Politics of New Provinces in Pakistan: A Historical Analysis

Abstract

Although provincial autonomy was given to provinces of Pakistan through the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 to pacify the political unrest, yet this amendment did nothing for the true socio-political assimilation of various sub-national identities of different regions such as Saraikis in Punjab, Hazaras in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Mohajirs in Sindh and the Pashtoons in Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan as well. Therefore the demand for creation of new provinces in Pakistan by the afore-mentioned communities prevailed in their respective regions particularly after renaming the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) as KP. The said demand has currently been discarded in other federating units of Pakistan, yet it is prevailing with full momentum in Punjab with respect to the creation of South Punjab province. In that background, the core objective of this study is to inquire about history of these demands for creating new provinces as well as to shed light over the role of various political parties and the constitutional procedure regarding the creation of new provinces. Qualitative method of reasoning is applied to conclude the results. The study finds that division of Punjab at least into two provinces would not only result in administrative convenience but governance and service delivery would also be improved for the general public residing in the province.