Does Pakistan make sense?
VIEW: Does Pakistan make sense? — II —Haider Nizamani
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
If persistence of Baloch nationalism points towards limited success of
the Pakistani national project, the dilution of Pashtun nationalism
shows that Pakistani identity can co-opt regions by making them economic
and political stakeholders in a united Pakistan
Punjab’s
nationalism is often subsumed in Pakistani nationalism, but there have
been instances in the recent past when Pakistani nationalism did not
serve the interests of various segments of the Punjabi elite, forcing
them to resort to the narrower version of Punjabi nationalism. The 1988
elections for the National Assembly showed the PPP emerging as the
single largest party. Provincial elections were to take place a few days
after the National Assembly elections and Nawaz Sharif’s party, which
was part of the ISI-assembled Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), stoked
Punjabi nationalism with slogans such as “Jaag Punjabi jaag, teri pag
noo lag gaee aag” (Awake Punjabi, your honour is threatened). The second
instance was after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, when the PML-Q,
under the leadership of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, put up advertisements
in various newspapers alleging that innocent Punjabis were being killed
in Sindh. In both instances, it appears the state apparatus was
directly behind sponsoring these campaigns.
Such are the limits
of the prevailing over-centralised state of Pakistan that even Punjab
will find it increasingly difficult to subsume its economic and
political interests under the rubric of Pakistani nationalism. If
Punjabi nationalism is subsumed in Pakistani nationalism, Baloch
nationalism is on the other end of the spectrum, finding little
compatibility with the pan-Pakistani narrative. Here Balochistan may be
dubbed the Kurdistan issue of South Asia, straddling across
international borders between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Of all the
nationalist movements in Pakistan in 2010, Baloch nationalism draws
strength from combining economic, political, cultural and historical
grievances.
The Baloch nationalists refer back to special
arrangements the region had during the British period, and consequently
challenge the validity of the accession to Pakistan and plead their case
for a sovereign Balochistan on that ground. Without passing any legal
or moral judgement on the validity of this claim, I argue that in 1947
and the period surrounding it, a political map of the subcontinent was
to be drawn with only India and Pakistan as sovereign entities on it,
leaving little room for other entities to claim sovereignty. In May
1947, Bengali leaders, both Hindu and Muslim, reached an agreement in
favour of a free Bengal with equal representation of Hindus and Muslims
in the cabinet and services. Even Jinnah had tacitly supported it, but
Nehru and Patel vetoed it.
The historical memory of being wronged
in 1947-48 was further consolidated with the slapping of One Unit in
1955, which merged Balochistan with other West Pakistan provinces into a
single administrative unit. The One Unit was abolished in 1970 and the
nationalist-led coalition government was formed in Balochistan in 1972.
By that time the province’s per capita income was solidly 40 percent
lower than that of Punjab, its higher bureaucracy almost fully in
non-Baloch hands, its literacy rate at a miserable six percent, and the
province’s natural gas resources wantonly used by the rest of the
country, bringing little prosperity to Balochistan. When the provincial
government was dismissed in 1973, followed by military action, Baloch
cadres opted for armed resistance.
Fast forward the clock to 2010
and the list of Baloch grievances now also include issues such as
missing people, plight of internally displaced population, and the
current ongoing military action. Baloch alienation is indisputable but
the province’s multi-ethnic demographics, nationalists’ laying claim on
territories outside Pakistani Balochistan, and their numerical weakness
makes it improbable for the separatist movement to achieve its stated
objective.
If persistence of Baloch nationalism points towards
limited success of the Pakistani national project, the dilution of
Pashtun nationalism shows that Pakistani identity can co-opt regions by
making them economic and political stakeholders in a united Pakistan. In
spite of the irredentist claims of Afghanistan, the majority of
Pashtuns living in Pakistan have not warmed to the idea of a greater
Afghanistan. Separation is no longer part of the Pashtun nationalist
lexicon. Pashtun nationalism expresses itself in ensuring the rights of
the Pashtun community all over Pakistan. When Karachi becomes the city
with the largest Pashtun population, it does not make much sense to be
seeking autonomy of only areas comprising Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sindhi
nationalism can be located somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, with
Baloch nationalism nearly fully alienated on the one end, and the
Pashtun almost totally co-opted on the other. Lacking in electoral
support, Sindhi nationalists make up for that by creating Sindh-wide
consensus on issues such as opposition to the Kalabagh Dam and keeping
Sindhi as the medium of instruction in schools.
Those are the
reasons behind Pakistan’s failure to accommodate diverse national groups
within its fold. Two competing explanations are on offer: one, what
Feroz Ahmed calls a “structural” explanation, argues that “it is not
that Punjabis have an inherent tendency to dominate others or to usurp
other people’s rights. It so happens that in a country like Pakistan,
military and civilian establishments have centralised power and Punjabis
happen to dominate both institutions.” The second explanation offered
by analysts like Farzana Shaikh in her recent book, Making Sense of
Pakistan, argues that uncertain national identity is the reason behind
Pakistan’s many failings including “distorted economic and social
development” to drive “nuclear-armed states to look beyond its frontiers
in search of validation...Uncertainty about national identity and the
lack of consensus over Islam greatly affected the country’s
constitutional and political development, (and) impinged the
construction of a coherent economic and social vision.”
Both
explanations are complementary and shed good light on Pakistan’s
dilemmas. In terms of resolving the tension between pan-Pakistan
nationalism and regional nationalism, two ideal solutions vie with each
other. Mr Jinnah, in a speech delivered in Quetta on June 15, 1948, was
“pained” to find what he called “the curse of provincialism”, and wanted
to “rid” Pakistan “of this evil”. Provincial autonomy was a strategy of
choice in pre-independence days because, according to Jinnah, it was
necessary to restrict the British control. He then went on to say to the
Baloch in 1948 that “with your own central government and its powers”,
it is a folly to continue to think in pre-1947 terms. This ideal
solution backed by the state’s coercive arm expects all Pakistanis to
erase their Sindhi, Baloch, Punjabi and Pashtun pasts and become
Pakistanis as defined by Islamabad. This, as history has shown, has not
worked because the central government has seldom been a government that
various ethno-linguistic groups could comfortably call their own.
The
second ideal solution is to get rid of Pakistan, instead of
provincialism, as the Bengalis successfully did in 1971, and some other
groups are attempting to do now. I am of the view that 2010 is not like
1971, and Pakistan will not fall apart. I, for one, would like to see a
Pakistan that is politically an ethnically inclusive federation, where
Islamabad does not have the monopoly over describing who is a true
Pakistani and who is not. Such a Pakistan will not come about through
some miracle; it would require painstaking political bargains and
compromises amongst the federating units.
(Concluded)
The
writer teaches at the Department of Political Science, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver Canada and can be reached at
hnizamani@hotmail.com
In : Haider Nizamani
Notes