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The origin and politics of the Seraiki movement
Who gains from the division of Punjab?
South Punjab ‘movement’
Letter to Editor
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The origin and politics of the Seraiki movement
By Shafqat Tanvir Mirza
BEFORE one comments on Riaz Missen’s piece ‘Seraiki nationalism in focus’ (Encounter, May 2) it is inevitable to quote Abdul Majeed Pirzada’s remarks at an Awami Tehreek Conference on provincial autonomy held at Hyderabad on May 10. He says: “Pakhtoons should not be alienated because they were ‘natural allies’ of the Sindhis against the Urdu-speaking people.” This is what can be termed a principle of necessity, if not the law of necessity — a principle that sustains the campaign against Punjab by the other three provinces in the federation.
Once, the Bengalis were in a majority in Pakistan. Their majority was snatched by the feudal West Pakistan and all the four provinces combined to impose parity on them. And when the Bengalis won a majority in the assembly, they were thrown out by the triangle of the feudals, generals and the bureaucrats under the command of a feudal leader from Sindh and an army general from the Frontier.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was given the task to confront the majority, and he did it. The feudal lords from all the four provinces in West Pakistan, in and out of his Pakistan People’s Party, were on his back. The feudals were thus saved from the radical agrarian reforms all the political parties which contested the 1970 election had committed themselves to. The Bengalis had a 36-acre ceiling while we still enjoy almost unlimited acreage.
Z.A. Bhutto was committed to radical agrarian reforms and other labour-capital socialistic relationship. On that basis he swept the polls in the Punjab districts of Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Sahiwal and the present-day Sargodha. He was clean bowled in the feudal-dominated districts where the Seraiki speaking people were in a majority and they were: Attock, Mianwali, Khushab, Jhang, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur. The PPP won overwhelmingly in Gujrat, Bahawalnagar, Multan and Muzaffargarh.
After the separation of East Pakistan most of the Seraiki MNAs and MPAs including Khosas, Legharis, Qureshis, Mazaris, Wattoos and Nawabs of Bahawalpur joined the PPP and saved their fiefs and the fear of the radical agrarian reforms subsided. However, the radical political verdict from the central Punjab loomed large. After the feudals of the Seraiki belt joined the PPP there was a conscious effort to bifurcate Punjab into two provinces and after the failure of the campaign for a separate Bahawalpur province, the language, or the dialect, was made the basis for this bifurcation move.
The first all-Pakistan Seraiki Conference was convened in Multan which was allegedly supported by the PPP Sindh chief minister and many of the Sindhi intellectuals including Rasul Bukhsh Palejo participated in it. But it ended in fiasco when some people in Multan published and distributed a map of the Seraiki province which included some of the Seraiki speaking areas of Sindh. The Sindhi participants raised the slogan of Hosho Sheedi: ‘Sir daisoon Sindh nah daisoon’ (I will give life but will never let go of Sindh) . With that the Seraiki movement of Punjab abandoned the idea of merging the Seraiki areas of Sindh in its proposed province, the most common factor between the two being the feudal power.
To alienate central Punjab the slogan of local (Multani) and non-local (Punjabi) was raised in 1962 elections by Sajjad Qureshi, the sajjada nasheen of Bahauddin Zakria, who took on Farooq Sheikh, an industrialist from Chiniot (part of Seraiki-speaking Jhang). Qureshi also raised the point of Multani as a separate language in the National Assembly. The word Seraiki was not in vogue in those days but anyhow bureaucrats close to Ayub Khan, such as Qudrat Ullah Shahab, allegedly supported Multani as a separate language.
Dr Tariq Rehman in his book Language and Politics in Pakistan, writes: “According to the antagonists of Seraiki, a powerful bureaucrat in General Ayub’s government, Qudrat Ullah Shahab, patronised the writers of Seraiki, asking twenty of them to claim that their language was different from Punjabi.” (P. 180).
Whether this is correct or not the fact is that the Writers Guild was used by Shahab and Jamiluddin Aali, the two architects of the Guild, to suppress the Lahore-based Punjabi Wing before the wing was dissolved unconstitutionally.
