate on creation of multiple administrative units is misplaced and the process being proposed is flawed, adding that new provinces can only be created on the basis of a genuine demand and established claims.
‘So far, the only authentic claim is thedemand for a Seraiki pr ovince.
T h i s demand isdecades old with a parliamentary and constitutional history. A resolution for the province has already been passed, and a constitutional amendment for its creation has been approved by the Senate. Any new province created in the name of good governance must also be economically and financially viable.
Under the present NFC Award, a Seraiki province would be the third largest recipient of the federal divisible pool.
MrKlasra says the SeraikiLok Saanjh believes the Seraiki province is the only legitimate case with a rightful claim and multiple other administrative units without demand, financial viability, or political consensus would weaken the federation which could lead to serious political inst ability.
He claims that it is only the Seraiki province on which political consensus exists and its creation would substantially strengthen the federation.
The Pakistan Seraiki Party (Taj Langah faction), commenting on the recent statement by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi regarding, says the only genuinedemand for a separate province inthecountryatpresentisforSeraikistan.
Dr Nukhbah Taj Langah, the chairperson of the party, says this demand is identical in principle to the one made by Quaid-e-Azam for restoration of Sindh as aseparateprovince after theBritishhadabolished its provincial status and merged it into the Bombay Presidency and the same historical situation applies to the Seraikiregion.
According to her, the former Province of Multan lost its provincial status when the British annexed it and merged it into the Lahore Province in 1849. Even after Pakistan’s independence, the provincial status of Multan was not restored although the territories occupied by Ranjit Singh, including Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province, were granted separate provincial status.
However, neither the Province of Multan nor the former State of Bahawalpur was restored as a separate province.
‘Late Barrister Taj Muhammad Khan Langah had begun a peaceful movement for a Seraiki provincein1985 and today all major political parties in Pakistan support the creation of a Seraiki province. During the previous government of the PPP, a constitutional bill proposing a province under the name ‘South Punjab’, comprising an incomplete geographical area, was also passed by the Senate,’ says Dr Nukhbah.
She adds that while the party has reservations about both the proposed name and its geographical boundaries, the province should have been established on the basis of the consensus already reached among political parties andprovinces. Instead, her party argues, the government has initiated an unnecessary campaign to create multiple new provinces, thereby creating a fresh constitutional and political controversy.
The party has warned that a similar experiment had previously been undertaken in the form of the One Unit system and maintains that if provinces other than the Seraiki province are created simultaneously, the country can face a new political crisis.
The party leader says that throughout the world, administrative provinces are generally created in linguistically homogeneous countries, whereas in multilingual countries they are established on the basis of language and culture. She gives an example of India where the number of states increased from eight to around 40 primarily on linguistic grounds, claiming that before the partition of the subcontinent, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other Muslim leaders had supported the creation ofprovincesbased on language andculture.
The PakistanSeraikiParty saysthere is an urgent need to establish a Seraiki province comprising the historical province of Multan and the former State of Bahawalpur, urging the state to refrain from further experimentation that can push the country towards another political crisis.