SUP Manifesto

Declaring the India Act of 1935 as centralist, the Muslim majority states of United India, namely Bengal, Sindh, NWFP and Baluchistan had supported the Lahore Resolution of 1940 for its truly federalist commitment and joined Pakistan in the expectation and belief that they would enjoy autonomy and independence in the new federation of the Muslim Majority states. Their culture, language, resources and geography will be fully protected, which was clearly expressed/stated in the resolution moved by Sain G.M Sayed the leader of our party “Sindh United Party adopted by the Sindh Assembly (the first among all the state assemblies of United India to do so) on 3^rd April 1943 in support of the Lahore Resolution but the formation of the country was a condition, on the contrary, the states of the Muslim majority territories were attacked by flagrant denying their separate historical, geographical, cultural identity and entities. First below came in the shape of forcible imposition of urdu and separation of Karachi by placing it under the Centre. The Immigrant Commission enacted discriminatory laws and Hindus were forced to migrate from India in large numbers. The political system of the country was destabilized by abolishing the elected governments of the provinces. Hindus were forcefully evicted by emigrating from India on a large scale by creating discriminatory laws by forming the Muhajir Commission. Their properties, lands, factories, houses and jobs were confiscated and handed over to immigrants and especially the population of Sindh was unbalanced. The political system of the country was destabilized by abolishing the elected governments of the provinces.

The sovereignty and the First Constituent Assembly of Pakistan was exercised through unrepresentative persons, who turned the soil of Pakistan into a theater of war between Capitalist and the communist Blocks by binding it in the SEATO and CENTO treaties as a pawn in their conspiracies for furtherance of their respective interests. Contrary to the secular concept of the constitution in Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech in the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, the first prime minister of the Country Liaquat Ali Khan moved the objective resolution in the Constituent Assembly on 12^th March 1949 and made it a substantive part of the resolution at the behest of the world powers, paved the way for more and more entrenchment and encouragement of the fundamentalist forces.

On the other hand, the idea of frontier-less “Muslim Ummah” was developed in order to deny the historical existence and identity of nations under the notion of strong center. At the same time, majority was kept under the thumb of minority by seizing political power and civil bureaucracy. ICS, the anti-people and corrupt legacy of colonialism, was invested with greater authority and foisted upon political institutions and politicians by the first prime minister of Pakistan who established a special cadre of central secretaries with Chaudhri Muhammad Ali at its head as secretary general, which led to making these secretaries answerable to him instead of political government (the cabinet). The chief secretaries and IGPs of the states never felt themselves accountable to the state governments as they were directly appointed by the center. Favorite junior army officers appointed were deliberately preferred over their seniors for promotions to higher ranks, as a result of which Ayub Khan became commander-in-chief of the army as well as heed of the combined armed forces. Thus, the evil of direct participation of the civil and military bureaucracies in political decisions became a norm.

Some sincere, honest, wise, full of spirit of self-sacrifice politicians of the Muslim majority areas like Sain G.M Sayed, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abdul Samad Achakzai, Husain Shaheed Suharwardi, Mian Iftikharuddin, who had suffered a lot in the fight of freedom from the British rule were soon after the establishment of the country, constantly kept behind the bards and hounded illegally and without any justification by the usurpers of power for raising their voice against the obliteration of their nations separate identities the measures to impose foreign languages upon the native language the denial of provincial autonomy aligning religion with politics in governance patronizing favourite and corrupt politicians and establishment at the cost of the welfare of the provinces, infringement of democratic values, unlawful and unconstitutional actions, and disrespect for the rule of law.

Yet another action against national entities for the obliteration of their separate identities was an enforcement of the one-unit scheme in 1955, when their geographical boundaries were done away with under this chicaner of one unit, the multinational state of Pakistan was turned into an unnatural unitary state with two wings, eastern and western to continue and protect with direct martial law was imposed in 1958. After 15 years anti-One unit struggle by the people, this unnatural scheme came to its logical end in 1969, when General Yahiya Khan annulled it with the words that the system of One Unit had weakened the integrity of Pakistan. Thereafter, general elections for a constituent assembly were held in 1970. Non-acceptance of the majority mandate that had emerged from these elections resulted in massive protest movement in the eastern wing. Army was moved in to crush the movement, which led to civil war and emergence of that wing as Bangladesh.

