Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is belatedly angry. He is also stuck between Cholistan and a hard place. Can he find a way out?
The canals controversy is spiraling out of control. Well, nearly so. The Green Pakistan Initiative, aimed at converting barren land into cultivable one in South Punjab and utilising it for modern corporate farming, is backed by the powerful SIFC.
The federal and Punjab governments are tagging along. And so was the PPP, apparently. Till Sindh rose up in protest. The new canals will deprive us of our Indus water, the people of Sindh shouted. No, it won’t, said the Punjab government meekly. Then everyone moved on. As did the grand project.
Except Sindh. It continued to simmer and simmer. Till it started touching boiling point. That is when nationalist parties in the province took up the cause. They finally had a stick to beat the PPP with. Now they are joined by lawyers and various other segments of society. Protests are mushrooming. Roads are blocked and shutters are down. A technical water-sharing issue has ballooned into a political powder keg.
It is a classic lesson in how to mishandle a situation effectively.
It is, in fact, a 3-step lesson. Step 1: Ignore key stakeholders while finalizing a project; Step 2: Bypass relevant forums like the Council of Common Interests (CCI) while approving the project; Step 3: Refuse to initiate damage control once the situation inflames.
The result surprises a grand total of zero people. Public opinion in Sindh has forced the PPP to pedal back from its purported initial quiet nod to the project; PPP has forced the PML-N government to reach out – belatedly, again – to find a negotiated settlement, and the burgeoning controversy has forced the halting of the ambitious project. For now.
Sometimes there is no method to the madness.
So, what now? The Green Pakistan Initiative ticks all the right boxes. It aims to put barren land to use, introduce large-scale modern farming using latest technology, attract foreign investors to expand the parameters of the project qualitatively and quantitatively, and generate local employment in the tens of thousands. For a food insecure country like Pakistan (we imported food worth $9 billion in 2023), GPI makes eminent and imminent sense.
But wait. A good project must also be a project done right. The federation runs on a system. That system requires the federating units to be on board projects that affect them. Does politics and political agendas play a role? Of course, they do. All governance is political. That is the price we pay in order to govern through a pluralistic federal democracy. Or at least, that is what is written in our law.
Politics requires patience. And pandering. And often placating. It can be cumbersome, and bothersome, and – ever so often – loathsome. Yet, what has to be done, must be done. When it is not done, we have what we have today in Sindh.
After snoozing through a potential crisis, President Asif Zardari woke up first. He admonished the government on the canals issue in his speech to the parliament. From the other side, quasi-silence. Many weeks passed. Then finally, Mian Nawaz Sharif woke up to the issue last week.
On his prodding, Prime Minister’s advisor on political affairs Rana Sanaullah phoned Sindh’s senior minister Sharjeel Memon. The usual bland press release was issued after the call. But if a meeting between the two parties at Governor’s House Lahore on Sunday is anything to go by, then at least discussion on the issue has started.
This is good. But not good enough. Cut to the chase and the predicament is this: either the PPP quits the ruling coalition in protest; or the government halts the canals project.
Both are impossibilities. The PPP is too invested in the system to call it quits. Practically wiped out from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa electorates, and surviving on a government-on-loan in Baluchistan, the party just cannot afford to abandon power just when it needs it most to find its political footing outside of Sindh.
But if it stays, and so does the project, then the PPP runs a serious risk of undermining its politics grievously in its home base of Sindh. The project too cannot be abandoned after all the fanfare that has gone into it. Too much is invested in it in terms of prestige and future vision.
The only way out is the way that should have been adopted in the first place. All the triangulated powers of the present ruling structure – PML-N, PPP and the establishment – need to sit across a table behind closed doors and hammer out a proposed solution. Then the PPP should be given an opportunity to address its electorate’s reservations. The party requires a face-saving formula that allows it to declare victory and walk away. The project too must progress because the objectives link to our future needs.
Mission impossible, all this? Perhaps. But then when you wield power, you are expected to make impossible possible.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a senior journalist & political commentator. His X handle is @fahdhusain
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