The sardari system is a social ill, but so is whatever is in place in rural Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
LAHORE: This is with reference to Ejaz Haider’s article of November 6 titled “Lies and half-truths on Balochistan”. I am by no means defending the sardari system but it is extremely hypocritical on our (read: urban upper and upper middle classes) part to assert that while the Baloch should get their grievances redressed, it must be within Pakistan’s federal framework. This only shows how entrenched our class is in the Pakistani state setup. Furthermore, it is an indicator of how only because this class is in a position to accrue monetary as well as social benefits from such a dispensation, has it blinded itself to the ongoing systematic economic and social disenfranchisement of the Baloch and their region by the Punjab-dominated military and civil bureaucracy.
I agree that the sardari system is a social ill, but so is whatever is in place in rural Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. But if things ought to be settled within the framework of the federation, the federation needs to first become representative of all the people that fall under its borders. And this means not only accommodating their sardars, jagirdars, waderas or gaddi nashins in the palaces of Islamabad, but giving their people control over their resources and opportunities to shape their lives according to their will.
Umair Javed
Published in The Express Tribune, November 8th, 2010.
