ABSTRACT
This chapter purviews dynamics and contextualities of Pakistan’s path dependent politics of centralisation and authoritarianism that served to engender both political and violent ethnic movements leading in one instance to the disintegration of the state in 1971. The violent episode of ethnic secessionism in East Pakistan did not in essence provide a reconfigured politics of accommodation and reconciliation between the centre and provinces. In fact, path dependent politics of centralised-authoritarianism continued after Pakistan’s disintegration resulting in militarized conflict between the state and ethnic groups in Balochistan and rural and urban Sindh. Since 2009, Pakistan has seemingly moved beyond centralised politics via the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which not only guarantees much needed provincial autonomy but also serves to engender a democratic polity dotted by periodic elections and party competition. Ethnic movements, nonetheless, remain consequential, with a secessionist movement in Balochistan as well as demands for new administrative units in Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Pakistan’s transitioning democratic-federal state provides grounds for a positive regulation of ethnic demands, however, paradoxically also making ethnic assertions imperative as the state wrangles with devolution of administrative powers from a historically entrenched federal to provincial bureaucracy.