The Guild was not the only forum where politics of this kind flourished. Politicians also had their interests to watch. The Awami National Party of the Frontier and the Pakistan National Party of Balochistan formed their Seraiki units. Both these parties were against the hegemony of Punjab. The nature of this alliance was identical to what Mujeeb Pirzada has suggested in the context of the Sindhi-Pukhtoon alliance.
The two major national parties — the Muslim League, of all colours and hues, and the Pakistan People’s Party — have been reluctant to give support to the Seraiki movement which emerged after the merger of Bahawalpur state in Punjab following dismemberment of the One-Unit. The ‘Bahawalpur Suba’ movement was not based on the language issue but when it fizzled out after the 1970 election, Multan became the centre of Seraiki activities.
One of the early protagonists of the Seraiki language, area and perhaps a separate Seraiki province, was a senior irrigation engineer Syed Noor Ali Zamin Haidri. His book, Mua’arif-i-Seriaki (1972) forcefully argued that from time immemorial the area of Pakistan had been ruled by the people from Sindh Sagar Doab and from those who came from the western bank of the Indus. These areas, he said, had produced much more superior rulers including Z.A. Bhutto, who was the president of Pakistan at the time the book was published, and Gen Ayub Khan.
Haidri’s list of able rulers was quite long, but exclusive. It included names of Nawab of Kalabagh, Sir Sikander Hyat, Sir Khizr Hyat, Sir Feroz Khan Noon, Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Gen Tikka Khan, Ayub Khuro, G.M. Syed, Pirzada Abdus Sattar and Allah Buksh Soomro, etc. On the other hand he declared Ghulam Muhammad, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali from Ravi and Jullunder Doaba and Iftikhar Mamdot and Mumtaz Daultana (from the bank of river Sutlej) as unfit by birth to be rulers.
Haidri quoted a Hadith attributed to the Prophet (PBUH) that only Quresh were entitled to be the khalifas of the Muslims. He also quoted the second Khalifa Hazrat Umar who was said to have governed according to the Hadith. (It may be mentioned that Hazrat Umar was the first to give representation to the Ansars or the locals of Madina in the council). The line of argument led to a total rejection of the Punjabi language and one of the stalwarts of Multani-Seraiki, the late Dr. Mehr Abdul Haq, declared that Punjabi was not the language of any part of Pakistan. This was linguistic extremism based on the presumption that Punjabi was the language of the Sikhs who had dethroned the Muslim ruler of Multan, Nawab Muzaffar Khan in 1818. Thus, the issue was given a religious and political complexion: Sikhs represented Punjabi while the Muslims of the south Punjab or the province of Multan represented Seraiki.
Purely on linguistic basis, some of the British writers and civil servants described Seraiki or Multani as Western Punjabi or Lehnda, which was refuted by some other British scholars and students of Punjabi language. C.F. Usborne, in 1905, wrote an article on Bulleh Shah referring to the Gazetter of Multan and said: “It is hardly true to say, as the writer of Multan Gazetter does, that the ballads (kafis) are written in Multani dialect of the Punjabi language. Undoubtedly they contain some forms of verbs which are peculiar to that dialect, but they could probably be understood by any peasant from Pindi to Delhi and from Delhi to Multan.”
Another modern protagonist of Seraiki, Dr Shackle says that ‘many shared morphological details, as well as overall agreement in much of the vocabulary and syntax, link it (Seraiki) quiet closely to Punjabi with which it has a higher degree of mutual intelligibility.” And Tariq Rehman is of the opinion: “The linguistic fact seems to be that Seraiki and Punjabi are mutually intelligible.”
Economic and political reasons must also be taken into account. Just recall General Ziaul Haq’s period when the political aim of the martial law regime was to divide the support of Mr Bhutto’s party in its strongholds. The Mohajir Qaumi Movement was supposed to divide Sindh on Urdu-speaking and Sindhi-speaking basis and on the same basis Punjab was to be divided on the basis of dialect.
His regime, without consulting linguistic experts, recognised Seraiki as an independent language in the 1980s which according to Husain Ahmad Khan (Rethinking Punjab) was a triumph for Seraiki political advocates and the intelligentsia. This was the period when the Seraiki Qaumi Movement (SQM) emerged. According to Tariq Rahman this was based on the successful model of MQM. The SQM had three centres Karachi, Khanpur, Katora and Ahmadpur Sharqia.
