Former Information Minister and one-time spokesman of despot General Pervez Musharraf’s administration, Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani submitted a draft resolution with the Senate Secretariat, on June 25, to amend Pakistan’s constitution for ‘facilitating the process of creating new provinces with a simple majority of the Parliament.’
Under the Constitution of Pakistan, constitutional amendments, including the one being advocated by Senator Durrani, can only be carried out with a two-third majority by both the Houses of Pakistan’s Parliament (Senate and National Assembly) in their separate sittings. However, it seems that persons catapulted to the echelons of power by Martial Law regimes or one may say the products of short-cuts in the power game always seek recourse to short-cuts for achieving their goals. In this case, Senator Durrani wishes to follow the methodology used by his peers for ensuring the continuity of General Musharraf in power, in uniform. How they managed to get the 17th constitutional amendment bill passed and ensure General Musharraf’s continuity in power is a classic example of bypassing the procedure for amendments to the Constitution! Now, a product of the despotic rule wants to use the same recipe – rather tactics for creating more provinces.
Later, addressing a press conference at the Parliament House, Senator Durrani said, it is imperative to form new provinces of a manageable size, aimed at making administration easy and progress rapid of the under-developed areas. In view of ‘a very difficult and lengthy procedure to form a new province,’ Senator Durrani said, he had submitted the bill to “facilitate the process and by making this bill a part of the Constitution, the respective province or Senate could pass a resolution with a simple majority for creation of new province. Later, the Parliament would also need a simple majority to pass the bill.” At the time of Independence, “India had 16 provinces but it has created 12 new provinces for better management.”  The restoration of the provincial status of Bahawalpur would correct a historic wrongdoing by dictator General Yahya Khan, who had merged the Province of Bahawalpur into Punjab, defying Quaid-e-Azam’s commitment, Senator Durrani added.
Interestingly, till recently, there has been no demand for the re-establishment of Bahawalpur province that existed before Yahya Khan’s martial law, save by a group of self-styled intellectuals hardly representing anyone. No political party worth the name has ever aired any such demand. The same has been the case with the so-called Seraiki province. It was generally believed that the issue of Seraiki province or the division of Punjab into easily manageable smaller units had died down years ago. But, it looks that the protagonists of Punjab division had been lying in hibernation all these years, waiting for the emergence of a fair weather? Was their phase of lying low a ‘lull before a storm’ since this issue is now, once again, confronting the nation all of a sudden? However, this time, it seems, to gain political mileage some elements are trying to revive it more systematically and with greater zeal and strength. The efforts of these elements to raise the bogey of Punjab division has upset a vast majority of the people of Punjab, which literally means ‘panj’ five and ‘aab’ water or the land of five rivers.
At a time when the nation is facing crucial issues, like militancy, terrorism, restoration of the 1973 Constitution in its original form, gross economic problems, price hike and IDPs problem, the average Punjabis, particularly those hailing from the northern and central part of the province, believe that the new move to divide Punjab carries some sinister designs or is aimed at diverting the attention of the public from some crucial issues, like early restoration of the 1973 Constitution in its original form, just to ensure that President Zardari continues to wield absolute powers by. No doubt, the Speaker National Assembly has constituted a 27-member committee to revisit the 17th amendment to the Constitution, but the ruling PPP seems anxious to broaden the scope of this committee so that it remains seized with the issues entrusted to it for a long time.
In support of their contention, the quarters who subscribe to the belief of a “hidden” or “secret agenda,” equated the present campaign to divide Punjab with the one that Nawaz Sharif government had kicked off in favour of building the Kalabagh Dam after feeling cornered for seizing the foreign currency accounts of private citizens in the wake of nuclear test in May 1988. At that time, the government had hired a consultant to organise three seminars in different cities in favour of the construction of Kalabagh Dam. The first such function was arranged at the Peshawar University with a view to sidetracking people’s attention that was then negatively focused on the government due to the seizure of foreign currency accounts. Has the present move for the division of Punjab been floated to sidetrack the attention of the people from crucial issues facing the nation currently?
The Punjab province was partitioned into two parts at the time of Independence in 1947. The east Punjab was ceded with India and the west Punjab with Pakistan. Long ago, New Delhi carved out three separate provinces from its part of the Punjab. If west Punjab was also divided, a section of the Punjabis feel that the province would lose its identity and hence they oppose moves to divide it.
