‘Naya Pakistan’ is around the corner

The issue of effective governance has become crucial at a time when we expect an acceleration of economic development

The calls for creating more provinces in Pakistan are intensifying. The country has only four, raising the age-old question: how is it possible to govern 220 million through just four provinces?

The issue of effective governance has become crucial at a time when the country expects an acceleration of economic development taking place through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects costing over $8 trillion, which aims to boost trade and economic growth across a notably underdeveloped area of the globe.

According to Khalid Mahmood, the ex-secretary of PC-CPEC Parliament of Pakistan, “The country needs to create an infrastructure offering security and safety not only to its citizens but for tourists and foreign investors.” He argues: “The Pakistan Army has successfully secured porous borders by building fences preventing militants entering the country. Now there’s a need to focus on issues like effective governance.”

Pakistan is opening up to the world. However, he admits that there are many rural towns and villages lacking social services, hospitals, and schools, and where policing is weak while some are no-go areas.

The issue of safety is important and needs to be addressed as investors and tourists begin to pour into the country. Though this may be easier said than done considering since 9/11 the country has been a target of the United States’ War on Terror policies, sanctions, drone attacks, and has been labelled as a failed state, exasperating further social and political inequalities, poverty and depravation. Even France’s President Macron admitted in 2018 that Pakistan has paid a “high price” in the fight against terrorism.

According to recent developments, all that is set to change. The BRI or the New Silk Road is seen as a “game changer”. India’s energies spent on “isolating Pakistan Internationally” have been thwarted, and Pakistan has become the centre-stage again, not only because the US needed it to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban, but also because Pakistan’s support is required against a planned war with Iran. However, there is another major reason why Pakistan has become important, and that is China’s Silk Road, which will not only make the country prosperous with development of infrastructure, investment and jobs but it will also take it closer in its alliance with China, perceived both by the US and India as a threat to their international hegemonic ambitions. The last thing the US and India want is a Pakistan that is economically strong, and therefore less susceptible to Western dictates.

The Prime Minister may have been criticised for not showing much empathy on the killing of 11 Shia Hazara coal miners, but was probably correct that the killings were part of India’s plan to inflame sectarianism in Pakistan, because if the country gets embroiled in internal strife it would be the perfect opportunity to derail CPEC projects. Incidentally, the Hazara miners were working in the Mach area of Balochistan. The Indian spy, Kulbhushan Jadhav, was caught from the same area in 2017, by Pakistan, and he disclosed that he was sent as a spy to fuel sectarian violence by funding militants in Balochistan and Karachi, targeting mainly the ports in Gwadar and Karachi.

Gwadar will be playing a central role in the BRI as Mahmood, the ex-secretary, explains, “CPEC is a flagship project of the BRI and Gwadar is its junction… India is playing a pivotal role with the help of other forces in terrorist activities. More than 80,000 people have been killed, and around $2 billion (worth of) infrastructure has been destroyed.”

Looking on the side of optimism, he argues that Pakistan’s leaders have to understand that CPEC is definitely a game changer and will enhance Pakistan’s standing in the world. However , they need to implement a constructive infrastructure which will strengthen government agencies like the police, the justice system and social services for its citizens. This, he argues, can only happen if more provinces are created, making it easier to govern, like in the case of China which has 34 provinces, India 28, Iran 30 and Turkey 81.

Advocates for more provinces argue that Punjab is a good example. It has around 110 million people having many rural areas with hardly any social services, colleges, schools and hospitals. Besides, it has pockets of lawless regions where the police have no say and dacoits control some areas.

It is these areas which have been marginalised by successive governments where infrastructure to deliver services is weak. These are also places where previous politicians would pay the controlling thugs to buy votes from frightened residents.

According to many think-tanks, it is critical that the new provinces are created to remove inequalities, develop an infrastructure and create more opportunities for the underclass. It will also diminish the influence of dynastic politics which has plagued the nation for the past few decades. Political families whose commercial exploits of benefitting their own pockets than the nation have been outlined in a book by Raymond Baker, Capitalism’s Achilles Heel. It appears it is these same politicians who are standing in the way of growing demands for more provinces, because the more government support the masses receive the less compliant they will be.

At present it’s important for Pakistan to take advantage of its position, being wooed by China to be a constructive partner in implementing the “project of the century”, which involves connecting the Asian, European and African continents to establish corporations and businesses along the Silk Route, along with constructive development of the region.

There are many detractors in the country who would be paraphrasing the US rhetoric that the BRI is a “Trojan horse for China-led hegemonic and military ambitions in the region”. Irrespective of the US concerns, already more than 60 countries, basically two-thirds of the world’s population, have signed on to the project or are interested in doing so.

Maybe they are aware of the buzz in the economic circles indicating the rise of the Asian century and demise of the American century. What Pakistan and other Eastern countries need to balance out is what they gained post-colonialism and from the rise of the American empire, except a legacy of warfare. According to the UN Refugee Agency 2016 report, the 20^th century stands out as the bloodiest and most brutal, with around 250 major wars in which over 50 million people have been killed and tens of millions injured and made homeless. According to a report in 2015, by Physicians for Social Responsibility, nearly two million people have died through the illegal War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Looking at the overall picture of the past bloody decades and its devastating effect in the region, the new China Silk Road is offering an alternative path which involves constructive development possibilities earlier denied by Western powers post-colonialism.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2021.

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