APROPOS the letter ‘Dismantled unity’ (May 15). The writer regrets that there are attempts to create more provinces and that people should consider themselves Pakistanis first. This is indeed laudable, but perhaps the writer is too young to remember the days when the whole of present-day Pakistan was a single province.

This resulted in the people of the smaller provinces feeling alienated, just as the people of Karachi today feel they are outsiders. The refusal of the Sindh government to allow Karachiites to run their own affairs has ruined the metropolis from which the provincial government gets 96 per cent of its budget.

The only way to put the country back on the development track is to convert the present 27 divisions into provinces. Switzerland, with a population of only eight million, has 26 provinces known as cantons, and is a very stable democracy, despite having three linguistic groups French, German and Italian.

With more provinces, a much greater number of our people will be able to participate in the political process and get an adequate representation in government.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2016