In fact, it was the first military ruler of Pakistan, FM Ayub Khan, who had sown the seeds for perpetuating a spectre of poverty in southern Punjab when he surrendered to India, under the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, Pakistan’s rights over three rivers (Sutleg, Ravi and Beas) of Punjab, rendering vast tracts of land barren in that region. Later, myopic policies and a partisan approach in allocation of development funds by the successive e governments has gone a long way in creating a strong sense of deprivation amongst the people inhabiting southern Punjab. 
Recently, amidst a lot of hue and cry, a group of MPs hailing from southern Punjab supported the demand for Punjab division, chanting slogans against centralization of powers and concentration of development in Lahore and adjoining areas when it was pointed out that only Rs. 5 billion had been allocated in the development budget for the Seraiki areas against over Rs. 100 billion for the central and northern Punjab. Even the National Assembly of Pakistan was recently informed that out of a world bank loan of Rs. 20 billion for construction of mega roads, not a single project was launched in the southern Punjab. Likewise, out of Rs. 20 billion taken as loan from the Asian Development Bank, only one 37-kilomentre road project was started on Multan-Muzaffarabad road.
The surfacing of facts like these, which speak volumes of discrimination in the allocation of funds, may give fresh impetus and strength to the move for the division of Punjab. Earlier, some PPP MNAs from Muzaffargarh (Qayyum Jatoi, Moazam Jatoi and Jamshed Dasti), in their party meetings, had demanded it from their party’s high command to divide Punjab. Later, they also raised their demand on the floor of the House. Did their move enjoy  the tacit support of the party high command who seem to be convinced that this would marginalize PML-N to the central and northern Punjab as the south might go for a party that supports the creation of a new province in that region.
As the inhabitants of southern Punjab are convinced that the creation of a new province meant more development funds and more job opportunities for the people of the region, whosoever opposed the creation of a new province might lose the sympathies of voters in a region facing the worst kind of poverty and backwardness. (See Pulse (June 12-18, 2009) article “Poverty fuelling sectarianism in southern Punjab”) However, PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab dismissed the notion and said that it was wrong to state that the government or PPP was in any way behind the campaign demanding more provinces.   
Meanwhile, this issue has created sharp differences within the ranks of PML-N. Its leader Javed Hashmi has publicly supported the move. Consequently, differences surfaced within the ranks of PML-N in the National Assembly, on June 26, 2009, when its MNA Hanif Abbasi, without naming anyone, snubbed the likes of Javed Hashmi, who joined the voices backing this move. Although PML-N had not yet officially started any deliberations on this issue, its top leadership reportedly fears that the move, which was said to enjoy the support of top PPP leadership, would be raised on a much bigger scale in the days to come and that this might play havoc with the politics of PML-N in Seraiki areas.
 In the past, moves like Punjab division did not generate much interest among the Seraiki voters during the elections, but this time the situation seemed quite different. Now, not only the PPP was supporting the move but it was for the first time that the MPs from the southern Punjab had also started raising this issue on the floor of the Parliament and the Provincial Assembly of Punjab. Furthermore, in the past the elected Representatives used to discourage this demand but now with the rising poverty in the region, they seemed convinced and supported this demand.
The move is, therefore, loaded with serious repercussions. If Punjab was divided on lingual or geographical basis, this would open Pandora’s Box because similar demands were bound to be raised in other provinces as well. Given the situation, the best course would be: judicious allocation of funds for the development of every area keeping in view the population and backwardness of the region, selection of projects for each area  in consultation with the local Representatives of the people, speedy justice, transparency in affairs of the government, award of projects on merit, strict monitoring of projects, delegation of powers up to the grass roots level, deterrent punishment to corrupt and greedy elements within the state hierarchy.
 However, if there was a need to divide the provinces into smaller units, then the best course would be to declare the old administrative Divisions, across the board, as administrative units instead of creating new provinces on lingual and geographical grounds. The districts or divisions serve as the basic administrative units in many countries of the world, including the Philippines and Afghanistan. However, in that eventuality the scope of powers of these administrative units would need to be defined afresh.
As every new province would need its own Legislative Assembly and Cabinet of Ministers, this might raise the administrative expenses manifold. Therefore, the move needs to be debated thoroughly before taking it up in the Parliament. But, we need to follow the Constitution of Pakistan, both in letter and spirit, and avoid all short-cuts because these often lead to blind alleys. Advocating the blessings of following the straight path, Shaikh Sa’adi said: “Rah-e-raast bego garche door ust….” We need to follow the right path and avoid all short-cuts if we want to embark on a journey that leads to prosperity and progress even if the path looks tedious and difficult.