Our Punjabi ruling gentry likes to believe that it lives in a clinical world set apart from the rest of the country. If the price of our Afghan war is 3m refugees, 285 bomb explosions, hundreds killed, 2m heroin addicts and 500,000 Kalashnikovs in the NWFP, we think it apparently a small sacrifice by the Pushtoons in pursuit of a noble national objective. If Sindh is mauled by ethnic strife, held to ransom by powerful dacoits, our patent response is to mutter in disbelief at ‘the law and order situation’, and turn in mock relief to the sports pages of our daily papers.
‘It couldn’t happen in the Punjab’ we sit back and pronounce with a definitive wave of the hand. Oh yes? Well, pause for a moment, consider these screaming headlines of the past two months.
In Lahore: over 100 major daylight dacoities in banks and homes; street firings in Gowalmandi, Shahdara, Township, Krishanager, Allama Iqbal Town and Defence; five shocking cases of ransom abductions (one of a leading industrialist, the others of children); armed attacks on the homes of Mr Mustafa Khar, Tahirul Qadri, Maneka and Ch Hakim Ali. Even the CM’s residence wasn’t spared by an armed young man desperate to attract attention, obtain justice!
Or consider: Maulana Jhangvi and Maulana Sajid Naqvi assassinated; sectarian riots in Jhang, Chiniot, Muzzafargarh, Thana factory area in Lahore; 7 policemen stoned (yes, stoned) to death by an angry mob in Chiniot; police stations attacked by violent public crowds in Lohari, Gulberg, Garhi Shahu, Samanabad….
No, Punjab is not another country. Punjabis can no longer pretend that their province has escaped the devastating consequences of the rapid erosion of civil society in the rest of the country. At the present rate of self-destruction and fragmentation, we do not have to worry about the Indians stepping in to finish the job.
This crisis is not just a ‘law and order’ problem requiring ‘strong-arm measures’. Nor is it a merely conflict between Benazir Bhutto and Messrs Nawaz Sharif & Altaf Hussain. These are only the latest symptoms of a deeper, underlying malaise related to the dynamics of the Pakistani state and the authoritarian and divisive role it continues to play.
Since its inception the state has been lopsided. Institutions of power such as the army, bureaucracy and the judiciary, and the pillars on which they rest — industry, commerce and land — have been concentrated in a single nationality — the Punjabis. By denying others a fair share in the fruits of growth, the state has antagonised them to the point of desperation.
Because the social, regional and cultural base of the state is narrow it has been plagued by recurring crises of legitimacy and raison d’etre. Should it reflect the aspirations of the provinces/nationalities or should it merely echo the prerogatives of the dominant Punjabis? Despite the tragic lessons of dismemberment in 1971 and insurgency in Balochistan and NWFP during 1973-77, despite the constitutional commitment to extend the provincial list, the state has consistently refused to decentralise any power. Instead, it has acted in a Viceregal tradition, ruthlessly dividing and ruling, scattering the people into bloody sectarianism and ethnicity.
In the end, the chickens always come home to roost. The Punjab cannot afford to be another country. And because it is the more powerful and the more wealthy of all the provinces, because it has lorded it for the longest, it hears a special responsibility to share wealth and power, help strengthen civil society and create a modern, democratic, federal nation-state. By chosing to ignore or strengthen the divisive tendencies enveloping Pakistan today, the Punjab may find that it is the biggest loser in the long run.