HYDERABAD: Nationalist parties’ leaders at the 30th Madar-i-Watan day organised by Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party at bypass on Thursday called for declaring Pakistan a multination state and said the country needed a new social contract as the state had turned into a security state instead of becoming a welfare state.

National Democratic Party head Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch said that judiciary was not independent in the country while media faced curbs and ordinances to gag it.

He urged people to wage a consistent struggle to defeat tyrants and said that people of Gwadar took to the streets to demand their rights since status quo could not be broken without a target-oriented struggle. Usurpers eyed resources and lands in Balochistan and Sindh, he said.

Qaumi Awami Tehreek president Ayaz Latif Palijo said that the column for NIC was not added to profile form of upcoming census to be able to receive more funds under National Finance Commission. The NIC column was needed to count outsiders including Biharis, Burmese and Afghans, he said.

He said that another reason for excluding the column was use of the voters thus created for increasing seats of non-Sindhis in Karachi. Pakistan Peoples Party and Imran Khan were on the same page as PPP was told not to boycott National Assembly session and was given power in Sindh in lieu of it, he said.

He urged people to stop using aggressive tone against each other because when political leaders and activists degraded each other it led to Sindh’s loss in its fight for rights.

A resolution passed by the gathering called for including a column for NIC in the profile form of upcoming census and declaring Pakistan a multination state and renaming it as the Peoples Republic of Pakistan, which should comprise Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun, Seraiki and Punjabi nations.

It said that ownership rights of provinces over their resources should be accepted and demanded an end to projects like Bahria Town, DHA and other mega housing projects, which were aimed at illegally occupying lands in Sindh and by settling outsiders to convert Sindhis into a minority.

It said that occupation of land in Sindh’s coastal and Kohistan belt should be halted and all outsiders should be expelled from Sindh. It demanded national language status for Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Seraiki and Punjabi and making Sindhi compulsory medium for imparting education from primary to university level and in government as well as private schools.

The resolution demanded supply of quality seeds, fertiliser and other farm inputs and called for an end to political interference in education and health sectors in Sindh. Ban on admission of students from rural areas in educational institutes in Karachi be lifted, it said.

It called for distribution of land among landless peasants and their registration under social security and rejected amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016.

It rejected all mega projects over Indus including Kalabagh Dam and demanded release of 10MAF water downstream Kotri barrage.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2022