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By Root 1559 0

Punjabi region is the south. This area overlaps but is not identical with the Seraiki-speaking belt, and in certain ways includes parts of central Punjab such as Jhang. It is defined more by cultural and economic patterns than by language. With a much smaller share of the canal colonies, the south was less affected by the greater social mobility and economic dynamism they brought in their train, and also received relatively fewer refugees from east Punjab. It also contains fewer egalitarian Jats than the northern and central parts of Punjab, and more Baloch, with their traditional deference to their autocratic chieftains.

In consequence, southern Punjab is far more ‘feudal’ than the north, in ways that connect it culturally to Sindh. Also linking this region to Sindh is the very strong tradition of worshipping saints and shrines, in many cases the base for great ‘feudal’ families of hereditary saints, or pirs. The shrines bind together many local Sunnis with the Shia, who have a major presence in this region. However, this presence, and especially the high proportion of the local ‘feudals’ who are Shia, has also helped stir up some bitter sectarian chauvinism against the local Shia.

Given all these divisions within Punjab itself, can one really speak of Punjabi domination of Pakistan, or of a Punjabi identity as such? The answer is less than the other provinces like to claim, but more than the Punjabis themselves like to pretend. To a great extent, of course, there is no establishment conspiracy about Punjab’s domination of Pakistan – with some 56 per cent of the population and some 75 per cent of the industry, it naturally outweighs the other provinces, just as England naturally dominates the United Kingdom. This industry is no longer only limited to textiles and food processing. Sialkot is a major international centre of sports goods and somewhat weirdly (but presumably by extension through bladders) of bagpipes. Gujrat produces high-quality shoes and medium-quality electrical goods. No industries of this scale and sophistication exist in any of Pakistan’s other provinces, with the obvious exception of the city of Karachi.

When representatives of other provinces denounce Punjab for its 55 per cent quota of official jobs, they conveniently forget that this is actually slightly less than Punjab’s share of the population, just as, following the seventh National Finance Commission Award of 2010, Punjab’s share of state revenues is considerably below its share both of population and of revenue generation. The great majority of Pakistan’s national leaders (including three out of four of its military rulers) have not been Punjabis. A widespread opinion exists among the Punjabi elites that the province is in fact ‘leaning over backwards’ to accommodate the other provinces, even at the cost of both Punjabi and national development.

This feeling in Punjab contributes to support in the province for the Sharifs and the Muslim League. As one of the Muslim League’s leaders told me in November 1988, after the elections in which the PPP had won power in Islamabad and the IJI alliance (led by the Muslim League) in Lahore:

There has been a tremendous growth in provincial awareness in Punjab. The province is looking for its own leader. This is necessary to balance the other provinces, which in the past have blackmailed Punjab – ‘if you do not give us more water we will break up Pakistan’ and so on. We are 62 per cent of the population of Pakistan, but have only a 45 per cent share of jobs in the state services. We have taken the role of a generous uncle to the other provinces.9

On the other hand, the leader in question was Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain of Gujrat; and, after Musharraf’s coup against Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1999, Chaudhury Shujaat and his brother, Chaudhury Pervez Elahi, abandoned the Sharifs to join Musharraf’s administration and take over the government of Punjab themselves. So, as always in Pakistan, collective identities (whether provincial, ethnic, religious or whatever) are constantly being trumped by personal