Pakistan is a land of segregated lifestyles and small ecologies which generate communal watersheds. The habitats necessitate mutual dependence based on a historic demography which spread ethnic fragments through the Indus enclave. Consequently we can identify; cultural threads that link ecological watersheds and segregated lifestyles. The ecological and ethnic units thus formed have vertebral bonds along the Indus spine and its ribcage of watercourses which support the economies of communities occupying the mountains and deserts which are the sinews that hold the enclave together. Along the spine is agriculture bolstered by animal-husbandry near its ribcage. Each type of habitat needs a distinct form of governance for their peculiar brands of urban, agricultural and pastoral lifestyles.
If we wish to explore the potential for modern governance in Pakistan, it must correspond to the unity & diversity of our society and nationhood. It will have to place our linguistic, religious, ethnic and cultural markers within this context of lifestyle and regionalism, and a paradigm of local governance for national integration and a meaningful writ of state.
A complex physical and human environment may be the primary reason why governance is such a problematic issue for the state of Pakistan. Historically, the rulers of this land realized its social diversity as well as the inherent unity of its geography and responded accordingly. The British crown, which tried its utmost to create a uniform administrative structure for all of India, was also forced to make concessions for the communal variety, absorbing princely states under one scheme and make other adjustments with tribal elders in a system of political agents, special communal dispensation and measures like the land alienation act. The variety of princely states, territorial arrangements, tribal exemptions instituted in the areas that now constitute Pakistan is an index of the complexity of the land and its people. While its provincial structure is representative of its ethnic construct in the broader sense of the word, there are several overlaps which have led to the recent demands for reconstituting provinces for communal empowerment.
The force dictating the nature of society in the regions which constitute Pakistan today is its geological imperative; its topography is the product of a tectonic impact and drainage patterns coupled with the morphology of its soil. Consequently a variety of small habitats and ecologies are found in close proximity. Whereas some other nations/states may boast of a greater variety, they are generally much larger in size and so are the units of ecology. Their habitats on the periphery of any ecology are thus located far from one another.
In Pakistan, habitats occupy a small region, with a variety of ecologies in close proximity abutting it and each other. My favourite example is the town of Joharabad near Khushab. A major river [the Jhelum], an important desert [Rohi], the narrow forested area between them, and the mountains of Soom-Sakesar, are located in a range of twenty miles from it, while the mighty Indus lies not farther to its west, with its wide lagoon close by. Another interesting spot is Mansehra, located at the fork which opens up the entire fan of habitats in northern Pakistan; showcasing its broad range of mountain ecologies: from intertwined passes in the Galiat area, rocky majesty at Skardu, narrow valley of Kaghan, wide valley of Swat, highest battlefield Siachin, and 1200 square miles of Deosai plateau at 13500 ft. This ecological pattern is not as varied in every segment, but it is a common denominator for virtually all areas of Pakistan. Its ancient inhabitants recognized a difference between the mountain ranges of northern Pakistan [Pamir, Hindukush/Hund-o-Kush, Kara-Kurram and Himalaya] and the deserts in its south [Cholistan, Thar and Nagar-Parkar].
Five parallel ranges run from west to east dividing Baluchistan internally, and five others, running north to south set it apart from Sind, Punjab and KP. Three of them run side by side to integrate it with Sind, yet segregating the provinces by stages; adjacent ecologies match the mountains of the north. The Bolan drain links them so inextricably that the Indus Valley Civilization was born from the Kachi link between Mehrgarh and Kot-Diji.
The most obvious physical bond integrating the Indus region is the drainage system that must be shared. The sequence of mountain ranges along its west strikes those who look at physical delimitations on its map. The Himalayas have been identified as the boundary of South Asia along with these ranges. Others use the crossing of the river Indus as the start of the Subcontinent. Although not as obvious as rivers, these mountains, as much as the network of rivers or watercourses they generate, are a source of communal cohesion. The steppes from peak through piedmonts to plains create integrated and mutually dependent ecological sequences. Strange though it may seem, even the deserts are binding forces; while rivers also provide natural boundaries. In Pakistan, the Bias and Sutlej along with the Cholistan and Tharparkar deserts are cauterizing elements, delimiting its internal from external habitats in the east. The Punjab plains display three ecological zones in each of its doabs; which tend to become progressively uneven from east to west and floodplains are smaller as we approach the Jhelum and agriculture is more dependent on rain.
