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DEMANDS for new provinces have increased recently. New provinces could be crafted administratively or ethnically. Since ethnic politics makes Pakistani power-wielders uncomfortable, ethnicities often justify their provincial demands on administrative grounds. In fact, considering both administrative and ethnic grounds is crucial.
Administratively, some claim that having 20-25 provinces will ensure decentralisation and improved public services. In reality, it could increase centralisation.
In three-tiered federations, federal governments deal with limited issues like currency, defence, foreign affairs etc. and inter-provincial coordination. Provinces develop policies around internal issues and undertake inter-district coordination while districts deliver services. Exceptionally, higher-level (federal and provincial) governments handle some service delivery, if districts or provinces have inadequate technical capacity or population.
Increasing the number of administrative units is problematic.
Thus, with smaller provinces, service areas reverting to the centre could increase. Also, inter-regional coordination related to local matters would move from nearer cities like Quetta to the more distant Islamabad-based and Punjab-dominated federal government.
Finally, policy formulation on domestic issues could either be done federally, causing over-centralisation, or by the new provinces separately, causing unnecessary policy differentiation across nearby areas and hence confusion. Most administrative benefits from having more provinces can be gained at lower cost by empowering local governments, which provinces are currently avoiding.
Another reason given for creating provinces is the difficulty people face in travelling to provincial capitals for governmental dealings, as often argued by Hazara province supporters. However, KP’s Pakhtun districts at the end of its long ‘tail’ are actually further away from Peshawar than Hindko-speaking districts. With empowered districts, this commuting problem should largely disappear. It could be further minimised by having satellite and mobile provincial offices and mail and e-governance facilities for service delivery issues still managed by provinces.
Perhaps the strongest administrative reason for making new provinces relates not to the impact locally but to the incongruence of the overall federation where Punjab comprises 55pc of the population and Balochistan 40pc of the landmass. Dividing Punjab especially could reduce ethnic power disparities, but only if divided units vote differently. Otherwise, Punjab’s proportion and clout in the Senate will increase.
Plans for Punjab’s division on administrative grounds envision a north-south rather than east-west division, along natural ethnic divisions and grievances. Thus, the stronger justification for new provinces lies in the grievances of provincial-level minorities regarding their economic and/or political marginalisation by provincial majorities.
But in Pakistan, one finds that provincial minorities in three provinces (Sindh’s Mohajirs, KP’s Hindko-speakers and Balochistan’s Pakhtuns) are economically better off than the respective majorities, weakening their cases. True, these minorities face political marginalisation, especially under elected governments where numerically rather than economically stronger groups control power and attempt to play economic catch-up using it, often through crude measures.
This phenomenon is strongest in Sindh. Mohajirs occupied the two top federal slots under an unrepresentative government during 2005-08. Now, without LG polls, even the post of mayor is not available to them in Karachi. Fondness for democracy is more mixed in this case. A Mohajir province may still be seen as unjustified given the political and economic impact on Sindh, and the relatively recent arrival of Mohajirs in Sindh. However, their genuine political grievances must be addressed.
This includes instituting empowered local governments immediately, revisiting employment quotas and avoiding needless comments about the literal meaning of ‘Mohajir’.
Punjab is the only province where the minority faces clear politico-economic marginalisation. However, it is unclear whether Seraikis desire separation given their support in 2013 for separation-averse PML-N. And, ethnic differentiation within Punjab is less stark than elsewhere. In applying the terms of lineal trees to language trees, Seraiki and Punjabi emerge as twins or siblings whereas the languages of conflicting ethnicities elsewhere are first or second cousins.
Even ethnically, there is little justification for 20-25 provinces since Pakistan does not house that many large ethnicities, unlike India. Cohesive, ethnicities actually oppose their division into several provinces.
Thus, demands for many provinces largely represent populist slogans targeting Pakistani desires for instant short cuts to good governance. They confuse the functions of provinces and districts. Pakistan could do with a few new provinces, but the most compelling cases are of Gilgit-Baltistan and perhaps Fata.
The writer is a governance specialist.
Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2014
