Who has ‘Sin’d’?

It is said that after winning the war against Sindhi amirs near Hyderabad in 1843, British General Sir Charles James Napier sent a dispatch to his base with just one word in Latin: Peccavi. This translated into English as “I have sinned”. Others believe this was a pun invented by the British humour magazine Punch to announce Napier’s conquest of Sindh. Whether a reality or a joke, this story defines the historical relationship of Pakistan’s southern province with the centre of authority, be it in Delhi, London or Islamabad.

Sindh, like Balochistan, remained marginal to colonial interests. After the famous war of independence or the mutiny of 1857, these territories were not an alternative source for raising manpower for the colonial military. Thus, they were less significant and were governed by the centre through its accomplices and conduits in the form of local pirs and amirs. While documenting their experience of governing the province, some British ICS officers even appreciated how Sindh ran more efficiently than the Bombay presidency which was what the province was a part of. Other bureaucrats spoke about the efficiency of the jirga system in parts of the subcontinent (including Sindh). They argued that these places were not prepared to operate the newer British system of magistracy and judiciary, and so could be run more efficiently through the traditional jirga system.

Since then, no one tried to modernise the place and work on developing its traditional ethos. Why invest money, but more importantly, time and efforts, to modernise and integrate the place. It was easier running it through local political proxies of the then colonial and later post-colonial state. Sindh’s history under the British is replete with instances of how both the pirs and amirs cooperated in return for patronage of the central authority. Those like the Pir of Jhanda Sharif were punished for his participation in a plan inspired by a segment of ulema of the Deoband against the colonisers, which was popularly known as the ‘silk letters’ conspiracy. Pirs who stayed on the straight and narrow path were duly rewarded.

The fate of this region did not change even with the making of Pakistan. The pirs and amirs, who cooperated with the colonial state, entered into arrangements with the founding fathers to support the Pakistan movement and the referendum held in its wake in return for recognition of their authority and continued extension of state patronage. To be fair, Jinnah also made a similar arrangement with the pirs and amirs of Punjab. However, given the centrality of Punjab and significance of Karachi to the idea of Pakistan, these areas were always more significant. It is not just resource distribution, but also the attention paid towards integrating the less significant areas in the process of fostering material and cultural modernity. It is about the centrality of an area in the idea of the state.

The insignificance of Sindh in the imagination of the larger ruling elite is visible from the manner in which the politics of this area is ignored. Even a new party like the PTI, which went around marketing itself in Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi, was relatively less active in the rest of Sindh. Even the PML-N prime minister has always been shy when it comes to visiting the southern province. In fact, every party is happy to operate through traditional patronage mechanisms in which the pir and the amir remain significant. This means that the average Sindhi has fewer options to play with than others. Currently, a popular myth that the PPP, which got wiped out from other provinces remains in power in Sindh due to lack of another option, is a sad commentary on the political environment. Not that one wishes the PPP to get wiped out, but it surely deserves to be challenged by its constituents so that it reviews its performance. The party must know about loopholes in its income distribution system that resulted in pilferage and a smaller proportion of funds reaching the end-user. It ought to know that the concentration of power in the hands of just a few people in the party hierarchy does increase transaction costs for the common man. Hence, the complacency that results from lack of challenge is dangerous. This means that you think you will not face political heat even if you have not bothered to deliver infrastructural development during your tenure. I remember travelling from Larkana to Mohenjo Daro right before the 2013 elections on a highway that was almost non-existent and had not been built despite availability of political space and development resources for the purpose. The comparatively higher incidence of corruption in Sindh is an open secret. The wastage of public funds is comparatively higher, which naturally increases transaction costs for the common man. Sadly, this is not just about the PPP but all governments had a similar pattern.

Interestingly, this patronage system that we popularly call feudalism was never discouraged. In fact, it was strengthened during the Musharraf years in return for allegiance to the elite. The loot and plunder of resources is carried out both by political and non-political players. The reward of 9,000 acres of forestland to the military definitely has legal cover and perhaps, political justification. Even in 1843, the bulk of the amirs had agreed to transfer large northern areas of Sindh to Bahawalpur if General Napier found them in violation of their agreement to remain subservient and loyal.

Improving governance in Sindh is not just a matter of apportioning responsibility and deciding who is to be blamed more for this state of affairs. The political leadership has been horribly negligent, which does not make a case for using extra-constitutional methods to put things right. Extra-political forces have never been even a good stop-gap arrangement. Their involvement crowds out the capacities of others. To transform Sindh, the political forces in the country ought to take its ownership. It is the nature of the relationship of the territory and its integration in the larger imagination of the state that needs to transform. Sindh will progress. However, for that to happen it’s not just the system, but the imagination of governance that must change.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2015.

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