I am writing in response to ‘
Division of Punjab opposed’ which was carried on September 9, and endorsed an earlier letter ‘No parochial provinces, please’. The gist of the letter of September 9 was that the federating units of Pakistan should not be restructured along ‘parochial’ lines, and that any such restructuring will be harmful to the federation of Pakistan itself. I find it to be quite a contradiction that the author of such a treatise speaking of the larger interests of the federation of Pakistan is writing from a platform as parochial as the ‘Punjabi’ National Conference.
The letter speaks of a Punjabi motherland, its historical significance, and the threat posed to it by the creation of a Seraiki province. The foundation of this so-called Punjabi motherland commenced at the sword of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1818 when he captured the Muslim state of Multan, which had always been an independent province in all the Muslim empires of the subcontinent, and had encompassed the entire Seraiki region. In fact, Multan was a state more ancient than Lahore testimony to which are the words of Data Ganj Bakhsh. When this saint set up his abode in the current precincts of Lahore, he wrote ‘we dwell in the outskirts of Multan.’ After the Sikh era, the British gave shape to this motherland with their conquests of 1848, and afterwards with the partition of India in 1947. Finally, the Punjab gained its final shape with the forced annexation of the Bahawalpur state in the mid-1950’s. These 200 years do not even take a candle to the glorious history of the Seraiki area all the way from the Indus Valley Civilization, and, therefore, cannot buttress claims as to the current province of Punjab being the Punjabi motherland. What history does show, however, is that the Seraiki regions have been deprived of the right to determine their own destiny since 1818.
Geographically, the Seraiki region is the valley of the Upper Indus and comprises all of southwestern Punjab from Rahim Yaar Khan in the south to Khushab and Mianwali in the North, and the D.I. Khan, Bannu and Tank districts of the NWFP. It is, in fact, what connects the Punjabi speaking Central Punjab to the rest of the provinces. It is also one of the most neglected and under-developed regions in the country. Pakistan, for most of its existence, has suffered a misfortune not unusual for ex-colonies: direct and indirect rule by a nexus of the civil and military establishments, rather than by democratic forces. And the amount of sanctioned representation of the Punjab in the civil and military services is no secret to anyone. Within the province, though, the dynamics are more complex. The Northern and Central parts of the province have had a greater trend towards western education from colonial times, an important contributing factor towards which was the famed loyalty of the Punjabi elite towards the British. Thus, certain regions of the province got a lot more than their fair share of representation in the federal and provincial bureaucracies, and the armed forces, and the fruits of development and official favor were distributed accordingly, further compounded by the unabashed exercise of nepotism and favoritism, as was demanded by the complex code of biradri and socio-religious linkages, and other such sociological compulsions. The letter in question is correct in saying that the creation of a Seraiki province would take away from the population and the area of the Punjab. What it fails to mention, and which is a great apprehension among the establishment, is that a new province would also take away the opportunities of one region or one set of the population, to capitalize upon the ignorance and backwardness of the other.
Feudalism is blamed for the woes of the Seraiki people. One must concede that decadent, myopic and ultra-conservative feudal mindsets that persist are a great hindrance to progress. But look closely and you will see that the back of feudalism is effectively broken in the Seraiki belt. Barring a few notable exceptions, through generations of inheritance, and at least one successful round of land reforms in the first military era, landholding has dwindled to an average of 250-500 acres for the biggest landlords. This is peanuts by any feudal standard, and even though they may retain the airs of their ancestors, even the greatest feudals these days are nothing but large-scale farmers. Landlessness is almost unheard of in these times. Going forth, the feudal is as much tied to the land as a peasant who owns 1 acre of land. They both bear the vagaries of the climate, the whims of nature and the unpredictable convulsions of the market. This strengthens the centuries-old familiarity, and the affinity that is borne out if it, that exists between them as denizens of the same village, and partners in language and culture. There is a reason why the much-maligned jirga system refuses to go extinct even in times as these where no one man has lordship over many others as in the old feudal days. The poor people of the Seraiki belt still trust the village Zamindar or Sardar to dispense greater and cheaper justice to them than the police stationed in the nearby town. For the latter in common perception, far away as they are from their homes mostly in Central Punjab, will only make justice serve those who can line their pockets better. Such exploitation is a daily affair in the police stations of rural southwestern Punjab. Furthermore, when the industrialists, mill-owners and businessmen band together to skew the market in their favor, both the feudal and the peasant down south feel cheated out of the fruits of their agricultural produce, and the bond is strengthened. There is little wonder then that the same people get elected over and over again. To understand why they often fail to deliver then requires a more systemic analysis of the method of executive government in Pakistan. One proposed solution is to have a new province so that the elected representatives would stay closer to home, and thus, be more accountable to their constituencies, rather than merely using the masses’ vote as a means towards plush, elitist living in Lahore. One cannot deny the ancestral roots landowners have among the people. One can wager, though, as to whether this system is actually more evil than the ascendancy of fluid capital and the whimsical free market in the Central Punjab over the past 30 years, the sociopolitical and socioeconomic fallout of which is yet to be witnessed by history.
