Before adopting the first Constitution of Pakistan, our inept leaders imposed two consequential decisions on the nation – the adoption of the Objectives Resolution as the preamble of the future Constitution, and the One-Unit – transforming Pakistan from a progressive and liberal state into an Islamic Republic, and a unitary country instead of a federal one as envisioned by the Quaid in his speech of 11 August 1947. This was a dangerous attack on the territorial foundations of the federal constituents of Pakistan, which had willingly come together to create it.
The idea of One Unit was a well-planned conspiracy. The Punjabi and Mohajir leadership were intrigued to keep the majority of East Bengal at a distance from the state affairs of the country. For this purpose, constitution-making was delayed; direct elections in the country were avoided, opting finally for an indirect election system. A lopsided quota system for the allocation of civil service posts between the two wings was adopted. Discrimination against Bengalis and the smaller provinces was rampant.
The Quaid-e-Azam, following the language riots in Dhaka, was also advised by his advisor on economic affairs, Sir Archie Bold Rowland, to amalgamate all four provinces in West Pakistan into one geographical unit to counterbalance Bengal. The Quaid rejected the scheme. However, the scheme received impetus after the ascent to power of Ghulam Muhammad, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Iskander Mirza and General Ayub Khan. The General was one of the strong supporters of this scheme, as confirmed by him in his Friends Not Masters, later on. He was probably scheming to have a strong central administration under his military regime.
In league with the above leaders were Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, Muhammad Ali Bogra, Feroz Khan Noon, Begum Shah Nawaz from Punjab; Sardar Abdul Rashid, Yousaf Khattak from KPK; and M. Ayub Khuhro, Pir Ali Muhammad Rashdi, Ghulam Nabi Pathan from Sindh – just to name a few protagonists of the scheme. Among the Urdu-speaking leaders from Sindh, Chaudhry Khaliquzaman was the sole leader to take a clear stand against the scheme, with an emphasis on seeking the consent of the people of Sindh in a transparent manner.
The question is: what was compelling these leaders to enforce such a scheme to the dismay and antagonism of the majority of political leaders from the smaller provinces? These leaders believed in a strong centre, fearing the majority of the Bengalis would capture power in any election. They also feared the growing clamour of the smaller provinces for political, economic, financial and cultural autonomy in a federation.
This country with weak statehood, fragmented nationhood and a moribund economy cannot afford further experiments
Weighing heavily on their minds was also any potential political alliance between Bengal and the smaller provinces to challenge the dominance of the Punjabi-Mohajir axis in the federal power and the federal administrative and judicial structures. By any means, they just wanted to impede the rise to power of Bengalis, disregarding the nation-building process.
All other schemes, including that of the ‘Muhammad Ali Bogra Scheme’, counterbalancing the majority of Bengal in the lower and upper houses by allocating more seats to the four units in West Pakistan, were turned down in favour of One-Unit. Thus, all three schemes – One-Unit, Parity and Unitary State – were approved by the Muslim League Parliamentary Party in November 1954. They were, however, foreseeing difficulty in having it adopted by the Sindh Assembly.
The government of Abdul Sattar Pirzada was, therefore, dismissed, and Khuhrowas appointed as Chief Minister of Sindh, though he was not a member of the Provincial Assembly and was also disqualified from holding any public office. His disqualification was removed overnight. He employed all coercive measures to have the One-Unit resolution adopted by the half-empty House, earning for himself the sobriquet of ‘traitor of Sindh’.
Sindhi leaders, including Abdul Sattar Pirzada, Hyder Bukhsh Jatoi, G.M. Syed, Qazi Fazalullah, Abdul Hameed Jatoi, Abdul Fatah Memon, Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgar, and many more, vehemently opposed it, as the scheme was against the very spirit of the Pakistan Resolution of 194,0, which propounded geographically and politically autonomous states and not a unitary state.
Government jobs and the senior and mid-ranking positions in the smaller provinces came to be controlled by the politically dominant province of Punjab in collaboration with Mohajirs. The senior positions of Commissioners, Deputy Inspectors General of Police, Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police were held overwhelmingly by Punjabis or Mohajirs. The breakup of these officers (Civil Service and Police Service) posted in Sindh from 1955 to 1970 is: 88 Punjabis, 147 Mohajirs, 90 Sindhis and 9 Pathans. The Sindhis were mostly Superintendents of Police, with very few posted as Deputy Commissioners.
There was also a gross imbalance in the allocation to the prestigious CSP Group between West Pakistan and East Pakistan in the period from 1949–1965. Out of the total allocations of 397, there were 131 officers from East Pakistan and 256 from West Pakistan. This anomalous situation looked like internal colonisation, as termed by foreign and local writers such as Christophe Jaffrelot, Allen McGrath, Ian Talbot, H.T. Sorely, Stephen Cohen, Khalid Saeed, Nauman Omar, Parveen Feroze Hasan, Sherbaz Mazari, G.M. Syed, Hyder Bukhsh Jatoi, Hamida Khuhro, just to name a few.
This single bad experiment dealt an ominous blow to our nation-building process. We have not yet overcome its sinister consequences. Now comes the idea of the territorial fragmentation of the federating units. Our problem does not stem from the territorial vastness or the unwieldy population of any federal unit.
We owe our misfortunes to continuous bad governance, endemic corruption, the chronic absence of the rule of law and equality before law, free and fair democracy, devolution of powers, and the morbidity of third-tier governance. Instead of correcting these ills within the current federal set-up, we undertake a new experimental scheme stressing our financial and administrative resources, widening our fault lines, and stirring new controversies on economic, administrative, demographic and electoral delineations.
This country with weak statehood, fragmented nationhood and a moribund economy cannot afford further experiments.