Here, one may mention that many of the feudals of south Punjab who had embraced the PPP after its coming to power had by now crossed the floor and most of them participated in the 1985 non-party election boycotted by the PPP. Unfortunately Mr Bhutto, in the 1977 election, had given the control of Punjab to the so-called Seraiki lords like Nawab Muhammad Ahmad and Sadiq Qureshi plus Muhammad Hayat Taman of Attock. It was against the original aims of the party and jeopardised the original vote bank of the PPP in the province.
The feudal realities have not changed and Dr Ayesha Siddiqa who hails from Bahawalpur, writes in her column, ‘Deadly social change’ (Dawn, May 1, 09): “This part of Punjab is prominent in terms of large landownership and feudal lifestyle. This is also an area where feudal institutions in terms of economic power merged with political and spiritual power. So many political families are not just significant due to their wealth and political power but because they are connected to the shrines as well. The gradual institutionalising of the power of the shrine has strengthened them rather than giving same breathing space to ordinary people some of whom are moving in the direction of rabid religious ideologies….The growing radicalisation in southern Punjab shown up in the inability of the state to carry out land reforms and shift the socioeconomic and political power structure from a pre-capitalist society to a capitalist one will have its consequences in the year to come.”
The utmost attempt of the feudals of the southern Punjab and Sindh plus the Sardars of Balochistan and Khans of the Frontier would be to avoid the move towards the radical economic and democratic changes and in that the Seraiki province can play a big role to keep intact the hegemony of the traditional politics of inheritance which is threatened by the changes in other parts of Punjab and Sindh.
As far as the economic and social grievances of the Seraiki area are concerned, the major responsibility for these lies with the big landlords of the area for it is they who for most of the time were in power in the province and the centre and failed to address them. The clash between the two dialects of Punjabi (Punjabi and Seraiki or Mohajir or local dialect) has also a political and economic background to it. The main aim of the Seraiki province is to give strength to the feudal Sindh, Sardari Balochistan and Khan-ruled Frontier and their politics of inheritance. One of the serious grievances is that the lands of the Seraiki areas are being given to non-Seraiki people. If the land reforms are carried out in true sense, the land will go to the person who is cultivating it and not to the absentees.
One may remind Riaz Missen that when Daultana tried to touch a subject as sensitive as the rights of the tenants the MLAs from the Seraiki belt, under the leadership of Naubahar Shah, Budhan Shah and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, raised an organisation to defend the big landlords which, if memory serves one right, was named Zamindar Bachao Morcha. And in their support Maulana Maudoodi and Ahmadi khalifa Bashiruddin Mahmud authored books in support of the unlimited rights of the landlords who were given propriety rights over land by the British government (in the Mughal and Sikh period the land was the property of the state).
DAWN:Sunday, May 24, 2009
Who gains from the division of Punjab?
By Izzud-Din Pal
PUNJAB-BASHING (with a focus mainly on central Punjab) is an old pastime of some Pakistani politicians. When Mr Asif Ali Zardari was seeking to become president of Pakistan, he decried desperately that the ‘majority of people across the expanse of our nation have been ignored and even subjugated by Pakistan’s establishment, ‘the elite oligarchy’, located exclusively in a region stretching between Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad’ (an article published in Washington Post under his name, September 4, 2008).
Now it is the turn of the Makhdooms, Legharis and Abbasis et al. to join the chorus, on behalf of the Seraiki-speaking region of the province. This southern area of the province with about 37 million people is relatively poor, albeit with endowment of fertile land but mainly under the ownership of feudalistic absentee-landlords. Among the recent stakeholders in agriculture has been the commercial wing of the military. The area has also been in spotlight for being the base for some of the terrorist organisations in the country. There is more in this latest development, therefore, than meets the eye.
