More Provinces, or Better Government?

Every age has its favourite political illusion. Ours is the belief that if a state redraws its map, it can redraw its destiny.

The illusion is neither new nor uniquely Pakistani. Throughout history, rulers confronted with public discontent have often reached first for the cartographer rather than the reformer. Kingdoms were partitioned, provinces were multiplied and capitals were relocated with the promise that a new administrative design would produce a new political reality. Sometimes it did. More often, the map changed while the lives of ordinary people remained stubbornly the same. The road stayed broken. The school remained understaffed. The hospital still lacked medicines. Geography had moved; governance had not.

Pakistan has once again arrived at one of those historical moments. The debate over new provinces has returned with renewed intensity. South Punjab, Bahawalpur, Hazara and, occasionally, urban Sindh have re-entered political discourse. Television studios debate new boundaries with remarkable confidence. Politicians promise administrative revolutions. Constitutional amendments are drafted, revised and forgotten. Yet beneath all these proposals lies a single assumption that Pakistan’s crisis is fundamentally geographical.

It is an attractive assumption because geography is visible. A new province can be announced, celebrated and printed on official maps within months. Institutions do not yield so easily. Honest administration, competent bureaucracy, independent local government and accountable public service demand years of patient political labour. They produce fewer headlines than constitutional amendments, but they determine whether citizens experience the state as a servant or a burden.

This is not an argument against creating new provinces. It is an argument against believing that new provinces alone can rescue a failing administrative culture.

The debate deserves seriousness rather than slogans because the pressures giving rise to it are entirely real. According to the 2023 Population and Housing Census, Pakistan’s population has exceeded 250 million, making it the fifth most populous country in the world. Punjab alone contains approximately 127 million people—more inhabitants than almost every country in Europe. Balochistan stretches across nearly forty-four per cent of Pakistan’s landmass while containing only a small fraction of its population. Sindh continues to experience one of the fastest rates of urbanisation in South Asia. Such demographic realities naturally provoke questions about administrative efficiency, regional representation and equitable development.

Communities demanding new provinces are therefore not merely inventing grievances. South Punjab has long argued that development has been disproportionately concentrated in central Punjab. Bahawalpur invokes historical identity and constitutional commitments made at the time of accession. Hazara has repeatedly asserted that its political priorities differ from those of the wider Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These demands arise from genuine perceptions of administrative neglect and unequal political influence. A mature federation should listen carefully before dismissing them.

Yet listening carefully also requires asking difficult questions.

If the existing provinces have themselves become highly centralised, why should another layer of provincial government automatically bring authority closer to the people? If citizens already struggle to persuade provincial bureaucracies to repair roads, improve schools or manage municipal services, why should replacing one provincial capital with another necessarily transform that experience? Is Pakistan’s principal challenge really the number of provinces, or is it the distance that has gradually grown between government and the governed?

History offers reasons for caution.

In 1955, Pakistan adopted the One Unit Scheme, merging the provinces of West Pakistan into a single administrative entity. The stated objective was efficiency, administrative coherence and national integration. Instead, the policy deepened provincial resentments, weakened regional identities only in theory and strengthened them in practice. By 1970, the experiment had collapsed. The map had changed twice within fifteen years, but governance had not become more responsive. The lesson was clear enough for anyone willing to see it— political legitimacy cannot be manufactured by administrative engineering alone.

The framers of the 1973 Constitution attempted a different approach. They recognised Pakistan as a federation in which diversity would be accommodated rather than erased. Decades later, the Eighteenth Amendment significantly expanded provincial autonomy, transferring important subjects—including health, education and culture—from the federation to the provinces. Many constitutional scholars rightly regarded it as one of the most consequential democratic reforms in Pakistan’s constitutional history.

Yet an uncomfortable paradox remains.

If greater provincial autonomy was expected to produce more responsive government, why do so many Pakistanis still experience the same frustrations in their daily dealings with public institutions? Why do overcrowded hospitals, deteriorating municipal services, inadequate schools and inaccessible bureaucracies continue to dominate public complaints?

Perhaps because Pakistan decentralised authority from Islamabad to provincial capitals but never completed the journey from provincial capitals to the people themselves.

