South Punjab or Seraiki wasaib?

When PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari concluded his speech at his party’s rally in Multan on December 15 that ‘Ghinsoon, ghinsoon, sooba ghinsoon’ (we’ll grab the province, come what may), the crowd went frenzy. 

But not some Seraiki nationalists.

Pakistan Seraiki Party president Dr Nukhbah Langah said it was just an election stunt and a Seraiki vote securing strategy.

“The PPP did not change the name of their party unit of Seraiki wasaib,” she said referring to the PPP South Punjab chapter.  

She said Asif Zardari promised a Seraiki bank during his presidentship and that was not established.
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On the national language bill in the Senate, the PPP did not include Seraiki in it.

“Three cheers for the PPP for speaking for us but why the party has shied away from calling it a Seraiki sooba,” questioned Zahoor Dhareeja, the president of Saraikistan Qaumi Council Pakistan. He said speakers after speakers at the massive rally kept calling our wasaib as south Punjab, which was factually incorrect. “We lay our claim from Bahawalpur to Khushab districts, and Khushab, Mianwali, and Dera Ismail Khan, all Seraiki speaking districts, do not fall in south part of Punjab,” he explained. He sees Seraiki as his identity and wonders when the PPP gave identity to Pashtuns by renaming their province as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, why not the similar approach for the Seraiki belt.

Seraiki nationalists had pinned great hopes from the PPP rally and had done spadework to convince the party to raise the slogan of the province for the Seraiki belt.

When he landed in Multan, huge billboards and banners inscribed with a separate province demands welcomed Mr Bhutto-Zardari. Such columns of banner had popped up in every nook and cranny of the Multan city days ahead of the rally. Local newspapers published front-page ads and special supplements on behalf of Saraikistan Democratic Party General Secretary Asif Khan.

But all the publicity material missed the word ‘Seraiki’.

Asif Khan acknowledged there were some concerns in the PPP over raising the slogan of the Seraiki province.

He, however, called it a milestone for the nationalists that the PPP chairperson wore a Seraiki ajrak, called Seraiki the language of four provinces and promised to raise a new province for the area.

“Let us not make the name a big issue at this stage,” he says.

Rana Ibrar Khalid, a journalist with a deep interest in Seraiki issues, offers an explanation. He says when a commission for a separate province was formed by the Zardari government in 2011 under Senator Farhatullah Babar, then the powerful circles had warned the PPP not to use the word ‘Seraiki’ in the province issue. He said though it was undesirable, the PPP be forgiven for the reason that it had made the province issue a national issue, which was earlier confined to drawing room and seminar discussions.

“When the PPP presented a bill for the Seraiki area province in the Senate, Nawaz Sharif would instigate the people of Bahawalpur to demand the revival of their defunct state, not a province,” he said, adding that Baloch, Sindhi, and Pashtun nationalists supported the Seraiki province whereas some elements in Punjab had an issue with ‘Seraiki’ province. 

Ijazur Rehman, Pakistan Seraiki Party activist, says the PPP needs to understand public’s sentiments. “The crowd went mad when Javed Siddiqui anchored the rally proceeding in Seraiki, when Yousuf Gilani and Asif Zardari spoke in Seraiki and when Javed Multani sang a song in Seraiki,” he said.

Rana Fraz Noon, the Sarakistan Democratic Party head, says PPP’s promise would force other parties to make the province their part of the manifesto.