There is no grass-roots movement for autonomy; people are too busy to cope with their challenge of deprivation and injustices, related directly to the social formation of the region. The present boundaries of the provinces including Punjab are the product of the historical factors as well as the terms of the Partition. In India, the Nehru government with Vallabhbhai Patel as the minister of interior had devised a comprehensive plan to establish the writ for independent India. This process included the integration of the princely states, as well as adjustment of boundaries on linguistic lines. In Pakistan, no such development took place. In 1947, when Punjab was partitioned, it also lost a part of its central region including important districts of Amritsar (Muslim majority but Sikh centre), Gurdaspur (another with Muslim majority districts) and Jullundar.
In Balochistan, the princely state of Kalat became part of the province (how its fate was determined is still a matter of dispute), and Khairpur became part of Sindh. When the province of West Pakistan was created and then disbanded, the princely state of Bahawalpur became part of Punjab (by pure administrative fiat). Also the federally administered areas were divided into Pata and Fata, but places such as Swat, Dir, and Gilgit continued as autonomous entities. Unlike India, establishing writ of the state and of reconciling boundaries has been an ad hoc phenomenon in Pakistan.
As a consequence, Punjab was left as a province with the largest concentration of population, with the Balochistan with the largest geographic area. How would such an unbalanced configuration affect the health of the confederation? One can take a static view or a look at the situation in dynamic terms. A province dominating the others? It is a difficult question but it is not insoluble. Looking at the experience of Australia and Canada as confederations, one gets the picture of the possible inter-provincial trajectory in a growing economy.
In Canada, for example, the province of Ontario dominated the economy and the political system of the country when the Dominion of Canada was established and has continued to hold the position until recent times. Expansion of Western Canada and development of natural resources, especially in Alberta, has now turned the situation the other way round. An important feature of Canadian confederation is what is called equalisation payments (the richer provinces transferring funds according to a formula to the poorer provinces (equivalent but not quite the same as NFC awards in Pakistan). Ontario no longer dominates the picture.
There have been changes in Pakistan as well. The discovery of natural gas in Balochistan should have put the province on a path to accelerated development but the process failed, partly because of the tribal social formation in the province and partly owing to unfair arrangement for compensation to the province. Southern Sindh, Southern Punjab and Bahawalpur have remained underdeveloped under the burden of their agrarian culture.
Now if Punjab were to be divided into two parts (or three!), will it be a step in the right direction from the point of view of central Punjab, the new Seraiki province and the country as a whole? To the extent that this division would change the structure of representation in the Senate and the National Assembly, the major beneficiary would probably be a tactician such as president Zardari. In this chess game, the
people in the new province, more so than in central Punjab, would probably have not much to gain, but could be the net losers.
There are two inter-related reasons which relate to the social formation in the Seraiki region: first, the absentee landlordism, with tenants at the mercy of the master, who would also become the political master with all the powers and perks that go with it. Land reform is an obvious solution for this problem; but the prospects are quite slim for such a move.
The second reason is what the economists call cumulative causation. Central Punjab, because of historical factors, and with its cluster of people in artisan pursuits, entrepreneurial activities, administrative positions, peasant proprietorship, and services, would continue to attract people from other regions including Seraiki in search of better opportunities. As the current budget of the province indicates, the cost-benefit situation would not require a major adjustment for central Punjab from the loss of revenue from the proposed division.
At the time of formation of the new country, Lahore and surrounding areas had an exclusive distinction to be the pole of activity attracting manpower from less developed areas. Karachi soon developed as a metropolis and became a competing pole parallel to central Punjab, and there should be more.
This process should be facilitated by democracy, but it meets with obstacles. An important hurdle is presented by the current phase of transitional democracy prevailing in Pakistan. The framework of this democracy is of course party politics. But there is a difference. Emphasis is on leadership, not representation, and is founded on personality.
In some other countries, family name does matter but the candidate goes through a cumbersome party convention. In Pakistan this ritual is considered superfluous (e.g., the will of Benazir Bhutto nominating her successors), and there can be as many parties as there may be aspirants, to partake in the process. More ambitious among them would seek a provincial administrative base which would provide them with an opportunity to exercise power.
It can be argued that this is what democracy is all about. The problem, however, is with the transitional democracy and its limitations.