That distinction lies at the heart of the present debate.

The real question before Pakistan is therefore not whether the federation should eventually have four provinces, six provinces or eight. Every federation evolves with changing demographic, political and economic realities. The more fundamental question is whether power should continue to accumulate in increasingly distant capitals or finally begin to reside where citizens actually live—in districts, municipalities, towns and villages.

Before Pakistan redraws another map, it must first decide what government is supposed to do. A state exists not to administer territory but to serve people. Maps are only instruments; institutions are the purpose. When governments forget that distinction, they begin to mistake the appearance of reform for reform itself.

The debate over new provinces is therefore important. But it is important for a reason larger than cartography. It compels Pakistan to confront a more profound constitutional question, does the country require more provinces, or does it require government that is finally prepared to come closer to its citizens?

History possesses an inconvenient habit of refusing to validate political shortcuts. Nations that confuse administrative rearrangement with institutional reform usually discover, sooner or later, that maps can change more quickly than governments. The temptation to redraw boundaries is understandable because it promises visible action. Yet the record of history suggests that boundaries alone seldom transform the quality of governance.

Pakistan’s own constitutional evolution illustrates this truth.

At independence in 1947, the new state inherited a federal arrangement consisting of provinces, princely states and administrative territories. The challenge was formidable. Refugee rehabilitation, constitutional uncertainty, economic scarcity and the geographical separation of East and West Pakistan placed extraordinary demands upon the infant state. In this atmosphere emerged the belief that administrative centralisation would strengthen national unity.

The most ambitious expression of that belief was the One Unit Scheme of 1955. The provinces and princely states of West Pakistan were merged into a single province to counterbalance the demographic weight of East Pakistan. The architects of the policy argued that one province would eliminate provincial rivalries, reduce administrative expenditure and create national cohesion. On paper, the proposal appeared logical. In practice, it produced the opposite effect.

Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province did not cease to exist in the political imagination simply because they disappeared from official maps. Identities that had evolved over centuries could not be erased through constitutional drafting. Instead, regional grievances deepened, political alienation increased and mistrust towards the centre intensified. By 1970, the experiment had become politically unsustainable. The provinces were restored, but valuable years had been lost pursuing a constitutional illusion—that administrative uniformity could substitute for political legitimacy.

The lesson remains strikingly relevant today. Governments may redraw maps, but they cannot redraw public confidence with the same ease.

The 1973 Constitution represented a decisive departure from that earlier philosophy. It recognised that Pakistan’s unity would be strengthened not through excessive centralisation but through federal accommodation. Provincial autonomy became an essential constitutional principle rather than an administrative concession. This philosophy reached its most significant expression in the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment in 2010, which abolished the Concurrent Legislative List and transferred numerous functions—including education, health, labour, environment and culture—to the provinces.

Many constitutional experts regarded the amendment as the completion of Pakistan’s federal project. It promised that decisions affecting citizens would increasingly be taken closer to those citizens rather than in distant federal ministries.

Yet constitutions, however elegantly written, cannot govern by themselves.

The transfer of powers from Islamabad to provincial capitals did not automatically improve governance. In many respects, it merely shifted the centre of administrative gravity. Authority that had once been concentrated in the federation became concentrated within provincial secretariats. The ordinary citizen often noticed little difference. The bureaucratic distance between the ruler and the ruled remained remarkably intact.

This experience should shape the present debate over new provinces.

Creating South Punjab, Bahawalpur or Hazara would undoubtedly bring provincial institutions geographically closer to many citizens. New secretariats, high courts, assemblies and administrative offices would reduce the burden of travelling hundreds of kilometres for official business. Such improvements should not be underestimated. Administrative accessibility has real value, particularly in regions that have long perceived themselves as peripheral to provincial decision-making.

South Punjab offers perhaps the strongest example. Districts such as Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan have consistently recorded lower indicators of literacy, industrial investment, healthcare access and infrastructure development than many districts of central Punjab. The demand for a separate province is therefore rooted not merely in historical identity but in a widespread perception that development priorities have persistently favoured the province’s central districts.

These concerns deserve constitutional attention rather than political dismissal.

