By Sajjad Ashraf
Pakistan has embarked on a slippery course by proposing the division of southern Punjab into two provinces, on linguistic grounds. Similar separatist tendencies in other provinces could split the federation.
Amidst the ongoing chaos and anarchy in Pakistan an important development, with far reaching consequences for the country, is going un-noticed. Early this month President Asif Ali Zardari sent a formal request to the speaker of the National Assembly to set up a commission to look into the legal, political and economic issues of creating two new provinces in southern Punjab. Multan and Bahawalpur provinces, where Saraiki is the main Punjabi dialect, are proposed to be carved out of the existing Punjab. The speaker was also to initiate the necessary constitutional amendment for the division.
The move seems timed to draw maximum benefit for the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the elections due early 2013. Earlier, the PPP led resolution in the National Assembly demanding separating South Punjab from the North was countered by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab Assembly, demanding that Punjab be split into three instead of two, Hazara be separated from the Pushtun dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and FATA (tribal areas) be made into a province.
With nearly 60 per cent of Pakistan’s population of around 180 million Punjab qualifies to be the tenth biggest country in the world. It contains the key military recruiting districts and many of the senior bureaucracy hail from Punjab. Its size, resources and power are resented by the other constitutent units in the federation.
Read the full story at Eurasia Review