by UMAIR JAVED
‘Sayeen, ham nay toh kabhee 5,000 banday kaa jaloos bhi nahee nikaala. Siyaasat kay liyay aik laash kya, aik zakham bhi nahee hay hamaray paas toh. Aur aaj lag aisay raha hay kay hamaari dheemi dheemi baaton ko sun kar yay Punjab kay tukray karnay lagain hain’ (Sayeen, we’ve never taken out a rally with 5,000 people. Forget martyrs, we don’t even have a bruise to flaunt for political mileage. And today, it seems they’ve heard our whispers and taken them to heart. Today, they’re talking about splitting Punjab.)
While talking to a few last month, I realized that most independent Seraiki activists privately acknowledge that the issue of a new province, or at the very least, a wholesale recognition of Seraiki grievances, was a cause that could only be made actionable when the People’s Party thought it to be worthwhile – and 9 times out of ten, a cause’s worth for a national level party is determined by its weight in the electoral matrix.
Firdous Ashiq Awan, in her characteristically blunt, Sialkoti way, thankfully spelt it out in fairly simple terms: a party that doesn’t support the creation of South Punjab runs the risk of becoming politically irrelevant in one half of the province. Even in other statements, by other leaders, it’s quite obvious that such provocations are directed towards the PML-N, given how they’ve remained confined to Punjab over the last 3 years. For PML-N, a battle to support a cause they might not necessarily agree with in the first place is happening on two different fronts. On one front, they’ve had to set aside their centralizing tendencies and think about a province in South Punjab – given the straight-jacket constraints applied by the PPP, and on the other front, popularity of the idea for a Hazara province means they have to show flexibility to retain their electoral capital in those districts.
Kafila for more
(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)