Ever since Senator Raza Rabbani was elected the Senate Chairman, he has been trying to infuse a new enthusiasm into the Upper House; and the fervour is not about some hollow speeches and any delusion about the grandeur of an elite club. The chairman appears to be serious about upholding the right of the federating units and asserting the raisons d’être of a house that was created to ensure that a majority province does not bulldoze the aspirations of the smaller provinces. Marking the Senate Foundation Day in August every year is becoming a new hallmark of this rejuvenated Upper House.

This year’s Senate Foundation Day on August 6 was different in the sense that a renowned scholar of political science, Dr Jaffar Ahmed, having clearly secular and liberal orientation was invited as the keynote speaker. The event was well represented by the senators from the ruling and opposition parties and speakers from two provincial assemblies i.e. Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; but in addition to the Chairman himself, those who stole the show were Dr Jaffar Ahmed and Senator Aitzaz Ahsan. The PML-N Senator, Mushahidullah, who was invited to read the speech of Raja Zafarul Haq, refused to do so and ended up delivering a rodomontade that was reminiscent of Gen Zia ul Haq with his repeated references to the scriptures and interspersed with incongruent poetry to impress the audience with his good memorisation skills.

The main thrust of Dr Ahmed’s discussion was the rationale behind the creation of the upper house and the challenges it has faced during its four decades of existence. Senator Shahi Sayed of the Awami National Party (ANP) was visibly and vocally appreciative of the presentation and had no hesitation in saying that most senators needed such orientation about the house they are working in.

Since such matters don’t get much attention in the mainstream media, it is worth mentioning some of the points highlighted by Dr Ahmed. It is interesting to note that the Muslim League was a political party that vociferously demanded provincial autonomy under the British rule. M. A. Jinnah time and again advocated the creation of Muslim majority provinces such as by separation of Sindh from Bombay, by dividing Bengal and creating a Muslim majority province of East Bengal and by granting a full provincial status to Balochistan. But sadly, after the inception of Pakistan, the same Muslim League became a party that thwarted all aspiration for provincial autonomy in the country.

One reason for repeated delays in constitution making was the reluctance of the Muslim League to come up with a formula that could satisfy the needs of adequate provincial autonomy. Arguably, the best suited formulation was developed under the premiership of an unlikely politician, MA Bogra, who had become the PM at the sole behest of the Governor General Ghulam Mohammad after the unceremonious dismissal of Nazimuddin. The Bogra Formula had envisioned a bicameral parliament and had allocated 165 seat of the lower house to East Bengal and 135 to all the administrative units in the western wing. In the proposed upper house, each province had 10 ten seats, making a total of 50.

The beauty of this formula was that in a joint sitting of the parliament both eastern and western wings would have the same number of votes i.e. 175 each. This formula would have greatly reduced the possibility of one province dominating the others at least in a joint sitting, and the smaller provinces would have enjoyed a constitutional guarantee of sorts in matters of decision-making and resource allocation.

With this formula almost ready, the first Constituent Assembly also decided to clip the powers of the governor general to dismiss the prime minister; as he had done in 1953 by publically humiliating Khawja Nazimuddin who was a respected politician from East Bengal and commanded majority in the assembly. Before the assembly could approve the Bogra Formula for constitution making, Ghulam Mohammad dissolved the assembly in October 1954 on the pretext that it had failed to draft a constitution in the seven years of its existence. This almost senile governor general did not take into account the known fact that the Bogra Formula had the support of the majority in the parliament and could have been passed within a week.

The Federal Court, led by Justice Munir, upheld the dissolution and paved the way for further interference from the civil and military bureaucracy into political matters. Justice Munir later admitted to have had tremendous pressure upon him for approving the dissolution. Then, in 1955 Parity Principle was approved according to which all the provinces of the western wing were merged into a one-unit, with the capital of West Pakistan being in Lahore. Based on this parity, Chaudhary Muhammad Ali, the new PM of Pakistan, developed the 1956 constitution that stipulated a unicameral parliament.

In retrospect, more than the dissolution of the assembly, it was the rejection of the Bogra Formula that did greater harm to the federation. Had the 1956 Constitution adopted the Bogra Formula, all federating units would have got some assurance of their voice being heard at the centre. But, even that imposed parity could not ensure the survival of the 1956 Constitution which was abrogated in 1958 just months before the first general elections were supposed to be held in the country.

General Ayub Khan set up a Constitutional Commission to propose a new draft. The Commission once again suggested a bicameral parliament, but the good general was an autocrat who could impose his will, and that’s what he did in the shape of the 1962 Constitution. This iteration of the constitution was again based on a unicameral house with equal representation for both the wings, irrespective of East Pakistan having around 55 per cent of the total population of Pakistan.

In 1969, General Yahya Khan threw that constitution too in the dustbin, and promised elections on the basis of population rather than parity. After the military defeat and breakup of the country the rump Pakistan was led by ZA Bhutto who, for the first time, managed to introduce a bicameral parliament with the Senate having equal members from the four provinces. This Senate, despite repeated disruptions in its functioning, survives to this day and now has 25 members from each province as opposed to the original strength of just 40 in 1973 with 10 members from each province.

The upper house in India -- Rajya Sabha -- does not have equal representation from all units; rather it is just like the lower house in terms of population-wise distribution of seats. In India, they don’t even call it a federation and prefer to use the term union; having union ministers rather than federal ministers.

Thanks to this equal provincial representation in the Senate, the previous PPP government managed to draft and pass the 18^th Amendment that is perhaps the singular most important achievement in legislation after the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution itself. Had the provinces not had equal representation in the Senate, perhaps the PML-N, mainly dominated by the Punjab, could scupper the 18^th Amendment. Though the 18^th Amendment committee led by Senator Raza Rabbani was successful in passing a unanimous amendment, the current PML-N government has been repeatedly trying to undermine the spirit of this devolution.

One example of this is the reluctance of the current government to hold regular meetings of the Council of Common Interests (CII). Another is the repeated attempts by the federal education minister, Maulana Balighur Rahman, to infringe upon the devolved education sector to the provinces. Under the guise of a uniformed curriculum, the honourable federal minister appears to be too keen to impose the same old one-nation one-curriculum mantra that has deprived the provinces of their right to include their own heroes that the centre refuses to acknowledge.

The Punjab version of education does not acknowledge the sacrifices of freedom fighters such as G M Syed and Bacha Khan, and has no soft corners for the champions of democracy such a Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo. The insistence of the PML-N ministers on inclusion of more religious education is another bone of contention. Senator Aitzaz Ahsan was right in pointing out that if anyone wants to have more religious education for their children they could send their children to thousands of seminaries set up by Gen Zia and his coteries that are still wreaking havoc in this country.

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani lamented the fact that the federal government is interfering too much in provincial matters and trying to impose a martial law like situation in smaller federating units. The case of Rangers’ deployment in Sindh is a case in point through which both the major parties of the province are being targeted in the name of corruption and security, while hardly any such action is being taken in Punjab that is no more an ideal of governance, as it is being projected with the help of mega projects such as Metro Bus and Orange Line trains.

The practice of observing the Senate Foundation Day is commendable, but even more appreciable is the opportunity provided to the legislators to listen to scholars such as Dr Jaffar Ahmed, who was able to present a balanced picture of the challenges faced by the federation and how the Senate can mitigate the concerns of the smaller provinces.