Pakistan is passing through a critical mode of its historical downturns. Once again the poor people of Pakistan have reached a cul-de-sac; this is nothing which can startle them, they have been here many a times. They know the feelings of abandonment, destitute and haplessness. This time the political plank is the so-called sloganeering based on the prank of provincial autonomy on one hand and the carving of new provinces on the other.
Interesting questions do prop in the minds of all and sundry, do we have a strong economy to afford this luxury of administrative affluence? Are we not fighting a war against the enemy at internal front? Is the demand of new provinces in line with public aspirations or part of a political gimmick? Will making of new province eventually dilute a weak state as that of Pakistan?
It all started with the demand of a new Seraiki province, carved out of Punjab. The demand is based on the pre-partition independent status of Bahawalpur state. Nawab Sadiq volunteered to join Pakistan and at his own will surrendered the territory to Pakistan in 1954.
Who is going to answer these questions? Probably no one, not because they can’t but because they will not, as this shall question the rationality of their actions and rationality of actions is one thing which nobody wants to answer in Pakistan.
ABID LATIF SINDHU
Islamabad
