Fighting for the Rights

Nationalists accuse PPP of working to divide Sindh

Karachi: Nationalist parties in Sindh have been holding protests across the province to oppose two recent legislative developments which they consider injurious to the rights of the province and its people.

The protests were triggered by two resolutions adopted by Sindh Assembly during a thinly attended session on 9 December. The reolutions related to Articles 144 and 147 of the Constitution which provide for the right of a province to grant the federal government the powers to regulate certain developments within exclusive provincial jurisdiction.

The resolutions were focused on allowing the federal government to supervise and resolve issues pertaining to dispute resolution with a consortium of foreign mining firms engaged in the Riko Diq oil and coal mining project in Balochistan. They also gave the National Assembly the powers to legislate on various aspects of investments in Sindh province. The protesters are also agitating the formation of a committee by the federal government to create new provinces in the country. For many, the focus of this move is to divide Sindh into an urban and a rural province.

Nine nationalist parties, and a literary body, the Sindhi Adabi Sangat, held protests at almost all the divisional headquarters of the province during 7-8 January, and are now discussing plans for a wider agitation by 17 January, the day which marks the 119th birth anniversary of a widely respected Sindhi nationalist, G M Syed.

Bol spoke to three main leaders of the protests.

Riaz Chandio

Chairman Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz

On 30 November, the National Assembly speaker and a leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, formed a parliamentary committee on bills to amend the Constitution to create new provinces. The committee was headed by another PPP leader, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah. Then on 9 December, the PPP-ruled Sindh Assembly passed two resolutions to give executive powers in some provincial matter to the federal government.

These moves show that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PPP co-chairman and former president, Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Shehbaz Sharif, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and others who call themselves the champions of provincial autonomy are using the Riko Diq project as an excuse to rob Sindh of its powers.

Under these two anti-Sindh decisions, the Centre will get unbridled access to Sindh’s natural resources and exploit them without the consent of the people of Sindh.

The PPP, which has been ruling Sindh for 15 consecutive years, is infested with the most corrupt system that promotes nepotism, favoritism, police excesses and other evils. The recent rains and floods have clearly shown the absence of proper infrastructure at local, district or provincial levels. It is really a shame that neither the judiciary nor the establishment is ready to make the PPP accountable.

Syed Zain Shah

President Sindh United Party

The question is, why have the PPP leaders floated these two anti-Sindh resolutions? Actually, the chief of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif, has lost his favours with the establishment and the PPP wants to replace it for future political gains. So, the Zardari clique is using the historic state of Sindh as a bargaining chip. In order to ensure benefits in the upcoming federal and provincial government, it will be willing to roll back the 18th Amendment as well as some other constitutional clauses to expand executive powers to the Centre.

We strongly condemn decisions that will weaken and divide Sindh, roll back the 18th amendment and trigger yet another One-Unit scheme of 1950s and 60s. If the federal government takes any decision in the days to come that may appear against Sindh’s interests, we will put up a stiff resistance. And we will not allow Zardari to get it done at any cost.

We appeal to the establishment not to throw the country into further political and economic crises as it is already facing serious internal and external challenges.

Dr Niaz Kalani

Senior leader Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz-Bashir

Sindh was included in Pakistan through a resolution moved by G M Syed in the Sindh Assembly in 1943. Sindh is not an administrative unit. It is a federating unit like Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. But it appears that the rulers of Sindh are preparing to surrender the rights of the province as guaranteed by the 1973 Constitution.

If the Sindh government wants to give relief to some commercial company, the Sindh Chief Minister should use his powers to get it done. It is wrong to amend the Constitution and surrender powers to the Centre for this purpose. If this precedent is set, the federal government will be able to do what it wants to do in future without seeking consent of the province.

Such anti-Sindh initiatives taken by the PPP could hurt the unity of Sindh, which can never be divided otherwise. Sindh is the economic backbone of the country. Any harm inflicted on it will harm the entire country. We will take to streets and protest at all levels if Sindh’s unity is challenged.

The PPP wants to stay in power, and it will do anything to ensure it stays there. Although it gets votes from the people of Sindh, yet it is not a true representative of the province, and so the people are now getting sick and tired of it.

I believe that nationalist parties represent Sindh truly, as we always stand by the people of Sindh. No doubt, we as nationalists do not contest elections because we do not believe in parliamentary politics, and those who are ‘selected’ and brought to the provincial and national assemblies and the senate don’t have the urge to safeguard the rights of the people.