However, history also cautions against expecting administrative restructuring to perform miracles.

If a new province merely reproduces the same patterns of bureaucratic centralisation—only with a different capital—its citizens may eventually discover that the distance between ruler and ruled has narrowed on the map but not in reality. A road neglected from Lahore may remain neglected from Multan if the institutions responsible for maintaining it remain equally insulated from public accountability.

This distinction explains why some federations flourish while others struggle.

A federation is not measured by the number of its constituent units. It is measured by how effectively authority is distributed among them and, more importantly, by how effectively that authority reaches the citizen.

Political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly two centuries ago that democratic freedom does not survive merely because people elect national governments. It survives because citizens participate in governing their own local communities. A nation learns democracy in its municipalities long before it perfects it in its parliaments. Local institutions are not administrative conveniences; they are schools of citizenship.

Pakistan has often treated them as temporary arrangements rather than permanent constitutional pillars.

Consequently, the current debate should move beyond the emotionally appealing question of whether more provinces are desirable. A more searching question presents itself.

If Pakistan’s existing provinces have not consistently devolved meaningful authority to districts and municipalities, why should anyone assume that additional provinces will behave differently?

That question cannot be answered by drawing another map. It can only be answered by examining how successful federations around the world have managed to bring government closer to the governed—a comparison that offers lessons far more valuable than constitutional slogans.

Comparative politics is useful because it disciplines national imagination. Every country believes its problems are unique until it studies the experiences of others. Then it discovers that most political questions have been asked before, though not always answered wisely.

The demand for new provinces in Pakistan is often presented as though demographic growth inevitably requires territorial fragmentation. International experience suggests a more nuanced conclusion. Successful federations do not become effective because they have more states or provinces. They become effective because authority is distributed intelligently, public institutions remain accountable, and local governments possess the resources to perform the tasks assigned to them.

India provides perhaps the most instructive comparison.

Since independence, India has repeatedly reorganised its internal boundaries through constitutional means. Linguistic states were created in the 1950s. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand emerged in 2000, while Telangana became India’s twenty-ninth state in 2014. These changes were not arbitrary exercises in political cartography. They were responses to historical identities, administrative convenience and regional aspirations.

Yet the Indian experience also exposes the limits of territorial reorganisation.

The country’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, is home to approximately 240 million people—a population approaching that of Pakistan itself. If Uttar Pradesh were an independent country, it would rank among the world’s most populous nations. It administers policing, education, agriculture, healthcare, transport and local government for a population almost twice that of Pakistan’s largest province.

No serious analyst would claim that Uttar Pradesh has eliminated poverty, corruption or administrative inefficiency. It has not. But neither has India concluded that demographic size alone makes a state impossible to govern. The continued existence of Uttar Pradesh demonstrates an important principle that population, by itself, is not destiny. Administrative success depends less upon numbers than upon institutional capacity.

The comparison inevitably raises an uncomfortable question.

If a single Indian state can administer a population approaching that of Pakistan, why have Pakistan’s provinces struggled to deliver efficient governance to considerably smaller populations?

The answer cannot simply be geography.

It lies in institutions.

The same lesson emerges elsewhere.

Nigeria inherited only three regions at independence in 1960. Concerned that large regions concentrated excessive political power, successive governments gradually increased the number of states until the federation now consists of thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory. Representation undoubtedly became more geographically balanced. Yet corruption, uneven development, fiscal dependence and administrative inefficiency did not disappear merely because more governors and assemblies were created. New administrative units multiplied political offices more rapidly than they strengthened institutions.

Indonesia followed a different trajectory after the fall of President Suharto in 1998. Rather than relying solely upon territorial reorganisation, Jakarta embarked upon one of the world’s most ambitious programmes of decentralisation. Significant authority over education, healthcare, planning and local development was transferred to district and municipal governments. Although implementation has been uneven, the reforms demonstrated an important principle that bringing government closer to citizens often matters more than multiplying intermediate layers of administration.

Germany offers another revealing example.

Despite being Europe’s largest economy, much of Germany’s administrative strength rests not merely upon its federal states (Länder) but upon highly capable municipalities. Local governments enjoy constitutionally protected responsibilities, reliable financial resources and considerable autonomy in delivering public services. Citizens therefore experience government not as an abstract institution located in Berlin but as a practical presence within their own communities.

