The Challenge of Federalism in Pakistan

Fed­er­al­ism can be defined as a sys­tem in which the pow­er and author­i­ty to gov­ern is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly divid­ed at two lev­els into two gov­ern­ing bod­ies, usu­al­ly called cen­ter and province. In oth­er sys­tems, provin­cial units are named dif­fer­ent­ly such as states and coun­tries. It is one of the essen­tial prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy to decen­tral­ize the pow­er from cen­ter to the con­stituent polit­i­cal units. Fed­er­al­ism also tend to expand func­tions, par­tic­i­pa­tion and gov­ern­ment machiner­ies by cre­at­ing more units. The cas­es of coun­tries such as Unit­ed States prove that fed­er­al­ism may per­form very effi­cient­ly and con­struc­tive­ly to har­mo­nize diverse eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty and social plu­ral­ism. Indeed the US has out­per­formed many of the non-fed­er­al­ist coun­tries in most aspects of state affairs. How­ev­er, on the oth­er hand, fed­er­al­ist insti­tu­tions face cer­tain chal­lenges in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, espe­cial­ly in devel­op­ing democ­ra­cies.

Many argue that fed­er­al­ism may pave the way for weak­en­ing and even­tu­al dis­in­te­gra­tion of a state because when a state (cen­tral gov­ern­ment) gives auton­o­my to the provinces, sep­a­ratist ele­ments may take advan­tage of it which might even­tu­al­ly result in the sep­a­ra­tion. Such per­cep­tion lies behind the grow­ing ten­den­cy among devel­op­ing coun­tries to con­cen­trate pow­er at the cen­tral lev­el. If we take the exam­ple of US fed­er­al sys­tem, we see that cen­tral gov­ern­ment con­trols only the defence, for­eign pol­i­cy, cur­ren­cy, immi­gra­tion etc. On the oth­er hand, the fed­er­at­ing units called states have sacro­sanct juris­dic­tion in all oth­er areas and over the whole state. In fact, when a state curbs provin­cial auton­o­my and try to max­i­mize pow­ers of the cen­ter, it may lead to dis­in­te­gra­tion. The sep­a­ra­tion of East Pak­istan, now Bangladesh, is the most suit­able exam­ple. When West Pak­istan cur­tailed the rights of Ben­galis, includ­ing the right to rule, and con­cen­trat­ed the pow­er at cen­ter (con­trolled by West Pak­istan), Ben­galis found them­selves oppressed and even­tu­al­ly part­ed ways with the West Pak­istan. In fact, decen­tral­iza­tion may pre­vent a state from dis­in­te­gra­tion not vice ver­sa.

Lack of account­abil­i­ty is con­sid­ered anoth­er dis­ad­van­tage of fed­er­al­ism. Crit­ics of fed­er­al­ism argue that the cen­tral and provin­cial gov­ern­ments some­times over­lap each other’s func­tions or bound­aries. More­over, the unde­fined areas of respon­si­bil­i­ties may lead to poor gov­er­nance and insta­bil­i­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, it is dif­fi­cult to hold gov­ern­ment account­able because of sys­tem­at­ic uncer­tain­ties. Such prob­lem is being faced by a num­ber of emerg­ing democ­ra­cies. In coun­ter­ing this argu­ment, many schol­ars argue that the answer lies in a struc­tur­al arrange­ment called dual fed­er­al­ism. Dual fed­er­al­ism, as opposed to coop­er­a­tive fed­er­al­ism, means that the func­tions and pow­ers of both gov­ern­ments are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly defined and more clear­ly demarked. This may strength­en the process of account­abil­i­ty and increase effi­cien­cy.

