One of our Fore Runners View of Centre State relations in the United India before partition
Sikander Hyat Khan Unionist Party premier of Punjab in a debate
in the Punjab assembly in march 1941
" I have
explained that the Muslims are opposed to an all powerful centre because they
are afraid that a communal oligarchy in power might undermine or altogether
nullify the autonomy and freedom of the Provinces. This is the suspicion that
haunts them..... Here is my recipe.. I say, give complete autonomy and freedom
to the units and let them be demarcated into regions or zones on a territorial
basis.
Representatives of the units within each zone should represent their
respective units, as also the regions at the centre. The Centre thus
constituted will not be a domineering hostile Centre looking for opportunities
to interfere with the work of provincial Govts, but a sympathetic agency
enjoying the confidence and support of the provinces, a body setup by the units
to control and supervise the central administrative machinery and to see that
the work entrusted to it by the provinces is carried on efficiently amicably and
justly.. It will not be a rigid Centre.. The Centre should be elastic in the
sense that except for subjects entrusted to it by prior agreement e.g defence,
maritime customs, Coins-currency and
extl affairs...We do not ask for freedom, that there may be Muslim Raj here and
Hindu raj elsewhere.
(Pakistan's Democratic women's association leader
Tahira Mazhar Ali was sikander's daughter and the famous marxian scholar Tarik
Ali his grandson )
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