The letter in question alludes to the debacle of 1971 in arguing that the Pakistani federation is inept at handling provinces, and therefore, new provinces should be avoided. It is less a question of a geographical existence of a province than one of the very real suppression of rights. The Bengalis felt cheated out of their rightful political and cultural share in Pakistan especially given that they were the majority province in terms of population. And the ‘federation’ failed to address, much less redress, their grievances. It is a global fact that it is not the recognition and promotion of ethno-linguistic and sociocultural groups that leads to strife but the suppression of them. Rwanda and Pakistan in 1971 are actually examples that favor this fact. But if the author of the letter feels that such cultural and ethnic distinctions need to be suppressed, or sacrificed, to form a greater national identity in the peculiar case of Pakistan, the fact that he is sticking so fast to his Punjabi identity is more than just a tad confounding. Or shall we continue to grudge others, what we cherish for ourselves? If Pakistan needs to restructure itself into newer federating units to actually recognize its ethno-linguistic composition and work to take everybody along rather than drag them by their hands and feet, is it not about time? Our neighbor to the East massively redesigned its provincial compositions right after independence, and now we must grudgingly admit the vibrancy of their democracy. Why is the status quo the only thing not taboo to speak about in the Punjab? In the present-day, all smaller provinces, Balochistan being the most candid instance are complaining of a similar suppression of rights at varying levels. The federation seems to be coming apart at the seams for there are widespread insurgencies in at least two provinces. The seraiki question notwithstanding, are these signs of a strong and contented federation? The letter refers to the federation as if it were an alien force, a third party. It fails to include in its analysis that the federation, the federal government, springs from the provinces, and it has been delineated earlier in this piece, which part of the country has always had the controlling share in it.
A major problem with Pakistan has always been internal imperialism. Sindh and Balochistan have always lamented the exploitation of their natural and human resources. The ancient Seraiki civilization of the Upper Indus does not even have a platform to voice its grievances effectively; to postulate a fundamental moral and ethical principle that the first right to any river goes to its immediate drainage basin, its valley; likewise for all natural and mineral resources. The Upper Indus belongs to the Seraiki belt and to Sindh. It is between these two regions that the question of any dam-construction must be addressed. The far-off plains of Central Punjab have no right to the Indus, or to protest its loss. The drying up of the southern rivers of Sutlej, Ravi and Beas as a consequence of the Indus Water Treaty signed by the powers that were in1962 has already left the eastern half of the Seraiki belt on the verge of acute water shortage and complete desolation. Damming the Indus and creating a canal system out of it at Kalabagh solely for the benefit of northern Punjab will sound the death knell, not only for the lower Seraiki regions but also Sindh. Therefore, any such decision should rest with the immediate effectees, and nobody else.
The letter stops short of condemning the cause for a Seraiki province as sedition. It rails against imperialism and warns against conspiracies to break up the country on the basis of cultural and linguistic groupings. All cultural identities, except for the Punjabi identity, are presented as dangers to the existence of Pakistan with the full potential of becoming ‘permanent exploiters and blackmailers’. Of course, any new exploiters and blackmailers appearing on the scene would be a certain threat to the interests of the already established exploiters and blackmailers. It is interesting to note though that it contains within itself elements of cultural imperialism. It proposes that Punjabi be made the standard medium of instruction all across the Punjab, knowing full well that half the people of the province do not speak that language. Seraiki is written in the Sindhi script. It has more letters in its alphabet than Punjabi, which has the same script as Urdu. Spoken Seraiki has more sounds and syllables than either Urdu or Punjabi. Linguistic experts hold Seraiki and Punjabi to be distinct languages in their structure and form. Would not the imposition of a standardized form of Punjabi in the entire province of Punjab virtually kill an entire language, the development of which, like all other human languages, has taken millennia? Does not the death of language mean the death of culture? Do Punjabi and Seraiki both not already suffer enough out of the fact that they are not taught in schools at all? Such bigoted demagoguery and displays of cultural arrogance and imperialism, an instance of which is evidenced in this letter of September 9 will only serve to give fresher impetus to the cause for new provinces and greater provincial autonomy. Such is the arrogance which pushes even moderate people towards extremism. We need to respect, appreciate and find beauty in one another’s cultural differences, rather than aim to suppress, negate and eliminate them. Only when such an attitude of inclusiveness and acceptance is attained can we be sure of being safe against all the disasters that the letter has so ominously forewarned against.
Hasnain Haider Langah
Farmer
Shujatpur, Jalalpur Pirwala
Multan