As democracy evolved in Europe, for example, the middle class as defined in its conventional form became the backbone of the system. In Pakistan there is no middle class in the true sense of the term. In Europe this class had a stake in democracy as it was the product of what is called public goods: public health infrastructure, social insurance, public education, public transportation facilities, leaving sufficient disposable income for decent living.
In Pakistan the most appropriate proxy for this phenomenon is the middle income group, consisting of diverse categories from office workers to professionals. As the discussions in the media about the latest budget have shown, it is this class that bears the major burden of financing government expenditure, through indirect taxes. In the transitional democracy then, there is a wide gap between the elite and the rest. The men at the top enjoy the power and perks and the rest largely pay for them.
In this framework, creating new provinces would only spread the disease, common people may remain where they are, or things might get worse for them.
Far more important than tinkering with provincial boundaries is the urgency for improving the quality of governance in the country, and not use this issue as a diversionary tactic. The other top priorities should be to meet the challenge of terrorism, and to bring the people in the frontier region into the fold of full citizenship.
An important prerequisite for streamlining provincial boundaries is to introduce a comprehensive land reform. Ayub Khan played with a token scheme. The reform in its next phase, introduced by Z.A. Bhutto, received a fatal blow from its politically-motivated thrust. And it did lot of harm to the cause. Whatever was left of it, the pamphleteer Abul A’la Maudoodi, and Council of Islamic Ideology, performed the final rites for its burial by declaring it un-Islamic.
This unholy alliance between the mullah and the landlord should now be exposed.
Email: izzud-din.pal@videotron.ca
Dawn | Sunday, 12 Jul, 2009
South Punjab ‘movement
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By Ayesha Siddiqa
There is a possibility that the movement for an independent province is meant to mask the various militant organisations that continue to operate in Bahawalpur division. - AP/File photo
MOHAMMAD Ali Durrani, the former information minister, recently went public with his plan to struggle for an independent Bahawalpur province. One can simply dismiss his views as an extension of the old Seraiki movement which people have heard about for very long.
This time round, however, the idea has been floated by a man reputed for his deep connections with the establishment. The timing of the proposed movement also raises questions about what may happen in that part of the country.
The former minister’s reasons for starting the movement are quite logical. He is of the view that when Bahawalpur was merged into the One-Unit in 1955, the State of Pakistan had stipulated that the princely state would revert to its original status if the One-Unit were dissolved. Durrani believes that not only did the State of Pakistan go back on its promise, it failed to invest in the socioeconomic development of Bahawalpur. Resultantly, there is a lot of poverty and underdevelopment in the region.
What he did not mention was that land in Cholistan, Bahawalpur’s desert area, is routinely distributed to people from outside the area, especially military and civil bureaucrats. Also, since Bahawalpur does not fall into the Punjab (rural) civil services or military quota, there are fewer people from the region in the state bureaucracy.
Durrani’s feeling for the area may not be doubted because he belongs to Ahmedpur, a city in district Bahawalpur. However, one would certainly like to ask the minister if he felt this way while he was part of the previous government and in a position to do things for the region. Did he ever ensure that his party, the PML-Q, make plans for the area? After all, Q-League stalwarts such as Ejazul Haq and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi contest elections from Bahawalpur division. Or did he ever present a vision for the government to go beyond the construction of an airport, a medical college and a university? Most of the public buildings in Bahawalpur — the central library, its only hospital and others — are a gift of the old nawab.
There is a possibility that Durrani might have tired of waiting for Pervez Musharraf to return to politics and assign some task or important office to his former information minister. Let’s not forget that there are many prominent people from the former State of Bahawalpur who, like Durrani, belong to the local elite and have participated in politics at the provincial and local levels. Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Makhdoom Altaf, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Makhdoom Ahmed Alam Anwar, Makhdoom Hassan Mehmood and his sons, Tasneem Nawaz Gardezi and Riaz Pirzada are some of the luminaries of Bahawalpur who have held positions in successive governments.
So it is quite pathetic to argue that these people could not convince the establishment of which they were a part to invest in social development in their region. Not only have these Makhdooms ignored the development of their areas, some are also known for keeping up the archaic tradition of not marrying off their sisters and daughters to keep the family wealth at home. The family of the Makhdooms of Rahimyar Khan is known for this. The airports built at two sites, namely Bahawalpur and Rahimyar Khan, are gifts from the sheikhs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In return, Pakistani governments award huge concessions like turning state land into private hunting grounds for these foreign dignitaries.
