KARACHI, April 8: The two nation theory and the provincial autonomy were the two basic pillars of the Pakistan movement, and provincial autonomy was linked to the national stability, as denial of provincial autonomy to East Pakistan resulted in breaking of Pakistan, said Professor Dr Jaffar Ahmad.
Addressing on ‘Provincial Autonomy and Stability of Pakistan’ at a weekly lecture programme of the Pakistan Peoples Party here, he said the false notion continuously spread by the establishment that provincial autonomy weakened the federation and those demanding it were traitors was highly unfortunate.
In 1970 the country broke up due to denial of autonomy to East Pakistan and not because of giving provincial autonomy, he said, adding the two-nation theory was only one pillar of the Pakistan Movement. The other pillar was provincial autonomy. Muslim League under the leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had constantly demanded provincial autonomy from 1925 onwards.
It had demanded the separation of Sindh from Bombay. It had demanded provincial status for Balochistan and the NWFP. In addition it had also demanded equal quantum of autonomy for every province.
The demand of autonomy of units culminated in the 1940 Pakistan resolution, where the movers of the resolution had demanded that the federating units should be autonomous and sovereign. It was the Congress, which stood for a strong centre and was bitterly opposed by Quaid-i-Azam and his party on this issue.
He said the question of a unit joining the Federation of Pakistan was again left for the provincial assemblies to decide upon. In the NWFP where the Congress was in power the question was directly taken to the people of the province and their opinion was taken in a referendum.
Pakistan, Dr Ahmad said, was the result of voluntary acceptance of the federating units. It had not been imposed on us by any strong central authority.
Quoting the examples of USA and Canada, he said that autonomy to federating units had always served to strengthen federations.
Once the question of autonomy was settled to the satisfaction of the federating units, the historic forces of integration started playing their role. In Pakistan too, in spite of the divisive and fragmenting effects and fallouts of military dictatorships the integrating forces of inter-provincial and intercity migration, integrated and interdependent economy, the information media, the collective political consciousness of the people of every unit had played a major unifying role.
The fact that people of Punjab are unanimously denouncing military dictatorship and condemning military action in Balochistan builds our optimism for keeping the country united and finding solutions to our problems through political interaction between elected representatives of the people.
Tracing the past constitutional history, he said that in 1954, bureaucracy and army had stepped in to blockade the numerical superiority of East Pakistan and had dissolved the Constituent Assembly when the political leadership had mutually resolved the impasse by accepting a lower house elected on numerical representation together with an upper house based on equal representation of the federating units.
The charge against that assembly was that they had failed to frame the constitution even after a period of seven years. This charge was laid at a time when the passing of the constitutional bill was a matter of few days only.
The 1956 constitution had so many compromises and failed to address the federal question, a great flaw that was repeated in 1962 in the constitution imposed by the first military dictator of Pakistan.
He said it went to the credit of political leadership of that time that the 1973 constitution was passed unanimously. It addressed the question of provincial autonomy adequately according to the objective conditions prevailing at that time and it was agreed by the political leadership that after 10 years time the concurrent list would be abolished and the question of autonomy would be examined once again. However, the opportunity never came up because of the succeeding long military dictatorship and the troika model of governance during the civilian period.
Dr Ahmad pointed out that in the troika model of president, prime minister and the chief of the army staff, the prime minister elected by the people was the weakest member and the non-political COAS the strongest. This could hardly be called a democratic dispensation, he said.
Dr Ahmad said that in the present situation while the concurrent list had to be abolished outright, some revenue-earning subjects like sales tax and others should also be deleted from the Federal legislative list. This was necessary in order to provide the provinces with additional resources to enable them to meet their added functions and responsibilities.
He said that the needed changes had to be brought within the framework of the 1973 Constitution and according to the amendment procedure laid down in the constitution itself. He cautioned against the attempt of framing a new Constitution and said that it would open a Pandora’s Box and in the resulting confusion the extra political forces which had attained increasing powers and had entered every sphere of national life would demand their pound of flesh and would be in a position to extract it too.
He said that the political process should be strengthened since democracy had a built in corrective mechanism. It created the environment for the emergence of national leaderships and the conditions where the voice of the smaller provinces is heard and respected.—PPI