Canada follows a similar philosophy. Provinces possess extensive constitutional authority, yet municipalities remain indispensable in urban planning, transport, sanitation, public safety and community services. Political disputes certainly exist, but few Canadians believe that every governance failure requires the creation of another province.

The international evidence therefore points towards a remarkably consistent conclusion.

Federalism succeeds when power travels downward rather than merely outward.

That distinction is easily overlooked.

A country may decentralise authority from the national government to provincial governments while remaining profoundly centralised in practice. Provincial capitals themselves can become miniature versions of the federal capital, accumulating political influence, financial control and bureaucratic discretion at the expense of districts and municipalities.

Pakistan increasingly resembles such a model.

In theory, power has moved away from Islamabad since the Eighteenth Amendment. In practice, much of that authority has simply accumulated within Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. Provincial governments often exercise powers once criticised when exercised by the federation. Centralisation has not disappeared; it has merely changed address.

The irony is striking.

For decades, provinces demanded greater autonomy from the federation. Having acquired significant constitutional powers, many have proved reluctant to extend similar autonomy to local governments within their own boundaries. The political philosophy once invoked against federal centralisation is too often forgotten when provincial governments confront demands for municipal empowerment.

This irony recalls a familiar episode from classical mythology. Kronos overthrew his father Uranus to escape tyranny, only to become a tyrant himself. Zeus then rebelled against Kronos, repeating the cycle. Political power frequently behaves in much the same way. Those who struggle against excessive centralisation often become reluctant to surrender authority once they possess it.

Pakistan’s provinces have not entirely escaped this historical pattern.

The debate, therefore, should not revolve solely around whether Pakistan requires six provinces instead of four. It should ask a more demanding question.

Can any federation become genuinely democratic if power stops at the provincial capital instead of reaching the citizen?

The answer to that question lies not in comparative geography but in Pakistan’s own Constitution—specifically, in a provision that is discussed far less often than it deserves but may hold the key to resolving much of the country’s governance crisis.

There is a revealing paradox at the heart of Pakistan’s constitutional debate. Politicians speak frequently about provincial autonomy. They speak far less about the constitutional provision that brings government closest to the citizen.

That provision is Article 140A.

Inserted into the Constitution through the Eighteenth Amendment, Article 140A requires every province to establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected local representatives. Its language is neither vague nor symbolic. It embodies one of the most important democratic principles in modern constitutional thought that decisions affecting daily life should, wherever possible, be taken by those closest to the people.

Yet constitutional promises often meet political reluctance.

Since 2008, Pakistan’s provinces have repeatedly delayed local government elections, dissolved elected councils before completing their terms, altered local government laws with every change of administration, and retained decisive control over finance, planning and public administration. Mayors have frequently been expected to solve urban problems without commanding either the financial resources or administrative authority necessary to do so. Municipal governments have too often become constitutional ornaments rather than functioning institutions.

The consequence is visible in almost every Pakistani city.

A broken sewer in Lahore, an overflowing drain in Karachi, unmanaged urban expansion in Peshawar, traffic congestion in Quetta or inadequate waste management in Multan are rarely problems requiring the attention of a chief minister. They are municipal questions. Across much of the democratic world, such matters are resolved by empowered city governments that possess their own budgets, professional administrations and clearly defined legal authority. In Pakistan, however, they frequently travel upwards through layers of provincial bureaucracy before returning—often slowly—to the very neighbourhood where the problem first arose.

Government becomes distant not because citizens live far from the capital but because decision-making lives far from the citizen.

The political scientist Elinor Ostrom, whose work on institutional governance earned the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, repeatedly demonstrated that public institutions perform more effectively when authority is exercised at the level where problems actually occur. Communities usually understand their own priorities better than distant bureaucracies. Local accountability is often stronger because citizens know precisely who is responsible for success or failure. Democratic participation also becomes more meaningful when representatives are neighbours rather than distant political figures seen only on television.

Pakistan’s constitutional architecture implicitly recognises this wisdom.

Its implementation, unfortunately, has rarely reflected it.

