The most talked about topic regarding the current map of Pakistan is now making its way to the parliament’s floor and is testing the limits of the federation. For years talks regarding the restructuring of Pakistan’s provinces have been surfacing again and again. But this year has been different since it began, what began as a simple blunt “political dialogue” from the Interior Minister has grown into a serious point of discussion. One now headed for a formal hearing in Parliament. “The system we are living under has collapsed,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the Pakistan Economic Summit in July. “The only solution is to take the matter of administrative units, provinces, or whatever you may call it, to the public.” These remarks might have been ignored simply by terming them as nothing but “political theatre” but the same ideology echoed just some time after when the Military’s spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) advocated for the idea of an “administrative reset”, automatically referring to the problem of an unchanged administrative system and growing population of Pakistan making it difficult to run the state. On the other hand, while adding that any reset must come through constitutional and legal channels. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has separately called for deeper devolution of power to the grassroots. A Map Still Being Drawn So far, nobody in the Federal Government is clear about how many new administrative units can be made or where the lines would fall. The proposals that have floated till now all range from a modest number to as many as three dozen. One prominent idea under talks currently according to a senior government official is to make Karachi and Gwadar separate federally “administrative units” leaving the rest of Sindh undisturbed. Suggestions are there to split Punjab into three parts, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) into two parts, and Balochistan into two provinces. Federal MInister Abdul Aleem Khan, President of the Istehkam - e - Pakistan Party has campaigned for an even bolder version: divide each of the four provinces of Pakistan into three separate units. He is seen arguing that government offices should not require citizens to travel hundreds of kilometers to a provincial capital. “Why would anyone oppose it,” Khan asked, “unless it shrinks their kingdom?” Another unofficial version is seen to have caught the most attention out of all. A map which is circulating on social media without official government endorsement divided the 4 provinces of Pakistan into 18 units. Six from Punjab, four each from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, three from Sindh, with Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir shown as separate territories. Officials have not confirmed or denied it, but its spread has added momentum and confusion at the same time. Heading Toward a 28th Amendment Officials from the government believe that besides all the discussion that has been going on publicly regarding the new units, what’s more important is amending the constitution itself. What is already being called the 28th Constitutional Amendment. A source from the government said that the whole public debate going on currently is more likely a preliminary to the actual amendment still maintaining the fact that the idea is right now in its early stages emphasizing the importance of building consensus among different political stakeholders especially the ones who oppose the idea. The matter has reportedly been raised directly between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari, with contacts between coalition parties said to be under way. The amendment’s scope may extend beyond new provinces altogether: business groups, including the Pakistan Business Forum, are lobbying to pull sectors such as agriculture and industry back under federal control, arguing that devolution under the 2010 18th Amendment has not delivered the required results at all. The Pakistani Parliament is now expected to take up the matter formally. Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry has stated that both houses of the Parliament will formally take up the matter in October when the houses convene again. Sindh Draws the Line Nowhere has the reaction been sharper than in Sindh, long the political stronghold of the Pakistan Peoples Party. PPP leaders see an unmistakable threat in any plan that separates Karachi. “Except for Allah, no one has the power to divide Sindh,” Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has said. Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Chairman Bilalwal Bhutto has stated that his party was never consulted formally on any potential amendments that are currently publicly floating. He has also warned that the powers which have experienced devolution once cannot be pulled back easily. Provincial Local Government Minister Nasir Shah has gone further, accusing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), a federal coalition partner and the loudest advocate for new provinces, of using the issue to mask internal party troubles. MQM-P has rejected that framing. Party chairman Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui insists the push is a national necessity, not a narrow demand for Karachi alone, and has called for all parties to set aside self-interest and negotiate. Senior leader Mustafa Kamal has described the party’s campaign as entirely constitutional. The opposition, meanwhile, is not united against the idea. Within Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), some leaders back returning subjects such as health and education to federal oversight, and the party’s Senate leader, Ali Zafar, has voiced support for new provinces outright. Constitutional Fault Line However the politics shake out, the legal path is far from settled. The Constitution offers no clear procedure for creating a new province, and legal figures, including the Pakistan Bar Council’s vice chairman, Pir Masood Chishti, have argued that dozens of articles would need to be reframed which is in essence a formidable task in Pakistan’s current, closely divided Parliament. That gap is precisely why the government appears to be reaching for a constitutional amendment rather than ordinary legislation: any change of this magnitude would need two-thirds majorities in the National Assembly and Senate, along with resolutions from the affected provincial assemblies. What Happens Next? The whole issue of restructuring Pakistan has in fact moved far beyond just being a hot topic of talk shows and things are taking a very practical turn now. A national dialogue which took place last month by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute had representation from all the major political parties of Pakistan namely PML-N, PPP, MQM, PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami and JUI-F alongside federal ministers and technocrats, majority of the participants agreed that several factors should be considered when such major constitutional change is to be made, Factors like fiscal sustainability and administrative capacity were given importance on this occasion. With the possibility that the parliament will be taking this matter up for formal discussion in October, what is to be seen is whether new administrative units are a result of this exercise or this is all just another chapter in the decades old unsettled question that goes nowhere and for now remains an open unanswered question.
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