THE creation of more provinces or districts within a country should, ideally, not be a divisive issue if such divisions are being carried out for administrative purposes and to bring better governance to the grass roots.

But in Pakistan, the issue of creating more provinces is a lightening rod, igniting populist passions and fuelling ugly divisions. And in Sindh, it has often been witnessed that whenever a political deadlock ensues, talk of the province’s division emerges.

Any talk of redrawing provincial borders is void of unbiased, pragmatic reasoning and is, instead, governed by emotion. And indeed, it was emotionalism and point-scoring that ruled the day when mention of Sindh’s division was made during Monday’s provincial assembly session.

During the session, an MQM lawmaker called for 22 administrative units in the country, including a ‘Mohajir province’. This, naturally, elicited a charged response from members of the ruling PPP, who rejected any notion of dividing Sindh.

This is not the first time the MQM has talked of dividing the province; the ‘Sindh 1’ and ‘Sindh 2’ scheme proposed by the party sometime ago comes to mind.

Unfortunately, the MQM often resorts to ethnic politics whenever it is on the back foot vis-à-vis the PPP; members of Sindh’s ruling party are also known to assume parochial postures when required.

Instead of addressing Sindh’s governance problems, both parties tend to sideline the real issues by bickering over controversial proposals.

Instead of dividing Sindh, governance issues can be better addressed by empowering elected governments at the district and local levels, so that they are given sufficient space to function, while the province maintains checks and balances.

However, despite the last phase of LG polls having wrapped up in December, Sindh is still without functional local governments, as the ECP issued a recent notification delaying mayoral elections.

The MQM has criticised both the government and ECP for the delay. Unless mayoral elections are held forthwith and local governments are empowered, more divisive rhetoric can be expected in Sindh.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd , 2016