Fiddling with the federation
PAKISTAN was born to be a federation. The concept of federation formed the foundational pillar of the political scheme that Mr Jinnah propounded and advocated until the late 1930s in the context of a post-colonial ‘united India’. And then, federalism remained a byword for the struggle for a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
In fact, the 1940 Pakistan Resolution — as amended in 1946 — defined the contours of a loosely stitched federal state. Subsequent constitutional history also denotes a general consensus on establishing a federal democracy. But it is a tragedy that federalism and democracy have received recurrent setbacks at the hands of both military generals and political charlatans, leading to the severance of half of the body that, in 1947, formed ‘Jinnah’s Pakistan’.
The country suffered the vivisection because autocracy and political opportunism failed to secure the integrity of the state and implement the ‘social contract’ with the people. Democracy as a truly representative parliamentary form of government continued to hurtle down a bumpy road. And federalism, as a cementing force of the willing constituent units, remained brittle, particularly during the dark ‘One Unit’ era when the state was denied the three requisites of forming a stable federation — a majoritarian government, provincial autonomy, and fairer distribution of powers and resources between the federation and provinces, and among citizens. Thus, the seeds of sociopolitical discord, if not disintegration, were planted in a soil manured with autocracy and myopia.
Surprisingly, once again, the ruling political elites, in cahoots with the powerful security establishment, are dismantling the federal and democratic structures. They are formulating policies in the name of ‘development’ which are arbitrary and unconstitutional — even by the standards of the existing, much-mangled Constitution. No wonder some have likened this hybrid polity to the One Unit era.
Thus, under the banner of the Green Pakistan Initiative, an ambitious programme has been launched by the federal government jointly with the army to boost agricultural productivity through ‘corporate farming’. The programme has raised three questions regarding its legality and viability.
The people of Sindh are restive for many legitimate reasons.
First, hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been allotted to military-backed corporate vehicles in Punjab and Sindh by the last caretaker governments, which acted beyond their constitutional mandate. Second, the federal government has announced the construction of new water canals on the Indus river and its tributaries to irrigate over one million acres of desert land in Cholistan but without seeking the prior approval of the Council of Common Interests (CCI). And, there is no official study assessing the GPI in terms of environmental impact, financial viability, and, more importantly, the fallout on the economy, demography, and stability of Sindh, the lower riparian.
Let’s not forget, the state already faces serious challenges to its writ in three of the four provinces, as well as Gilgit-Baltistan. If the country is proudly showing a semblance of normality to the world, it is largely due to the relative stability in Sindh. Miraculously, the people — despite the poor governance, worsening law and order, and other socioeconomic maladies — have not risen up against state institutions, notwithstanding a long history of local nationalist movements. But the controversial project involving the ‘arbitrary’ acquisition of two critical assets — water and land — could turn the province into a boilerplate of nationalism. After all, the Indus is the linchpin of Sindh’s demographic stability, environmental balance, economic sustenance, and even ethno-cultural identity. No wonder the province is now agitating. Political parties, lawyers, workers, and civil society have taken to the streets against the planned canals.
The people of Sindh are restive for many legitimate reasons. First, they have little hope of having their woes redressed by a judiciary widely perceived to be ‘controlled’ by the federal government. Second, the Sindh government remains characteristically impassive, unwilling to discharge even its constitutional obligation by taking the water dispute to the CCI, or invoking the conflict resolution machinery under Article 155 of the Constitution. Third, the federal and Punjab governments are relentlessly pursuing the construction of new canals, disregarding the constitutional bar or objection of Sindh, whose water rights are protected both under the 1991 Water Accord and international conventions. Finally, the new canals are being constructed despite credible studies projecting an increase in the ‘water deficit’ in the Indus river system due to climatic changes.
This raises the key question: how would the new command area comprising over a million acres of land in Cholistan be irrigated? It is absurdly claimed that this huge area would be fed by the floodwaters of the Sutlej when it is known that, under the Indus Waters Treaty (1960), the Sutlej, along with the Ravi and Beas, has been handed over to India.
Moreover, experts concur that there won’t be floods every year, nor will India release its ‘extra water’ annually. Which raises other questions: how would the new command area be irrigated if the Sutlej turns dry? Would the water then be sourced from the Indus? Does the Indus have sufficient water to spare for Cholistan? If not, won’t the people of Sindh pay the heavy cost of this ill-planned project? Finally, to what end is the state creating inter-provincial disharmonies and perennial conflicts?
Moreover, a military-backed company has acquired over 50,000 acres of lands in Sindh from the caretaker government, apparently without legal sanction. Additional water will also be needed to irrigate this land, when the province is already water-stressed. Its delta and marine life are in peril. The sea is engulfing large tracts of land. Even the future of the Karachi-Thatta-Badin coastal belt is threatened. In this grim scenario, can the province meet grave challenges — economic, demographic, environmental, social, and political?
Pakistan needs a stable and prosperous Sindh for its own stability and growth. The new canals and the arbitrary land grab could destabilise the currently peaceful, but potentially fissiparous province. Let’s stop fiddling with the federation and ensure the fair distribution of resources — particularly land and water — to strengthen interprovincial and national harmony.
The writer is a lawyer.
Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2025