The Geography of Governance

By Syed Tahir Rashdi 

The writer is a Shahdadpur-based contributing columnist, book reviewer, and climate change activist. He holds a BS degree in Pakistan Studies from University of Sindh

Pakistan’s debate over new provinces has returned with familiar demands: South Punjab, Bahawalpur, Hazara, Karachi and, periodically, proposals for a more extensive reorganisation of the federation. There are credible arguments behind some of these demands. Population growth, administrative distance, uneven development and the persistence of regional identities have altered the circumstances in which Pakistan’s present provincial arrangement was conceived.

Yet the debate tends to proceed from an assumption that deserves greater scrutiny: that creating smaller provinces will, in itself, improve governance.

It may. But it may also not.

The distinction is important because Pakistan’s principal difficulty has never been simply the size of its administrative units. It has been the weakness, discontinuity and politicisation of the institutions through which those units are governed.

This does not make the case for new provinces illegitimate. It does, however, suggest that provincial restructuring should be considered as one component of administrative reform rather than as a substitute for it.

Pakistan’s provincial boundaries have never been immutable. The One Unit scheme of 1955 consolidated the western wing into a single province, partly to establish parity between the two wings of the country. It was abolished in 1970, restoring the provinces.

The episode remains relevant because it demonstrated the limits of administrative engineering. A territorial arrangement can be imposed constitutionally, but its durability ultimately depends upon political legitimacy.

The present debate is considerably more complex.

The demand for a South Punjab province contains at least three distinct strands: the historical claim associated with Bahawalpur, the linguistic and cultural politics of Saraiki identity, and the administrative argument that the southern districts have remained distant from the provincial centre in Lahore. There is also the persistent claim of regional economic neglect.

These strands should not be conflated.

Similarly, the Hazara demand has a strong identity component, while the Karachi question is inseparable from the city’s unusual demographic, economic and political history and the longstanding contest over authority between urban local institutions and the provincial government.

The differences matter because different problems require different institutional responses.

The Constitution does not make the creation of a new province a matter of political declaration. Article 239 provides a demanding procedure for constitutional amendment, including the approval of the concerned provincial assembly where provincial boundaries are affected.

That requirement is not an accidental obstacle. It reflects the logic of federalism: a federation cannot permit the territorial boundaries of one constituent unit to be altered without giving that unit a decisive constitutional voice.

The experience of the parliamentary commission on new provinces in 2012 illustrated the complexity of the exercise. Questions of boundaries, resources, representation, administrative structures and constitutional amendments quickly became inseparable from the political question of who would gain or lose influence.

That is why the debate deserves to be insulated, as far as possible, from electoral expediency.

There is, however, a more fundamental issue that receives considerably less attention.

Article 140-A of the Constitution requires provincial governments to establish local government systems and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected local representatives.

This provision goes to the heart of the governance question.

A citizen’s encounter with government is rarely with the federal government or even with a provincial assembly. It is with the school, hospital, police station, municipal authority, land office, sanitation service or local administration.

Yet local governments in Pakistan have rarely acquired the institutional continuity, fiscal autonomy and political authority envisaged by the Constitution.

The result is an unusual form of devolution. The 18th Amendment substantially strengthened the provinces by transferring functions and resources from the federation, but the transfer of authority has often stopped at the provincial level.

Islamabad became less dominant.

The provinces became stronger.

The citizen did not necessarily become more powerful.

This is perhaps the most important issue in the new-provinces debate. If a region is suffering because decisions are too distant from its population, the first question should be whether existing institutions can be decentralised before an entirely new tier of government is created.

Comparative experience does not provide a universal answer, but it does offer useful cautions.

Indonesia’s post-Suharto decentralisation transferred extensive responsibilities to subnational governments. The reform was necessary after decades of centralised rule, but decentralisation itself did not guarantee effective or accountable government. Subsequent reforms had to focus on institutional capacity, fiscal management and local accountability.

Nigeria provides another caution. The creation of additional states was partly intended to improve political representation and accommodate regional interests. Yet the country continues to face substantial governance and institutional-capacity problems across its states.

The lesson from both cases is not that administrative restructuring is futile. It is that territorial fragmentation and institutional development are different processes.

South Africa offers a somewhat different model. Its Constitution explicitly recognises local government as a sphere of government and assigns municipalities constitutional responsibilities relating to democratic participation and service delivery. The significance lies less in the number of provinces than in the distribution of authority among the different levels of government.

Switzerland’s federal tradition similarly rests on substantial cantonal and communal autonomy. Its relevance to Pakistan is not institutional imitation but a principle: government functions should be located at the level at which they can be performed most effectively, while higher levels retain responsibilities that require wider coordination.

There is therefore no universally correct number of provinces. The appropriate administrative scale depends upon geography, population, fiscal capacity, the nature of the public service and, above all, institutional competence.

Pakistan’s governance difficulties are familiar enough to require little elaboration: weak rule of law, politicisation of public institutions, patronage, corruption, uneven accountability, administrative discontinuity and the recurrent weakening of local government.

None of these problems disappears when a provincial boundary is moved.

A new province may shorten the administrative distance between a region and its provincial capital. It does not automatically make the police independent, the bureaucracy professional, the courts accessible or public expenditure transparent.

Nor does it guarantee merit.

This is why the distinction between decentralisation and multiplication matters.

Creating another provincial government multiplies institutions at one level. Devolution transfers authority to the level where decisions are actually implemented.

The two can complement each other. They should not be confused.

There is a reasonable case for examining Pakistan’s provincial structure afresh. The country of today is considerably more populous, urbanised and economically differentiated than it was in 1973. Administrative arrangements that were workable five decades ago need not remain optimal indefinitely.

But restructuring should follow evidence.

If a region can demonstrate that a separate province would improve representation, service delivery, fiscal management and administrative effectiveness, its case should be considered seriously.

The same standard should apply to all proposals.

What is the fiscal base of the proposed province? How will assets and liabilities be divided? What will happen to water and other shared resources? How will the civil service be reorganised? Where will the judiciary sit? How will parliamentary representation change? And, perhaps most importantly, what powers will be devolved to local governments within the new province?

These are less exciting questions than the announcement of a new province. They are also the questions on which its viability will depend.

The temptation in politics is to seek visible solutions to structural problems. A new province is visible. A new secretariat is visible. A new assembly is visible.

Institutional reform is not.

An impartial appointment is invisible. A competent municipal service is rarely newsworthy. A police officer able to act without political interference does not make for a dramatic political slogan. Nor does a court that quietly delivers timely justice.

Yet these are the foundations upon which effective government rests.

Pakistan therefore needs to resist the idea that every failure of governance is a failure of territorial design.

There may be a case for new provinces. There is certainly a case for stronger local government. There is an even stronger case for institutions that function according to law rather than political convenience.

The order matters.

Before redrawing provincial boundaries, Pakistan should ask whether it has fully used the constitutional possibilities already available to it: provincial autonomy, fiscal devolution and empowered local government.

If, after that examination, some provinces still prove too large, too distant or administratively incoherent, restructuring would have a stronger foundation.

The issue, ultimately, is not how many provinces Pakistan has.

It is whether the citizen can rely on the government that exists.

A federation can have four provinces or ten. It can have large units or small ones. What it cannot indefinitely afford is the assumption that changing the map is equivalent to changing the state.

Pakistan’s next debate on provinces should therefore be less about where to draw the line and more about what happens on the other side of it.