Abstract
It is ironically believed that regionalism ushered political instability in Pakistan. In contrast, the creation of
Pakistan is based on the bolstered slogan of full provincial autonomy for Muslims majority areas of India. Since
independence, the rift between the Centre-provinces is overwhelming over the issue of provincial autonomy.
Whenever minority provinces and East Pakistan reinforced the demand of provincial autonomy, the central
government tried to alter its ways from earlier set motto and used different tactics and presented schemes which
ultimately created blockade by implementing final stroke of One Unit Scheme. The scheme by nature was not to
pacify the controversy over political issues rather accommodated personal interests of civil-military oligarchy and
established ground for them to control over political structure of Pakistan. East Pakistan and Sindh—politically
conscious units—as well the NWFP—recently tasted fruits of provincial autonomy under Government of India Act,
1935—were rightly determined towards their constitutional rights but their demands were coined as
parochialism/provincialism and regionalism. Available literature has discussed One Unit merely as a scheme to
merge provinces of West Pakistan into single unit but behind this, the objective of praetorians was not only to
control political system but deprive East Pakistan demographically and Sindh from resources, which has hardly
been discussed. The objective of this paper is to find out how integrationist schemes accommodated the civil-military
bureaucracy and what subsequent results were over politics of Pakistan. To analyze these objectives, primary
sources including India-Pakistan-Burma Association Reports and Constituent Assembly Debates as well secondary
data is being used.
Mushtaque Ali Abbasi. (2020) State Integrationist Policies in Pakistan: An Analysis of the Impact over Bengal and Sindh (1947-1971), Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, Volume 57, Issue 1.
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