Yet another possibility is that a movement for an independent province is meant to mask all other socio-political activities in the region so that these might go unnoticed by the rest of the country and the world at large. This refers to the various militant organisations that continue to operate in Bahawalpur division. Although the provincial and central governments are trying their best to constrain these militant outfits, there is no clear plan of action for cleaning up the area. A total elimination of these organisations becomes difficult due to the lack of clarity or a strategy regarding militancy.
Either the central or the provincial government has come up with the brilliant idea of supporting the Barelvi movement, including its armed wing, which means that the area could suffer the way Karachi has through the conflict between the MQM and MQM-Haqiqi. And now there is this mention of a political movement that has no real support at the local level but carries the potential of creating mayhem in the medium to long term. The resulting confusion ought to leave all observers fogged.
It is true that the average Bahawalpuri talks nostalgically about the glory days of the princely state, but the fact of the matter is that the majority are no longer stuck in the past. Consequently, the family of the former nawab of Bahawalpur, which ordinary people still respect, can no longer hope to get all the votes in elections. There are new power networks and groups that have diluted the memory of the state.
For instance, the development work done by District Nazim Tariq Bashir Cheema has strengthened his control rather than that of the traditional power centres. He focused on tehsil Yazman, his personal area of interest, to procure political support for the future. Similarly, there are many other new faces that win support on the basis of services provided to constituents.
A political movement for an independent status could only be built if funded from unexplained sources. If such a movement did manage to take off, it would create such chaos that the other divisive elements which have been systematically planted in the area would be forgotten. The strategy might prove beneficial if the intention is to hide those elements and forces that have a greater impact on peace and stability in the region.
Genuine empowerment of the area will only come through greater development work and a fair distribution of resources. In any case, such a movement will only multiply existing problems rather than solve issues to the benefit of the people. Thus if Mr Durrani really wants to do something for his place of birth, he would be better off talking about improving governance, ensuring the rule of law and eliminating the terror outfits that could destroy the rich culture of Bahawalpur. Perhaps he could start with his own accountability and a sincere assessment of the area he calls home.
The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.ayesha.ibd@gmail.com
DAWN: Friday, 12 Jun,
Letter to Editor
The Dawn, July 1, 2009
THIS is apropos of Manzoor Chandio’s letter, ‘A case for Seraiki province’ (June 27). Those non-Seraikis or settlers who are rightly proud of their contribution to the prosperity of the Bahawalpur state disagree with the writer.
The division of Punjab on linguistic grounds will have serious repercussions for non-Seraikis. Nawab Sadiq Khan Abbasi, as per ‘Bahawal Dost’ book written by a family member of the Nawab , called the locals and asked them that he would give them tracts of land for cultivation if they were willing to accept the challenge.
The locals, considering the job very tough, remarked that he was pushing them away from him (Sain asaikun Nekhrainde payo).
Now when, thanks to the toil, labour and sacrifices of six decades, the area is producing surplus wheat, rice and sugar for Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP, they are demanding the ownership and proprietary rights more than the settlers have.
Although the Sindhis were given a separate province decades ago, the upper Sindh has not progressed as compared to Karachi and Hyderabad. Lack of development and continuing illiteracy still plague the people at large. The situation has rather worsened.
On the other hand, Punjab has progressed because of hard work done by its people and not because of being a province. Things should be viewed in a dispassionate way and not on the basis of one’s kinship and closeness with the Seraiki people.
The timing of the demand has been viewed with much apprehension as the whole country is in the grip of terrorist attacks orchestrated by our arch rival through its consulates in Afghanistan.
Our politicians who are mostly from feudal families are being used to destabilise the otherwise most peaceful area of southern Punjab. Politicians are once again playing their cards at the cost of integrity of the country.
Development of southern Punjab may be effected by using peaceful means through the elected representatives. The Shahbaz Sharif government must come out with its policy statement on the sensitive issue.
PARVEZ IQBAL ANJUM Via email
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