THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Allah Alone Knows
SINDH’S REJECTlON OF PAKISTAN is total. But the Pakistani establishment,
backed by the United States of America has no intention of disappearing from
the scene. Here is an irresistible force facing an immovable object. What can be
the upshot of such an explosive situation? Allah alone knows, but man may
speculate --- in the light of history . . . and common sense.
Right now people in Pakistan --- and particularly in Sindh --- want elections.
They want elections because, as former Indians, they have known elections since
1921. They are not like the Arabs or the Iranians who have never known a proper
election. After Partition, they have not had seven elections like in India. But they
had elections in 1954 and in 1971 --- and again in 1977. After the 1954 elections,
Fazlul Haq of East Bengal came to West Bengal and said in Calcutta that “those
who divided the country are traitors” (“Desher vibhajan jara korechhe, tara
deshadrohi”). He was then dismissed for his labours. But the 1971 elections more
than vindicated Haq when Mujibur Rehman converted East Pakistan from a
colony of Pakistan into the sovereign state of Bangladesh. No wonder the
Pakistani establishment does not want elections.
Today military officers are working as Governors, departmental heads, collectors,
judges; they do not want to give up what they have, even if it does not belong to
them. However, there is another, bigger, reason behind the demand for elections;
and the Army is scared stiff of that. Today the conviction in all the provinces in
Pakistan is that they must have more powers. The party which asks for the
greatest autonomy will get the biggest electoral support. Their core demand is
that Pakistan must become a confederation, with the provinces transferring only
Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communications and Currency to the Centre. The
money for the Army must also come from the provinces --- with their approval.
It is the old 6-point formula of Mujibur Rehman again at work. The Army wants
no part of such a scheme. It has scared Washington with the assessment that any
elections in Pakistan will return “leftist” parties. And for the USA, Left --- any
Left --- is communism. The fact, however, is that the Pakistan provinces will not
go leftist; they will go nationalist. However, the USA is not used to such nice
distinctions in the realm of its Third-World diplomacy. Whatever, apparently,
goes counter to American interests, is bad, subversive, “communist”. It i8 not
very different from South Africa, where anybody who objects to “apartheid”, is
dubbed “communist”.
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