THE absence of inclusive growth strategy over much of the past six decades has spurred demand for creation of new provinces. The demand is also the natural consequence of the current phase of industrialisation and socio-economic development.

While the country has made rapid progress when seen in a historical perspective, the national wealth so created has not been fairly distributed between the rich and the poor, among the different provinces and various districts within each federating unit.

Traditionally capitalism tends to concentrate capital in few hands, population in urban centres and workers in factories. In this process, these centres radiate growth in the periphery, helped by development of latest technologies.Computers/internet are devolving businesses, weakening concentration and dispersing assets. This  is creating a space for less privileged to fend for themselves and is having a corresponding impact on politics.

That is why one sees political backlash against centralised system of governance, both at the federal and the provincial levels and renewed demand for devolution. Some want new provinces while others seek greater autonomy for district governments.These demands have an ethnic bias.

No doubt, the present government has made significant steps towards devolution (seventh NFC Award and the 18th Amendment) providing for more autonomy to the existing provinces but it is proving inadequate in meeting the aspirations of some segments of the deprived people. The autonomy transferred to the provinces has not been further devolved to the district governments.

In the past, keeping in view the increased population or distances and to bring the administrative machinery to the doorsteps of the people, more districts have been created by provinces. But they are not fully empowered. And representative district governments have been disbanded.

For the past six decades, the country has been largely run through a unitary or semi-unitary form of government begetting social exclusion. The outcome is there for all to see. There is insurgency in deprived Balochistan and social tensions in Sindh between relatively affluent urban dwellers and poorer rural inhabitants. Similar is the situation in Saraiki belt where people are eyeing a separate province because they feel that they have been deprived of an equitable share in Punjab’s remarkable economic progress and prosperity.

Both in rural Sindh and Saraiki belt, the landed gentry is also a major barrier to the region’s social progress. And Hazara does not want to share its prosperity with the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The mal-distribution of the country’s assets has given rise to ‘ethnic self-assertion within the spirit of collectivism.’ It is political economy at work.

It cannot be denied that some mechanism has been developed under the NFC arrangements to distribute financial resources more equitably among various districts. But because of the limited service delivery capacity of the provinces, not much has been achieved. It will still take some time for the provinces to fully benefit from the fiscal, legislative and administrative autonomy conceded by the Gilani government.

However, the problems that are leading to vociferous demand for new provinces, are much more deep-seated. Pakistan came into being as a federation with provinces enjoying modest autonomy. Even this modest autonomy was destroyed by extra-constitutional interventions and induction of unitary system (concept of one economic unit) not suited to a multiethnic and multinational country. The solution lay in seeking unity in diversity—-integrating into federal economy through full autonomy to the ‘provinces’.

While the centralised system may appear to work, the reality is quite different. In the preface to his book ‘Friends, Not Masters’ President Mohmmmad Ayub Khan observed that the country was (then) ‘moving from crisis to crisis’ and that seemed to be ‘our present destiny.’

Now the country is facing multiple crisis, much more complex in nature, with the federal government trapped in the whirlwind of global and fragmented domestic politics. Further devolution provides the solution. There is a consensus on the need to create new provinces. But differences persist on how to go about it. For example, Nawaz League wants new provinces on administrative grounds.

Others stand for Saraiki province on linguistic and ethnic basis. The constitutional procedure for creating of a new province is cumbersome and needs to be simplified. The best course would be to let people of every ethnic belt decide through a referendum whether they want a separate province or not. After all, Pakistan came into being through votes of provinces and districts in Punjab. The people are not seeking separatism but a province, an administrative unit —-not even the status of a federating unit in the real sense. It was denial of autonomy that led to separation (Bangladesh). It is through active cooperation between different autonomous provinces for common good that can make the federation strong and prosperous.United in diversity, they tend to gain enormously.

The creation of new provinces would promote more active participation of the people in socio- economic development and help end social exclusion prevailing in the deprived areas. If two or more ethnic communities chose to live within a province, the minority group/groups( numerically justifiable) should enjoy an autonomous administrative status within a province in true spirit of democratic federalism.