KARACHI, Jan 7: Baloch scholar Khan Mohammad Hussain Khan, a former minister and chief adviser to the late Khan of Kalat Ahmed Yar Khan and founder of the Association of Coloured People of the World, has said that the Establishment seems reluctant to grant provincial autonomy to provinces, and pointed out that the issue has being left unresolved under one pretext or the other.

Talking to PPI here on Sunday, he recalled that on December 11, 2006, Chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau Daniyal Aziz had announced that the constitutional package for provincial autonomy would be prepared by December 31, 2006. On the 28th of the same month, Federal Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Saleem Saifullah Khan said the bill for provincial autonomy would be sent to the federal cabinet by January 31, 2007. And now, the minister has been quoted as saying that the provincial autonomy would be given in the current fiscal.

“This repeated delay gives a clear impression that the rulers are not mentally prepared to empower provinces in accordance with the country’s Constitution,” Khan Hussain said citing the apparent lack of confidence between the federation and the federating units that, he believed, was a bottleneck.

He said he did not see provincial autonomy to be given by the end of the fiscal, indicating that the rulers would be too busy in the election process. The government’s commitments in this regard, he said, were aimed at buying time to pacify people of smaller provinces.

Giving example of the United States, he said all states enjoyed full autonomy and this had never weakened their federation. California has even been maintaining a diplomatic mission in London, he added.

He expressed the view that concentration of powers with the Center ever since the Independence had developed a particular mindset in the Establishment and it had now become hard for it or others to change the same.

He believed that the delaying tactics by the bureaucracy vis-a-vis grant of autonomy to Balochistan had resulted in the tragic death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

Khan Hussain warned that delaying tactics would only aggravate the situation “Our rulers enjoy fame and respect at international level but their graph of popularity within the country is falling due to their inconsistent policies that have resulted in poverty, price hike, unemployment, lawlessness and such other problems.

He said political parties should raise their voice for provincial autonomy although, he observed, nearly all of them were weak and threatened by internal division and rifts.—PPI