Editorial
Pakistan was built on two essential pillars: federalism and republicanism. These weren’t mere administrative concepts but fundamental promises woven into the nation’s identity and constitutional fabric. Yet seventy-seven years later, both remain unfulfilled.
Pakistan has never genuinely practiced democracy. Elections come and go, but representative government remains elusive. What persists instead is a hybrid system where unelected forces wield disproportionate power, rendering popular will largely irrelevant.
Similarly, federalism exists only on paper. Pakistan operates as a highly centralized state where provinces remain administratively subservient to the center. Provincial autonomy, constitutionally guaranteed, is systematically undermined through bureaucratic capture and resource control.
When a state actively works against its own foundational principles, peripheral crises become inevitable. Balochistan’s ongoing insurgency isn’t an isolated security problem—it’s a symptom of this deeper constitutional betrayal. Bangladesh’s separation in 1971 delivered the same message: you cannot hold a federation together while denying federalism itself.
Temporary security measures and military operations offer no lasting solutions. Section 144 orders and intelligence-based operations address symptoms, not causes. The path forward requires genuine commitment to the principles Pakistan claims to uphold.
This means conducting free and fair elections that produce truly representative governments. It means implementing constitutional federalism where provinces exercise real authority over their resources, administration, and development. It means ending the bureaucratic and military stranglehold that reduces democratic institutions to theatrical performances.
Only after honestly implementing these foundational principles does the state earn moral authority to confront separatism. Until then, Pakistan merely suppresses dissent while perpetuating the very conditions that fuel it. The choice remains stark: become the federal democratic republic the constitution promises, or continue managing an increasingly ungovernable centralized state through coercion.
