Khurram Khan
“I was staying on 4 October 1954 at a hotel in London …I was pacing up and down the room when I said to myself: Let me put down my ideas in a military fashion: what is wrong with the country and what can be done to put things right[1]”. This is how President Field Marshal Gen. Ayub Khan described, in his autobiography “Friends Not Masters”, germination of the idea of One Unit in his ‘fertile’ mind when he was Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan. Earlier in 1951, he had another brilliant idea calling for culling of goats and instead of rearing sheep to increase forest area[2].
Dwelling on One Unit, he observed, “…the West Pakistan in order to develop properly and prove a bulwark to defence from the North or South must be wielded into one unit and all artificial provincial boundaries removed. This unit should, therefore, be so subdivided that each unit embraces a racial group or groups with common economy, communications and potentiality for development and administrative decentralised in them to the maximum possible.”
As soon as he had scribbled concept paper, politicians led by Mian Mumtaz Khan Daultana came in its support followed by the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra. The One Unit scheme was implemented on October 14, 1955. The West Pakistan was sub divided into 12 Divisions and divisions into districts. The One Unit paved the way for first constitution of Pakistan in 1956. The scheme created parity with the East Pakistan (East Bengal) to undermine its majority.
The outcome of the One Unit was to centralise authority and power. In the aftermath of Martial Law imposed by Gen. Ayub Khan in 1958 and introduction of presidential system under 1962 Constitution the One Unit turned a federal character of the state into a unitary form of government. Opposition to One Unit gained currency under Ayub Presidency. The combined opposition, in the Round Table Conference called by President Ayub Khan in February 1969 in the wake of political agitation, demanded abolition of One Unit.
Ayub Khan did not accept scarificing his brainchild and RTC collapsed. However, another military mind, President Gen. Yahya Khan who succeeded as second military ruler, took about turn and abolished on July 01, 1970 through the Legal Framework Order (LFO) and restored four provinces in West Pakistan.
One military mind presented One Unit as panacea of problems beset by Pakistan. While his successor concurred with political opposition and did away with the scheme. Elections held in 1970 and secession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh are all well known facts. Resultantly, West Pakistan became Pakistan.
The 1973 consensus constitution described Pakistan comprised of four provinces Balochistan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Punjab and Sindh; and the Islamabad Capital Territory, hereinafter referred to as the Federal Capital. It also kept an option open for accession or otherwise of States and territories on such terms and conditions prescribed under law by parliament. This option was kept while keeping in mind the accession of State of Jammu & Kashmir and State of Junagarh, which had been occupied by India illegally. The fate of J&K is to be decided by a plebiscite held under UN SC resolutions.
The composition of Pakistan has been defined in the basic law. Of late, a demand for more provinces has emerged from some quarters. Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi put forward the proposal to bifurcate existing provinces or create more administrative units for effective governance and service delivery as the existing archaic system has ‘collapsed’.
The loud thinking by Mohsin Naqvi has generated much hype on the question of more provinces/administrative units. Meanwhile, some other Federal Ministers like Abdul Aleem Khan and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui of small coalition partners have also joined the chorus. Leaders of mainstream political parties are dumbfounded as the source of inspiration for the likes of Mohsin Naqvi.
Pakistan constitution has no comparable provision as in the Indian constitution of establishing more states (provinces). Indian constitution gives unfettered authority to the parliament to create more provinces through bifurcation, amalgamation or altering boundaries. However, that power is exercised on the basis of popular demand of many years.
Since 1973, the composition of the Pakistan has not been called in question by political or military dispensation except during 2008-2013 when Punjab Assembly unanimously passed twin resolutions on May 9, 2012, calling on the Federal Government for the establishment of a separate South Punjab province alongside the restoration of the Bahawalpur province and setting up of a national commission on creating new provinces.
Article 239 (4) provides, “A Bill to amend the Constitution which would have the effect of altering the limits of a Province shall not be presented to the President for assent unless it has been passed by the Provincial Assembly of that Province by the votes of not less than two-thirds of its total membership.”
The Article authorises Provincial Assembly to approve or disapprove any constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament altering its limits. Parliament’s authority to amend Article 1 (2) has been circumscribed by the Article 239 (4).
The situation becomes ludicrous since it is a popular belief that the scheme has been aired on the instance of another military mind. The experiments made by the men in shining armour has oscillated from One Unit to present day 10 to 12 Provinces. One thing is certain that there is no consistency and uniformity of thought.
[1] Khan, Muhammad Ayub, Friends not Masters, Oxford University Press 1967 London, pp 186-187
[2] “75 Years Ago”, The Dawn, February 15, 2026, Karachi
The author is former Joint Director General Intelligence Bureau.
