The color-blindness of the Urdu press, and a complete blackout of the unrest in Sindh by the so-called ‘National Media’, notwithstanding, the Canals issue had the potential to explode into the disaster of the highest order. Thankfully (or hopefully), the issue has been laid to rest for the time being – until some brilliant mind comes up with a new mischief, that is.
But why did the issue pop up in the first place, despite all the safeguards and assurances enshrined in the constitution for the constituting provinces and peoples of Pakistan?
Does the constitution of the country have the power to save smaller (weaker) provinces from accesses committed against them?
A series of treaties were signed between Sindh and the British East India Company (the Company) since 1808. And yet, Sindh got annexed by the British in 1943, which General Napier, the conqueror, termed ‘a noble piece of rascality’.
If those treaties and agreements could not deter the Company from forcefully and deceptively annexing Sindh, it would be naïve to expect that the constitution of Pakistan, a 12-page document that has been torn apart and trampled upon by the sword-wielding crusaders time and again, will be able to provide Sindh any protection.
Whether the Punjab would have used Sindh’s share of water to irrigate the lands allotted to the mighty in Cholistan or not, is beside the point. With a history of betrayals and bad faith, the suspicions of Sindh were not completely unfounded.
The Tripartite Treaty, signed in 1938, was an agreement between the British East India Company, the Sikh Empire of Ranjeet Singh and Shah Shuja Durrani of Afghanistan. Sindh was not even a party to the treaty and yet Mirs of Sindh were coerced into paying the tribute money to fund the British-Sikh expedition into Afghanistan. The money thus wrung from Sindh went to Maharaja Ranjeet Singh for whatever reasons!
The bitter fact being Sindhis have been robbed so badly and so blatantly that they have lost faith in getting justice in the current scheme of things
With all due respect and deference to ‘Big Brother’, Punjab has been eyeing the land and the resources of Sindh even before Nehru’s ‘tryst with destiny’ in 1947. In Sindh, betrayal of trust is not a post-independence phenomenon.
The Sikhs captured Multan in 1818 after martyring Nawab Muzaffar Khan. Their next target was Sindh. It is not just the glitter of sweet waters flowing downstream from North to South that has been causing problems between Punjab and Sindh but also the salty waters that the Punjab has been wanting access to since Ranjeet Singh’s times. The Sikhs wanted to reach the sea. Their army was getting stronger by the day under French and Italian generals. They had proven their muscle in Punjab, the areas now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan. Now they wanted to build a navy and to do that, they had to have Sindh.
In 1809, the Company signed a South Sutlej Treaty with Maharaja Ranjeet Singh, which set the Sutlej River as the boundary between the Sikh Empire and British India. The Treaty gave Sikhs the primacy over the lands south of the Sutlej River. Sindh fell in the south. The Sikhs kept insisting that according to the Treaty Sindh was a Cis-Sutlej (South of Sutlej) state, therefore, one of their territories. They demanded that the Company should refrain from interfering when the Sikhs invaded it.
The British did not agree, arguing that Sindh was an independent country and according to their treaties with Sindh, the Company was bound to support and protect it.
The Mirs of Sindh also knew that Sikhs were dying to annex Sindh. Therefore, they were obliged to sign even the unfair and cockeyed treaties with the British at the Company’s will and whims and paid the extortion money, begrudgingly though, for the Tripartite Treaty in 1938 to Ranjeet Singh, without having to do anything with the treaty.
To give the credit where it is due, had it not been for the British, the Big Brother would have swallowed Sindh a long time ago.
After 1947, Sindh became fair game, suffering one betrayal after another.
The creation of One Unit, for example, with Lahore as the capital of the western part of the country, was one of the biggest frauds committed against all other provinces constituting Pakistan. This denuded the smaller provinces of not just their independence but resources and jobs as well, throwing everything in the lap of Big Brother. This was seen as a betrayal by the Sindhi people.
The succession of martial laws, with a vast majority of the rank and file coming from Punjab, especially Zia's martial law, hurt Sindh more than any other province for many reasons.
Nonstop betrayal in the form of lopsided recruitment and selection in the federal level jobs, military and sports teams, where selection boards are packed with folks from Punjab, being some of the reasons of Sindh’s lack of faith against the bigger province.
The uneven distribution of Indus water for the last several years is one more reason for bad blood. Sindh has lost millions of acres of land in the sea belt due to insufficient flow of water to the sea. While Chashma Jhelum Link Canal, a flood irrigation system, continues to operate even during the drought seasons in Punjab, Sindhis die of thirst in Thatta and other tail-end areas of the Indus. For the past decade or so, the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has not seen a Sindhi chairperson!
Pakistan has built severalThe motorways since 1996. Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, built the first motorway that year between Lahore and Islamabad, defying logic and the traditions – normally, highways start from the seaport. It has been 29 years since, and yet Sindh does not have a single highway! Why not?
When this question was raised again and again, to shortchange the Sindhi people, an additional lane was added on each side of the existing Karachi-Hyderabad super highway. It was named M-9 Motorway, and Sindhis were told ‘Here is your motorway, go play with it’. The road is not a motorway by any standards, but like they say in Urdu jo chaahe aap kaa husn-i karishma saaz kare.
Karachi-Sukkur motorway was announced earlier this year. Now, we hear that the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) is planning to replace it by Lahore-Sahiwal motorway!
In the Supreme Court of Pakistan not a single Sindhi speaking judge was allowed to be appointed for a decade or so, until recently! Where should Sindhis go to seek justice, if they cannot get it even in the Supreme Court of the country?
I have numerated only a few examples here. The bitter fact being Sindhis have been robbed so badly and so blatantly that they have lost faith in getting justice in the current scheme of things. And, hence their mistrust and lack of faith in the system.
Sindhis know that they will have to fight to get justice, and that is why they did what they did in Babarloi. And, it worked this time!
But the question remains in a common Sindhi’s mind: how many more noble pieces of rascality will Sindh have to endure?