Remembering Bahawalpur province

It is time that a historic wrong be corrected and the people of the erstwhile state be given their own province.

Recently, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said that Bahawalpur State cannot be restored. While there might be a need to create a larger Seraiki province in southern Punjab so that the people of the region might benefit from a more localised government, it is important to remember that Bahawalpur State was indeed one of the success stories of the first decade of Pakistan.

It is a little known fact nowadays that Bahawalpur State (the present districts of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahimyar Khan), only became a part of Pakistan on October 5, 1947, fifty days after the independence of Pakistan. While it is clear that Bahawalpur could neither remain independent nor accede to India, the absence of the ruler, Nawab Sadiq Mohammad Khan Abbasi led to a delay in accession.

Nevertheless, once Bahawalpur became a part of Pakistan, though initially only in terms of defence, foreign affairs and communications, it quickly picked up pace in various developmental fields. So much so, that soon Bahawalpur State along with Khairpur State in Sindh, were hailed as successful experiments in constitutional monarchy.

When Bahawalpur became a part of Pakistan, it was a complete autocracy. Thereafter, slow reforms, either led by the ruler or pushed by the central government, made it into a full constitutional democracy by May 1952. It is very interesting that at a time when the so-called ‘elected’ politicians in the centre and old British Indian provinces were not keen to call elections in their realms, a lot of pressure was put upon the princely states of Bahawalpur and Khairpur to democratise. Therefore, beginning with local bodies elections, both Bahawalpur and Khairpur became full constitutional monarchies within five years. As a matter of fact, the Khairpur Assembly, elected in November 1950, was the first assembly in Pakistan to be elected on the basis of universal adult franchise. Such rapid democratisation in the princely states — which naturally should have been against such change and the reluctance of ‘elected’ politicians, who claimed that they had created Pakistan — to go to the polls should have made us think then, and now, about their intentions in both the creation of Pakistan and their later policies.

As a constitutional state, Bahawalpur, like Khairpur, was a success story. Not only was there public involvement at every tier of government, the state’s economy was also developing at a good pace, with significant improvements in various social indicators. For example, the education budget of Bahawalpur increased fivefold between 1947 and 1955. As a result, school numbers doubled with enrolment rising from 35,000 in 1947 to 125,000 in 1955, with over 85 per cent students receiving free education.

However, this success story was abruptly cut short when in November 1954, the ruler of Bahawalpur was instructed by Iskandar Mirza, then governor-general of Pakistan, to dismiss the elected government of Chief Minister Hasan Mahmud, simply because it was clear that no popularly elected government would be agreeable to its merger with the proposed bureaucratically-dominated West Pakistan. Obviously, why would a state which had achieved so much in merely eight years, agree to be merged in a larger unit where they would simply be relegated to the position of a division and that, too, of marginal importance. The subsequent feelings of being ignored and patent economic, social and political stagnation in the erstwhile state are clear examples of the failure of large unsustainable units.

It is important to remember that Bahawalpur State only merged with the West Pakistan unit in 1955 and not with Punjab. Therefore, when West Pakistan was disbanded in 1969, it was legitimately expected that both Bahawalpur and Khairpur would regain their former provincial status. However, the powers of the time refused to recognise the utility in having smaller, better run and sustainable units and merged Khairpur with Sindh and Bahawalpur with Punjab.

It is high time that a historic wrong be corrected and the people of the erstwhile state, along with their kinsfolk in the adjoining districts, be given their own province.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2012.