The Case of Pak­istan
From its incep­tion, Pak­istan had a rig­or­ous form of cen­tral­ism until the con­sti­tu­tion of 1973 was adopt­ed. Most notably, the 1962 Con­sti­tu­tion made Pak­istan a high­ly cen­tral­ized state through the ‘one-unit’ sys­tem. Hav­ing a his­to­ry of rigid cen­tral­ism, the 1973 Con­sti­tu­tion was a tri­umphant move for Pakistan’s fledg­ling fed­er­al sys­tem. The pre­am­ble of the 1973 Con­sti­tu­tion ensures and directs fed­er­al­ism as the orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple of state. In 2010, a his­toric con­sti­tu­tion­al devel­op­ment took place in the shape of Eigh­teenth Amend­ment which sta­bi­lized country’s fed­er­al struc­ture by devo­lu­tion of a num­ber of cen­tral pow­ers and by guar­an­tee­ing auton­o­my to provinces. The con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan has lucid­ly pro­vid­ed a frame­work but, still, fed­er­al­ism in Pak­istan is fac­ing cer­tain chal­lenges.

Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, an emi­nent schol­ar, argues that Pak­istan has a long tra­di­tion of cen­tral­iza­tion owing to fac­tors such as per­ceived exter­nal threats and inter­nal polar­iza­tion. Even today, cen­tral­ized insti­tu­tions such as army and oth­er rul­ing groups often try to main­tain or enhance their pow­ers over sub-units. The denial of mak­ing new provinces and admin­is­tra­tive units is one such exam­ple of cen­tral­ist mind­set, despite the fact that new provinces or admin­is­tra­tive units will even­tu­al­ly reduce the bur­den on cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

The sit­u­a­tion in Balochis­tan is anoth­er exam­ple of the out­come of deny­ing decen­tral­iza­tion. The cen­tral­ist mind­set would demand that sep­a­ratist ele­ments in Balochis­tan need to be sup­pressed. One may ask that what we have achieved so far by deny­ing rights to the Baloch peo­ple. The answer would be, insta­bil­i­ty. In anoth­er rather dif­fer­ent exam­ple, peo­ple in Gilgit-Baltistan want to be rec­og­nized as full cit­i­zens.

The lev­el of trust and under­stand­ing among provin­cial gov­ern­ments on var­i­ous issues is the cor­ner­stone of fed­er­al­ism. Unfor­tu­nate­ly in the case of Pak­istan, one can observe severe dis­agree­ments and lack of trust among cen­ter and the provinces. For instance, Sindh demands an increase in its funds because Sindh gov­ern­ment argues that Sindh gen­er­ates sig­nif­i­cant amount of rev­enue, but in return it is not receiv­ing its due share which was promised in the Eigh­teenth Amend­ment and 7th NFC Award. Sim­i­lar­ly, oth­er provinces also have their own reser­va­tions on resource-shar­ing. Anoth­er exam­ple of mis­trust among provinces is that of the Kal­abagh Dam. Sindh and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa strong­ly oppose the build­ing of Kal­abagh Dam, while Pun­jab sup­ports it. This sort of dis­agree­ment may become a chal­lenge for the cen­tral gov­ern­ment in exer­cis­ing its pow­ers effec­tive­ly and in reg­u­lat­ing its units. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Coun­cil of Com­mon Inter­est, which was formed to solve issues among provinces, is also lack­ing in per­form­ing its func­tions.

Every coun­try, whether uni­tary or fed­er­al, has some inter­nal prob­lems to cope with. A num­ber of Pakistan’s inter­nal prob­lems can still be resolved through prop­er imple­men­ta­tion of fed­er­al sys­tem. Both cen­tral and provin­cial gov­ern­ments must help the process of devo­lu­tion accord­ing to the let­ter and spir­it of con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions. Both lev­els of gov­ern­ments should adopt a har­mo­nious and prag­mat­ic approach in iden­ti­fy­ing their respec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ties. The fed­er­al insti­tu­tion in gen­er­al, and Coun­cil of Com­mon Inter­est in par­tic­u­lar, need to be active and effi­cient in car­ry­ing out their role as assigned by the law. Such mea­sures would dif­fuse ten­sions among the cen­ter and the province, also among those who demand new admin­is­tra­tive units. This would also lead to pos­i­tive changes in improv­ing sit­u­a­tion in Balochis­tan and Gilgit-Baltistan. Unless we take such mea­sures, the democ­ra­cy in Pak­istan will not be able to take root.