THE compere of a television talk show on March 23 took all political parties and patriots to task for letting the day pass without a celebration.

To shame them he played a strip showing a group of eunuchs dancing at the Minto (now Iqbal) Park and later invoking divine intervention to save Pakistan from its enemies and its own scheming politicians.

Sentiments aside, the compere unjustifiably worked himself up into a rage. The indifference, or forgetfulness, of the politicians as also of the people, is wholly understandable. The “independent states” to be formed in the northwestern and eastern zones of India (in which the Muslims were in majority and the constituent units were to be “sovereign and autonomous”) that the Lahore Resolution of 1940 envisaged never came into being.

The present Pakistan is not the one that its founder had hoped for — a state that would “wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people especially of the masses and the poor — who are all citizens and equal citizens of one state”, making “religion, cast or creed” irrelevant.

Today's Pakistan has little relevance to Jinnah's “one state” of equal citizens and none at all to the “independent states” of the Lahore Resolution. Bearing that in mind, it was too much to expect of the politicians, locked in a perpetual struggle for power, and the masses who are ever struggling for survival to find time to celebrate at the Iqbal Park monument. Kudos to the eunuchs.

In any case, harking back to a Pakistan that never was makes little sense when even the bit that remains is steeped in violence and teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Over the past two years its political leaders have been tackling issues which, undoubtedly, were politically important but provided no relief to the common man.

The politicians can surely claim credit for extending some concessions to a restive Balochistan, upgrading the northern territory of Gilgit and Baltistan to the status of a province and for forging consensus on the distribution of revenues between the federation and the provinces.

But does that matter to the common man? Just take one example the price of wheat flour has doubled and that of sugar has almost trebled in the two post-Musharraf democratic years.

The extravagance of the government and the focus of its propaganda machinery on devices like the income-support programme and employee stock options (in a few state-owned industries) that benefit not even a small fraction of one per cent of the population only rubs salt in the wounds of the poor and jobless.

The government is doing little to check inflation and would achieve even less if it were to try. But surely it can cut its own size and economise on publicity stunts. More pertinently, it should give out jobs, stipends and whatever other largess it has to the qualified and deserving and not to kin and party loyalists which it is widely believed to be doing. The claim of the Punjab chief minister that his government goes by merit alone would deserve applause if confirmed by an independent source.

The essential point to be made here is that the people would not grumble or protest if they were to have the confidence that the government acts justly in whatever it does. That they don't have. An impression, howsoever erroneous, has all along been given by our leaders that the new political system would start delivering to the masses only after the 17th Amendment is repealed. After two wasted years they are still stuck on some issues that concern personal egos more than public welfare. The renaming of the NWFP is one such issue.

The PML-N's objection (more personal to Nawaz Sharif) to Pakhtunkwa seems to arise as it resonates with the dreaded Pakhtunistan of the Red Shirts. Adding 'Abasin' or 'Khyber' to Pakhtunkhwa makes little sense. Afghania sounds like a variation of Afghanistan. The point being overlooked is why change the name of the province at all and is it necessary that the name reflect its racial or ethnic character?

Punjab is named after five rivers that flow through it and that is why its inhabitants are called Punjabis. Sindh also gets its name from river Indus which sustains it. The North-West Frontier did not have a name when it became a part of the Ghaznavid empire in the 12th century or later when it fell under the sway of the Ghauris and other Afghan dynasties.

Nor was it given a name when it became a part of the Mughal Empire, or later when occupied by invaders Nadir Shah and Ranjit Singh till the British conquest in 1849. It was named by the British as it is now when constituted as a separate province in 1901.

Likewise, when the British annexed the kingdom of Oudh they merged it with the Agra Presidency to form the North-Western Province in 1877 which was renamed the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in 1902. That became UP in short. The Indians showed ingenuity preserving the initials when they renamed the province Uttar Pradesh.

The point to note is that the UP like the NWFP is home to diverse races and ethnic groups but the name of the province is linked to its history and geography as is Punjab's and Sindh's. The inhabitants of UP are sometimes called UPitesbut they are identified by their race. Going by the number of Khans, one gets the impression as if UP had more Pathans than the NWFP.

To the devout Muslim Leaguers, the passion of the Awami National Party (which is still viewed as successor to the Red Shirts as its chief is the grandson of the Frontier Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar Khan) to name the province as Pakhtunkhwa sounds like a call back to Pakhtunistan. Most Punjabi- and Hindko-speaking inhabitants of the province (who, perhaps, outnumber the Pushtu speakers) may not oppose it but would rather not change.

The North-West Frontier has an aura of history and romance of battle which the Pakhtuns, more than others, should be loath to lose. It recalls their defiance and pride worldwide.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com