Pakistan, Politics

SINDHIS AND THE PAKISTANI ESTABLISHMENT- by Manzoor Chandio

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SINDHIS AND THE PAKISTANI ESTABLISHMENT
By Manzoor Chandio, Karachi, Sindh
The writer can be reached at: catalyst2pk@yahoo.com, Manzoor Chandio, works in daily Dawn, Karachi.
Mr. President of Pakistan, Chairman of the Senate and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court may be part of the Pakistani Establishment, but the powerful component of the establishment–the Pakistan Military, intelligence agencies, including the ISI, which enjoys considerable influence in the decision-making, MI and IB and the bureaucracy-does not belong to Sindh. There are a few Sindhis in the presidency out of its about one thousand officials.


The army has earned the preferred nomenclature as the Punjab Army because it does not have proportional representation from all provinces. It’s the exclusive domain of people from Lahore to Rawalpindi in Punjab.
If we look at the all powerful bureaucracy, only one province rules the roost. In 2006, the Senate of Pakistan was told that Punjab occupies 116 out of total 179 secretary-level posts in federal government departments.
The NWFP stood second with 31 high-ranking officers, Sindh has 19 officers and Balochistan has the lowest representation in civil bureaucracy with only one secretary and two joint secretaries.
The Foreign Office since the making of Pakistan has excluded Sindh and Balochistan from its good books. There are 192 countries in the world and so is the number of Pakistani Ambassadors. There are a few Sindhi Ambassadors if we do not talk about secretaries, first secretaries and attachés in the embassies.
It is for that reason President Zardari in his article in Washington Post on Sept 4, opined that “Pakistani politics has always been a struggle between democratic forces around the country and an elite oligarchy, located exclusively in a region stretching between Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The provinces of Sindh, the Northwest Frontier (Pashtunkhwa) and Baluchistan, as well as all of rural Punjab, have often been excluded from governance.”
Besides, we have British-era laws, mutilated Constitution and weak civil society.
A look at the federation’s employing institutions shows how most of the national bodies are out of bounds for the people of Sindh and Balochistan.
In Sindh police, purely a provincial subject, and in Rangers thousands of personnel are recruited from Punjab.
It is being argued that any Pakistani from any part of the country can work anywhere. If so is the argument then how many Sindhis and theBaloch had been inducted in the Punjab police and Punjab Rangers? There is an army of jobless youth in the two provinces.
There is not a single Sindhi or the Baloch player in national cricket and hockey teams. The hockey team has earned the nomenclature of the Burewala team. For that reason these lassi-drinking hockey and cricket players of Punjab are always welcomed in Pakistan with tomatoes and eggs for their performance in the world.
While our local hockey team of Kairpur is popular for defeating Germany which then was Euro Champaign. Today youths from Larkana are recruited for county matches in England but they have no place in the national team.

Manzoor Chandio Blog: http://www.manzoorchandio.blogspot.com/

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