What the federation of remaining Pakistan needed in view of its multinational character was a new social contract. Instead, a new constitution was framed in 1972 and 1973 to legalize the system of one unit by rejuvenating the system of strong center through controlled democracy, wherein the democracy was equated with numerical majority instead of equality parliament was kept away from home and foreign affairs, armed forces were strengthened; national democratic parties like NAP were banned, provinces were subjected to military operations after dismissing their governments, and workers of the National Political Parties imprisoned and harassed for long periods in the name of Defense of Pakistan rules. The new constitution of the Country, while recognizing the geographies of historical nations, manifestly denied their ancient languages making states into provinces and their powers, natural resources, taxes and financial system was controlled by a legal hold of a strong center making it more centralized by the Act of 1935 and brought into permanent legal custody.

Today Pakistan is nominally a country of federal constitution but in actually it is a peculiar specimen of unitary form of governance in which the national entities/provinces are totally powerless and helpless. All their natural resources, administrative authority and most of legislative powers are hostage to the centralized system. Wealthy persons of rich national entities are considered poor. People are held tight in the snare of hunger, joblessness, poverty and lawlessness because their natural resources and financial means are not being used for their wellbeing. Since declaration of historical homelands of national entities as administrative provinces from the very inception of country, attempts are continuing to transmute permanently. The right to rule of Sindh and Baluchistan in particular through settlement of outsiders and forged show of settler’s minority as majority. Ceaseless attempts are foot to upset the balance of population by occupying the coastline of the provinces. Sindh, the day Pakistan came into being the vested interested group seized the country’s centre and through it, the provinces’ sovereignty and rapidly increased its share in power and benefits through this specific local government system to take the districts and cities. In the name of the Devolution plan by introducing the technique of grabbing the provincial government’s authority at the divisional level was replaced with the district and city governments, which on the one hand, challenged the administrative authority of the provinces and, on the other hand by increased direct contact with the centre justifying the centre to interfere in the provisional affairs. In the name of enhancing the administrative powers of the districts, it has indirectly opened the way of administratively dividing the provinces.   

The country’s experiment with aligning religion and politics in governance has strengthened the people of particular mindsets so that they may deem it right to impose their own beliefs and concepts upon other people of different ideas and concepts. This has led to extreme religious, faiths and political schisms, anarchy, terrorism, disorder and crises in the country.

• Looking at the country’s political, economic and administrative deterioration, questions like these arise in people’s minds.

• What would become of us?

• What should we do to preserve historical nations in this country beset with many-sided dangers and challenges?

• Are the seemingly federalist but, in reality, centralist and religious parties, being products of controlled democracy, conscious of this perilous future and have the will and ability to fact it?

• Can the rights and interests of national entities in the country be secured through the party programs of the political organisations, being supporters of constitutional subjection in the name of numerical-majority-based democracy?

• Can the fundamentalist religious parties, who have always been trying to run affairs of the state and religion together, solve our problems and should we give up our nationalist orientation to follow them?

• Should we leave everything to the parties, who represent the vested interest group with an unlawful hold on power since the birth of the country or who operate by its agenda and who change their colours with time so they may continue to keep the historical nations subservient through the appropriation of their resources and rights and to have like always the majority under the thumb of a minority with the help of incorrect statistics?

Today, the country’s 75 years of history and experience make it abundantly clear that it is a multinational federal state consisting of different historical nations having their separate historical homelands, which the natural and historical process can make one for securing their respective cultural, economic and political interests.  To achieve this, they must have complete autonomy and impendence within their historical homelands. The subject of defence, currency, foreign policy, foreign trade and some lines of communication should be handled by the federation, and all the rest should handover to the provinces; to run them, financial resources should be provided to the areas according to the share in the centre. The Country should have an accurate Federal Parliamentary system in which parliament alone is competent to frame home affairs and foreign policies. The upper house of the Parliament (Senate) should have the power to pass the budget and select the provincial governors.

There should be such a system in Pakistan where religion and politics should be treated separately. To strengthen the real federation by recognising the country as a multinational country, the powers and resources should be handed over to the federating units (provinces) by making them autonomous. Disputed issues should be resolved through dialogue. The defence budget should be spent on public betterment and development by creating an atmosphere of peace and brotherhood. In this way, we will be able to deal with fundamentalism, extremism, religious fanaticism, terrorism, and economic, political and cultural problems and make Pakistan a viable democratic state. In this way, the international achievement of human unity, world peace and the development of humanity will be possible.