This explains why discussions about new provinces often generate more excitement than discussions about municipalities. A new province creates a governor, a chief minister, a cabinet, a provincial assembly, additional secretaries and an expanded bureaucracy. The symbolism is unmistakable. Local governments create something less dramatic but ultimately more valuable—streets that are cleaned on time, parks that remain open, schools that answer to communities, property records that are updated efficiently and public officials who can be questioned without travelling hundreds of kilometres.

The contrast is less glamorous, but governance is rarely glamorous.

History offers countless reminders that durable states are constructed from the bottom upwards. Ancient Athens, despite all its limitations, cultivated civic participation through local assemblies. Medieval England gradually developed systems of parish and borough administration that became the foundations of later representative government. Alexis de Tocqueville, observing the United States in the nineteenth century, famously argued that local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science. They teach citizens how democracy actually functions. People do not become democratic merely by electing national legislatures every few years. They become democratic by participating in the everyday management of their communities.

Pakistan has often attempted to practise democracy from the summit downward.

The result has been predictable. Every tier of government demands greater autonomy from the level above it while hesitating to grant comparable autonomy to the level below it. Islamabad resists provincial demands. Provinces resist municipal demands. Districts sometimes resist authority being devolved further to union councils. At every stage, centralisation reproduces itself.

This is why the current debate must move beyond a simple choice between four provinces or six. The real issue is not arithmetic but philosophy.

What is the purpose of a democratic state?

If the answer is merely to administer territory, then new provinces may appear sufficient. But if the answer is to improve the daily lives of citizens, then administrative boundaries become only one part of a much larger institutional design. A child learns little from knowing whether her school is administered from Lahore or Multan if qualified teachers never arrive. A patient gains little from the location of a provincial secretariat if the local hospital lacks medicines. A shopkeeper does not care which capital issues regulations if municipal authorities cannot keep the streets outside his business clean or safe.

Politics often mistakes scale for effectiveness.

It assumes that larger reforms necessarily produce larger results. Yet the opposite is frequently true. Nations are transformed not only by constitutional amendments but also by countless small acts of competent administration. For instance, a birth certificate issued without bribery, a road repaired before it collapses, a public park maintained, a police complaint registered without political influence, a school inspected regularly, a drainage system cleaned before the rains arrive are more effective than superficial constitutional amendments.

Civilisation, in the end, is measured less by the grandeur of its capitals than by the quality of life in its neighbourhoods.

That truth leads to an unavoidable conclusion. Pakistan may indeed require additional provinces in the decades ahead. Demography, geography and regional aspirations make such discussions both legitimate and necessary. But unless genuine political, administrative and financial authority finally reaches districts, municipalities and union councils—as the Constitution itself envisages—the creation of new provinces will risk becoming another exercise in changing the appearance of the state while leaving its governing habits largely untouched.

The map, after all, is only the frame. The life of a nation is painted within it.

Every serious constitutional debate eventually arrives at a philosophical question. Pakistan’s debate over new provinces is no exception. Behind the arguments about South Punjab, Hazara, Bahawalpur or urban Sindh lies a larger issue that no constitutional amendment, by itself, can resolve. The question of what kind of state does Pakistan wish to become?

If the objective is merely to create additional administrative units, the answer is relatively straightforward. Parliament may amend the Constitution, provincial assemblies may give their consent where required, new capitals may emerge, civil secretariats may be established and fresh political offices may be created. Maps will be redrawn, school atlases revised and government signboards replaced. Constitutional history shows that such changes are entirely possible.

The more difficult question begins after the ceremonies end.

Will the citizen notice any meaningful difference?

Will a farmer in Rajanpur receive irrigation services more efficiently because a provincial boundary has shifted? Will a school in Bahawalnagar suddenly acquire qualified teachers? Will a mother in Tharparkar find medicines available in the nearest public hospital? Will municipal authorities in Abbottabad become more responsive merely because another provincial assembly has come into existence? If the answer to these questions depends not upon constitutional boundaries but upon administrative competence, financial transparency and public accountability, then Pakistan’s challenge is larger than the map before it.

