22nd ANNUAL EVENT OF SERAIKI MAILA MEHREWALA RAJANPUR

Post edited by: fmiana, at: 2007/11/19 05:49

At present we demand as follows:
1. Early education in mother tongue: (i) should be law-bound in Public sector schools and (ii) through
social mobilization and private enterprise by opening our own schools and by motivating teachers.
2. Independent Public Service Commission for Siraiki Region with share of jobs according to population,
3. Centres of Entry Test in Siraiki cities and not in Lahore at all.
4. Separate Finance Committee for Siraiki region in the Senate,
5. MPAs from Siraiki Region should have Batch marks of identity and some arrangement of separate counting in the Punjab Assembly.
6. Stop naming Siraiki Region as South Punjab. Wasaib should be preferred.

A NOTE FOR DISCUSSION;

We, the Siraikis think we are deprived and want our rights to be restored. And at the same time Siraiki movement has very low record of sacrificeswith exception of short-lived Bahawalpur Suba movement, no martyrs, no arrests, no violence.
We claim to be peace-loving people. We are proud of it. Then what will be strategy of a peaceful people in their struggle for rights???
The strategy will be to claim and prove our ability to practice modern day wisdom and advanced technique of democratic argument.
A common strategy of the DOMINANT is saying No and showing no flexibility. Siraiki Suba, I am afraid will remain a dream because there will never a be a government in the Centre powerful enough to ignore Punjab and give Siraikis their Suba free of conspiracies. I may be wrong, but think why should any Party give us a province where every right is demanded through violence in this country. And the worst is, the Nationalist parties are not only backward type but most of them lack honesty.
The strategy should be, let the establishment keep refusing Suba as long as they can. But letus, work for gradual reclamation of our rights.
Administrative region is a term used for unfixed concepts of administrative demarcation. Some times, an Administrative Region has status of nearly independent (or to be independent) state such as Darussalam near Indonesia and Macau in China etc. Sometimes these are meant for very weak, locally independent Administrative Units such as the Administrative Regions of Saudi Arabia. This ambiguity guarantees one thing that is a flexible demand, and invitation to think and agree. If we agree to advance such Concepts the aim will be to bring the issue into possibility and debate. And I agree that this strategy also can have some implications. But through this we can break the stubbornness of the Punjab piece by piece]
A NOTE FOR DISTRIBUTION TO ALL;
(a) At this time of struggle for rights we need to organize ourselves into a largest, but very flexible Network of organizations. This can be a political party, SLP, or can be a loose but regular Slaarr of any kind. (I think we should not let our work mix with our personal ego). Such a Party, or Slaarr should be able to claim status of sole-spokes body for Siraikis by emerging atop of all the existing organizations (and this will require speedy work).
(b) We may prefer to come with fewer demands at one time and keep repeating them at all fora through all media.
At present we demand as follows:
1. Early education in mother tongue: (i) should be law-bound in Public sector schools and (ii) through
social mobilization and private enterprise by opening our own schools and by motivating teachers.
2. Independent Public Service Commission for Siraiki Region,
3. Centres of Entry Test in Siraiki cities and not in Lahore at all.
4. Separate Finance Committee for Siraiki region in the Senate,
5. MPAs from Siraiki Region should have Batch marks of identity and some arrangement of separate
counting in the Punjab Assembly.
6. Stop naming Siraiki Region as South Punjab. Seraiki Wasaib should be preferred.
Ahsan Wagha

Post edited by: admin, at: 2007/11/17 13:01

Salam Saen!

Dear Ahsan Wagha

You have good thinking about seraiki region. we should fight for our rights through a plate form and a big and effective political party can be a good plate form for seraikis rights. unfortunately there are more than 5 seraiki political parties and they are not effective because of every party want to go forward. but i can't be. i think there is a need of a big and united party of seraiki people which should get large number of seats for national and provincial assemblies to put up our demands. we should learn from the movement of muslim league for getting separate country pakistan. that movement was possible only by the unity of muslims of india and work at a single agenda and plaeform to get a separate country for the muslimsof india. seraikis need a movement of like that for their rights. it can be only possible when we get united and unite all seraiki parties in a single party and platform. i request to all of you that please forward this message to all political personalities in seraiki conferences.

thanks!


Amjad Karim
------------------------------------------------------
Dear Amjad Karim Saien,

Thank you for taking the note worth answering.

Only in regards, I feel bound to comment on your note. Agreeing with each other is normally seen as good and appeasing. But contributing with something different is more productive. I offer a bit of contrasting views on your comment which does not mean yours were incorrect:

1. "Effective party" is what we all wish. But why is it so that Siraikis do not have an effective party? Not only Siraikis, other parties of other nationalities also remained and became increasingly weak. Why? There can be many reasons. But let's agree that it is not for the fault of 'leadership'. Baloch nationalism have had leades like Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bezanjo. The reason of failure are not always with those who work for some cause, but also with brutal historical facts. Make it short, "history of this country" has been reason of failure many good efforts [APNE BAS KA NA THAA BAR-E SANG-E SITAM]. The powers to fail these people included not less than American imperialism.

2. Not all the social and political issues are tested on the parameters of popular support. Not all the right things are achieved through power politics and violence. Sensitive states decide many things by seeing the peoples' aspirations--through surveys, analysis of literature, and negative factors like lack of willing participation of some people in development ect. For assessing power of Siraiki cultural consciousness it is sufficient to see how much writing, publishing, festivity and music is produced and projected without a peny granted by government. Siraikis have developed a big readership without their language being practised in schools. The cost of refusing people their culture and being insensitive to their aspirations is paid in terms of overall staleness, rather decay of the whole country.

3. How a big party will become into being. I suggest two things: (i) We must acknowledge the efforts of all those who tried to establish parties to this day. After all they consumed their lives in that. (ii) We have all rights to disagree with those who have come forth to start the work but only after we participate with them and own them more than we criticize them.

4. In short, we need a behavioral change. That is instead of criticizing from distance (not you Amjad sahib, but I myself and many others) we should take every effort done by anyone as sincere, should participate, understand and then come with constructive criticism.

5. Your assertion on the need of a larger, well participated party is, no doubt, need of the day. The vote-bank of such a big population of the country goes taken for granted. This is not acceptable.

yours

Wagha

Dear All,

When we talk about Seraiki Poltical Parties we come across lot of them some one told me that there are 18 Seraiki Poltical Parties . Despite their numbers these parties have failed to attain prominence and public following and Seraikis through out still await for a political platform which brings to them their due rights .

There is no denying to fact that a Larger Seraiki Political Party is need of the day , Seraikies in each and every district of Wasaib are facing very challenging circumstances . Seraiki people do discuss these challenges but only on individual level .


Without going into long discussion , I come to the point . The only reason for failure of Seraiki parties to muster a following is their inability to communicate with the masses . These parties have never talked to masses , no attempts ever being made by these parties to educate Seraikies. What ever political sense we have we got through intellectuals and student , to be precise through Lok Sanj and Shagird Sanj.

My point here is that we need to inculcate awareness among the Seraikis . As the process on creating new party continues we must start process of bring about awarness and educating masses.

I am writing this mail with participatory spirit in mind . A friend of mine who currently lives abroad has shown his willingness to create a group which works sloley on this awarness issue. Toward this end we will need guidance of our elders . We just need direction and will take care of rest. We have over limitations , but we definitely contribute some thing .

I hope we will get some feed back by respected members on this forum .

Regards

Farooq