- Decades old demand of a separate province in Punjab gains momentum once again
- PML-N believes calls for the new province are nothing but a political gimmickry since JPM leaders never came up with this demand in the last five years
LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Sunday threw its support behind calls by a new political party, Janoobi Punjab Suba Mahaz (JPM), for South Punjab to become a separate province.
The senior vice chairman of PTI, Shah Mahmud Qureshi, met leaders of JPM and assured them of his party’s support for their “just demand.”
“PTI fully supports the demand of JPM for a separate province. The Punjab government was in a position to address this issue. However, it refused to do it,” Qureshi told the media. “The new province will help end the deprivations of the people of the area.”
Six members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party quit the legislature and defected from their political faction last week to form Janoobi Punjab Suba Mahaz — a new party seeking for South Punjab to become a separate province.
The legislators — Khusro Bakhtiar, Tahir Bashir Cheema, Basit Bukhari, Rana Qasim Noon, Tahir Iqbal, Balakh Sher Mazari, Asghar Ali Shah and Nasrullah Dreshak — belong to the Saraiki belt, a significant chunk of territory in South Punjab.
Responding to their demand, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the creation of new provinces was only possible if all the political parties reached a consensus on the subject.
As part of a mandatory procedure for the creation of a new federating unit in Pakistan, he said, no single political party was allowed to introduce an amendment and get it passed in the legislative forums.
“It is not about South Punjab only. The same demands have also been made in other areas of the country, such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan. This issue requires political dialogue and all parties should sit together on this issue,” Abbasi said on Saturday while addressing a public gathering in the South Punjab area.
Criticizing the act of the six party legislators who resigned, he said they had remained part of the government for five years but never took up the issue with the party leadership.
The demand for a separate federating unit in the Saraiki territory is not new and has deep roots in Pakistan’s history.
Before the creation of the country, Bahawalpur was an independent state until it was made part of “One Unit” — a geopolitical scheme which divided the country into East and West. But when One Unit was dissolved, Bahawalpur was merged with Punjab, causing its inhabitants to react strongly to that development.
Seth Obaidur Rehman, then chairman of the Municipal Corporation, launched a movement he said was for the protection of Saraiki language. The movement was later transformed into a “Reinstate the State Status” campaign and became political when the Bahawalpur United Front was formed. The Bahawalpur United Front contested the 1970 elections on the slogan of a separate province and won four seats when the Pakistan People’s Party swept the polls across the country. They continued to demand a separate province, but the movement lost momentum during the regime of President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
In the past, the movement for a separate province within Punjab was launched with different names. One group called for a Saraiki Province, the other demanded South Punjab Province, and the residents of Bahawalpur division sought for a Bahawalpur Province.
“South Punjab has historically been a separate administrative unit. It was a separate unit in the era of Muhammad bin Qasim. It had the status of a province even in the Mughal era and also under the rule of Raja Ranjeet Singh. We want the revival of that status,” former senator, Sardar Mohsin Khan Leghari, once said.
“We do not want a province based on ethnicity,” he said while pointing out that about 40 percent of the population in South Punjab was Baloch.
Former Punjab governor and veteran politician from South Punjab, Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, also supports the creation of a new province but on administrative grounds.
“We don’t support the creation of South Punjab on a linguistic basis. However, if the division is made on administrative grounds, we won’t oppose it,” said Khosa.
“It’s very difficult for a person living in the border town of Rojhan to come to Lahore and have his grievances addressed.”
The latest developments in calling for a new province in South Punjab come just months before the elections. The national and provincial assembly of Punjab has passed resolutions pertaining to the subject, though they have not been implemented.
However, the proponents of the new province have used the slogan of development this time. “South Punjab is deprived of basic amenities of life. No hospital, no education, no employment for the people. We demand a separate province for development to improve the lives of our people,” said Khusro Bakhtiar, one of the legislators who defected from PML-N.