This is not an argument against creating new provinces. On the contrary, there are persuasive constitutional, demographic and administrative reasons for considering them. Punjab’s population exceeds that of many sovereign countries. South Punjab’s demand is supported by decades of discussion, repeated parliamentary resolutions and a widely acknowledged perception of uneven development. Hazara possesses its own historical and political aspirations. Bahawalpur invokes a distinct constitutional and historical legacy. A mature federation should never dismiss such demands with arrogance or indifference.

Federalism is not a static arrangement. It evolves as societies evolve.

India has reorganised its internal boundaries repeatedly since independence. Nigeria has expanded from three regions to thirty-six states. Ethiopia, South Africa and Indonesia have all modified their systems in response to changing political realities. Pakistan should not fear constitutional evolution where it genuinely serves the public interest.

But there is an equally important lesson from these experiences.

No federation has solved its governance problems simply by multiplying its constituent units.

The quality of institutions has always mattered more than the quantity of governments.

This is where Pakistan’s debate must become more intellectually honest. Too often, political parties champion decentralisation when speaking to Islamabad but embrace centralisation once they occupy provincial capitals. The language changes; the instinct does not. Authority remains concentrated. Bureaucracies expand. Municipal governments remain financially dependent. Local elections become irregular. Citizens continue travelling through multiple administrative layers to resolve problems that should have been addressed within their own communities.

This pattern cannot continue indefinitely.

The twenty-first century belongs to states that govern efficiently rather than merely govern extensively. Singapore, despite its size, has demonstrated the value of competent institutions. Switzerland has shown how deeply decentralised governance can coexist with national unity. Germany’s municipalities and Canada’s local governments illustrate that democracy becomes resilient when authority is shared rather than hoarded. These countries differ in history, geography and political culture, yet they converge upon one principle that the citizen should not have to travel to the highest office of government to solve the smallest public problem.

Pakistan’s Constitution already points in that direction.

Article 140A is not an administrative footnote; it is a democratic philosophy. It recognises that governance acquires legitimacy when citizens participate directly in shaping their communities. Local governments are not inferior governments. They are the governments that citizens encounter first and judge most frequently. They determine whether the streetlight works, whether the drain overflows, whether the public school functions and whether the local park remains a place of recreation rather than neglect.

Nations rarely collapse because they have too few provinces.

They weaken when institutions cease to command public confidence.

History confirms this with remarkable consistency. The late Roman Empire multiplied provinces in an attempt to improve administration, yet corruption, military overreach and institutional decay continued to erode its foundations. The Ottoman Empire reorganised its provincial administration through the Tanzimat reforms, but administrative restructuring could not compensate for deeper political weaknesses. The Soviet Union consisted of numerous republics with elaborate constitutional arrangements, yet it disintegrated because institutions had lost legitimacy. The lesson is sobering. Durable states are built not by multiplying administrative units but by cultivating trust between government and citizen.

That trust cannot be legislated into existence.

It is earned every day through competent administration, impartial justice, transparent taxation, effective policing and public services that function without favour or influence.

Perhaps, then, Pakistan has framed the debate too narrowly.

The question is not whether the federation should eventually have four provinces, six provinces or even eight. Demographic growth and regional aspirations may well justify constitutional reorganisation in the years ahead. The real question is whether every new province will inherit the same habits of excessive centralisation that have frustrated citizens for decades. If power merely moves from one provincial capital to another while remaining distant from districts, municipalities and union councils, the reform will have altered geography more than governance.

There is an old observation attributed to the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, “Governing a large country is like cooking a small fish; overdo it and you spoil it.” The wisdom lies not in the metaphor but in its restraint. Good government is seldom the product of dramatic gestures. It is the accumulation of countless acts of competence, integrity and accountability performed consistently over time.

Pakistan certainly requires constitutional imagination. It may require new provinces. It unquestionably requires administrative reform.

Above all, however, it requires a state that finally comes closer to its people.

Until that happens, every new province will remain only another line on a map, while the distance between the citizen and the state remains exactly where it has always been.

For in the end, nations are remembered not for the elegance of their boundaries but for the quality of the lives lived within them.

The writer is a PhD scholar in English Literature, a Lawyer, and an International Relations analyst.