Whereas each doab of the Punjab is unique in its ecological arrangement, a commonality is apparent as well. Similarly, while the valleys of the high mountains in the north have a great variety, there are aspects that link their people and ecologies through the piedmonts to the plains. This vertebral link between ecologies, however, is not linier but rather like a grid of add-ons or the components of a Lego in which the blocks dovetail with each other to form a complete product. Each vertebral unit is essential for the survival of neighbours and they are vital for its own viability. This situation has led to our history of interlocking civilizations and urban complexes linked through a shared hinterland.
One aspect of this unifying ecological structure will appear in subsequent essays relating to the current political situation and administrative procedures which could be effective for governance of Pakistan. This essay is particularly relevant for explaining the causes of cultural diversity and the effect of ethnic cross-stitching on imperatives that decide viable governance options for us. I also classify Pakistanis as ‘ungovernable’, but I endorse this classification conditionally and partially for ‘modern procedures of governance’.
During the Bhutto era, a popular book among serious students of Pakistan’s problems referred to our history as a process which went from crisis to crisis. Looking at the seven decades of our existence, this is a statement that I endorse heartily. In fact, while the original author was only interested in political crises. In that context, I think that we may say that Pakistan is accident prone. In fact, in many aspects ranging from natural disasters like earthquakes and floods; to economic calamities that threaten agricultural or industrial production such as energy crisis and fuel shortage; to fiscal and monetary or political meltdown; to international threats of sanctions; and the institutional clashes between political, bureaucratic, civil, judicial and military arms of state; Pakistan is a land which has hosted every conceivable variety of crisis; and still it has prospered.
To start at the periphery, we have one large, belligerent and domineering neighbour; and one beleaguered and morose neighbour who is frequently in need of succour for refugees. If the sea in the south is a potential for progress, three foreign actors in our mountains in the north display all three intentions: aggressive, benign and neutral.
The one whom I list as benign [China] is believed by some to have acquired a colonial aspiration; and having suffered from the political and economic dominance of American neo-imperialism, they are suspicious of the gift horses from the north-east. The American dominance continues to please some and alarm others; while paranoia of Russia lurks in the shadows. Naturally this security environment does not inspire confidence. During my youth, this was the only aspect of security we felt threatened by. An internal dimension was added in 1997 after America ‘declared war on terrorism’ and alleged that its roots lay in Pakistani soil. Given the religious, provincial, parochial and ethnic mosaic of Pakistan, all of these factors could instigate protests, which can easily be identified with terrorism. Issues like regional disparity, communal disempowerment and gender equality provided convenient triggers for incidents which turned ‘fundamentalists’ into terrorists.
While the varieties of our ecological fabric militate in favour of local solutions to almost all varieties of crises that come our way, they also provide us with options for linking the solutions to problems of one with mitigating some crisis in the other. I have mentioned a few such options across communities in one essay and across ecologies in another. Here I will illustrate some of the national links that can help us manage certain kinds of crisis.
Some of us may consider our dealing with WAPDA as a misfortune while others may see it as a blessing; but most urban Pakistanis know that it deals with water and power. This then is a good place for me to begin. Since I have discussed water management in another essay as well, the reader may be familiar with part of my perspective. The aspect of types of ecology, however, needs to be brought into focus. The northern mountains receive rain in large quantities, and centuries old snow is an aquatic reserve in the form of glaciers. In the south, the mountains are dry and sandy with very little water, while those to the west in the middle are of medium height and have light vegetation suitable for breeding sheep or goats. Mountains have the potential to provide water and power but also cause floods and can suffer from earthquakes. Desert, are prime candidates for famine, but are ideally equipped to absorb flood waters and sanctuary to those affected by earthquakes.
If these regions are paired off in the scheme of national planning, ‘one man’s poison can become another man’s meat’. Communal arrangements and inter-provincial cooperation of this kind only needs the administrative vision to link segments of the body-politic in an arrangement of mutual benefit. A similar arrangement for energy sources could arrange a sharing procedure between industries which need energy or fuel of a particular kind in the summer with those that need it in the winter; and between towns/districts or tehsils which lie in the plains and those in the hills. This seasonal linkage could extend to educational institutions and the development of technologies for ‘sister’ regions and lifestyles. I hope to return to this conceptual link of ecologies and localities in another essay.