Recently, the debate on the need to create more provinces in Pakistan has reared its head again. This discourse ebbs and flows with time, and it has returned for yet another round.
In his August 23, 2025 column in Dawn, the founder-president of the think-tank Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) Ahmad Bilal Mehboob points out that those in favour of more provinces claim that “practically all our governance problems will be resolved once we create more provinces.” He rightly questions the practicality of such a sweeping conclusion.
The political analyst Najam Sethi — though in favour of more provinces — is realistic enough to remain sceptical about such a possibility. According to him, the sub-nationalist sentiments in most ethnic groups of the country are just too strong to allow the groups and their leaders to come to any settlement in this regard with the federal government.
Even the mainstream parties that often occupy the treasury and opposition benches in the National Assembly largely avoid speaking on this subject because they fear that they would lose electoral traction — especially in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and in the ‘Saraiki-speaking belt’ of Punjab.
But one can posit that the matter of suggesting additional provinces has always been more of a ploy to put pressure on the provinces to make some concessions to the state. For example, the military establishment (ME), which has always preferred a deeply centralised set-up, believes that the provinces should renegotiate the funds they receive from the centre — especially now, because ‘Pakistan’s increasing importance’ and concerns in the changing global order requires a financially sound federal government and armed forces.
Calls for new provinces in Pakistan often resurface with promises of solving governance crises. But Karachi’s long, tumultuous history shows how ethnic anxieties and power struggles make such ‘solutions’ far more complicated
Nevertheless, whereas most Pakistanis are not willing to support the creation of more provinces (due to their respective ethnic interests), there are activists and politicians within certain parties that do. The biggest among these is the Mohajir/Urdu-speaking-dominated nationalist party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Formed in 1984, by the late 1980s, it became Karachi’s largest party. One of its major demands is to turn Sindh’s capital, Karachi, into a separate province.
MQM, and mostly non-Sindhi middle-class Karachiites, support this demand. But if this demand is to be met due to the fact that Karachi has a Mohajir majority, then another fact brings this equation into question: the Mohajir community’s population in the city is steadily declining.
From being almost 60 percent in 1951, it fell to 48 percent in 1998, and 42 percent in 2017, before bouncing back to approximately 50 percent in 2023. But the population of the city’s Pakhtun community has been growing faster. The Pakhtun are now Karachi’s second largest ethnic group, followed by the Sindhis, Punjabi, Baloch and Saraiki.
Until its conquest by the British in the first half of the 19th century, Karachi was a small coastal town with just over 50,000 inhabitants. Most of them were Sindhi and Baloch, and the town was in the hands of Sindhi rulers who used to govern it from Sindh’s then capital, Hyderabad.
In 1840, the British made Karachi Sindh’s new capital. However, three years later, the British incorporated Sindh and its new capital into the ‘Bombay Presidency’ — a major administrative subdivision of British India, centred in the city of Bombay (present-day Mumbai).
Sindhi politicians and intellectuals began a long struggle against this decision, but the city’s population continued to grow rapidly when the British started turning it into a modern port city. In 1936, however, most Karachi-based politicians and businessmen succeeded in getting Karachi reinstated as Sindh’s capital when the Bombay Presidency folded and Sindh became a province again. Karachi became a ‘surplus city’ due to its powerful economy.
According to the 1941 census, over 60 percent of Karachi’s population was Sindhi. Just six percent were Urdu-speakers. But, after Pakistan’s creation in 1947, millions of Urdu-speakers poured in from India. The city’s demographics witnessed a dramatic shift. By 1951, over 60 percent of Karachi’s population was Urdu-speaking Mohajirs and the Sindhi population was reduced to just six percent.
What’s more, in 1948, the federal government suggested the separation of Karachi from Sindh and declared it Pakistan’s federal capital territory. Sindhi politicians and intelligentsia rejected the suggestion. They were also angry over the ‘arrogant manner’ in which this was being done. According to the late historian Dr Hamida Khuhro, when prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was confronted on the issue by the then-chief minister of Sindh, M. Ayub Khuhro, he told the minister, “…the Sindh government has to move out [of Karachi]… go make your capital in Hyderabad.”
Despite multiple protests by the Sindhis, the Sindh government finally relented — but only after the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, promised that the federal government would compensate Sindh for the financial losses that it would incur due the separation of its wealthy capital. This promise was never fulfilled.
In 1955, Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra and acting head of state Iskander Mirza abolished all provinces in West Pakistan and turned it into a ‘one unit.’ This move was supported by Punjab and the Mohajirs, but was vigorously opposed by other ethnic groups. It was seen as a ploy by the state to marginalise and eliminate the political and cultural interests of Sindhi, Baloch, Pakhtun and Bengali communities.
Then, in 1959, Karachi stopped being the federal capital as well. Islamabad became the new capital and, while it was being built, Rawalpindi in Punjab worked as an interim capital till 1967.
Opposition against the ‘one unit’ intensified during the last years of the Gen Ayub Khan dictatorship. And even though Karachi enjoyed a decade of rapid industrialisation, much of its Mohajir majority had by then started to lose its political and economic influence. Mohajir economic elites, however, continued to benefit due to Gen Ayub’s economic policies.
The first major ethnic riots in the city took place in early 1965 (between the Pakhtuns and Mohajirs). After Ayub’s fall in March 1969, the new dictator, Gen Yahya Khan, abolished the one unit and restored the provinces.
Then, on July 1, 1970, just before the country’s first major parliamentary elections, Karachi was once again declared the capital of Sindh. On that day, Radio Pakistan’s Karachi studios played Sindhi music, something that it often wasn’t allowed to do before. The music programme began with a couplet by the famous Sindhi poet Shah Abdul Latif.
Thrice Karachi was made Sindh’s capital and twice this status was taken away from it. The city is now thoroughly cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse. Yet, its historic roots are still deeply entrenched in the history of Sindh. It would be foolish to once again uproot its status on one pretext or the other. History is pitched against those dreaming of doing this for the fourth time.
Published in Dawn, EOS, August 31st, 2025
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