Published: 08:11 PM, 05 September 2026
The Province-Splitting Mirage: Why Pakistan Cannot Run By Maps And Calculators
”From Turkey and America to India and Nigeria, global examples show that provinces are created through history, consent and political necessity not by comparing numbers on a spreadsheet ”
There is a particular confidence that comes from reading half a Wikipedia page. For a month, that confidence has driven Pakistan’s province-splitting debate, where enthusiasts armed with a viral map and a calculator insist that dividing the country into thirty three pieces is simple common sense. Turkey has 81 provinces; they say triumphantly, Iran has 31. Surely Pakistan, with its four, is falling behind in some global league table. It would be funny if it weren’t said with a straight face on television: “Turkey has 81 provinces” is not the argument you think it is.
Start with the road-show of comparisons, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, China offered as proof that more provinces means better governance. None of these is a federation. They are unitary states, meaning their provinces are decorative. Every Turkish governor is handpicked by Ankara. Iran redrew three provinces in 2022 by cabinet order; no vote, no referendum. Afghanistan’s 34 provinces have been rubber stamps for whichever government happened to be sitting in Kabul, monarchy or Taliban, without much difference. China turned Chongqing into its own province in 1997 the way you might rename a folder on your desktop.
What these countries call a “province” is, in real terms, closer to what Pakistan calls a district. Nobody proposes Pakistan needs 81 districts to catch up with Turkey, because everyone understands districts are administrative housekeeping. The provinces in Pakistan have an elected assembly and constitutional standing the centre cannot erase on a whim. Iran’s ostans have none of that, comparing the two is not an argument, it’s a category error wearing a bow tie.
The “our province is bigger than Denmark” school of analysis, then the size argument, delivered by someone who has just discovered Uttar Pradesh has more people than most UN members. Yes, roughly 229 million, more than every country except China, India, the USA, and Indonesia and it has never been split. Bihar has about 120 million. West Bengal has close to 100 million. Madhya Pradesh, the size of Poland, has more people than Germany. Bavaria, one German state beats several dozen UN members combined. If “bigger than many countries” were a workable rule, a sixth of the planet’s provinces would already be in pieces. They aren’t because size was never the real variable. What decides these things is genuine local demand, not a functionary discovering a spreadsheet.
”The USA: everyone’s favourite example, nobody’s actual homework. No province-splitting argument is complete without a confident invocation of 'the American model,' from someone who has never asked how the US got from 13 states to 50.”
The USA: everyone’s favourite example, nobody’s actual homework. No province-splitting argument is complete without a confident invocation of “the American model,” from someone who has never asked how the US got from 13 states to 50. It wasn’t by taking a knife to Virginia or New York. It was by buying, annexing, or negotiating enormous stretches of outside territory, the Louisiana Purchase from France, Florida from Spain, the Mexican Cession after a war, Alaska bought from Russia and turning that land into new states. The only time the US split an existing state was West Virginia in 1863, under wartime conditions so irregular that lawyers still argue whether it was legal. That is the entire American record on cutting up its own states. Everyone else who has tried has been stopped by a rule requiring the affected state’s legislature to agree first.
Pakistan has no unclaimed Louisiana lying around, so the American example argues against the whole proposal. Even Brazil and Nigeria are more careful than this. In 2011, Brazilians in Pará, a state bigger than Peru, were asked whether to split it into three, they said no. Nigeria demands two-thirds support nationally, locally, in a referendum, and from every other state, why it hasn’t created a new state since 1996. These aren’t backward systems; they understand a principle Pakistan’s panels have missed: splitting a province is supposed to be hard, because it doesn’t belong to whoever currently holds a ministry.
Even India, the “easy” example, has never dared to impose one. Here’s the detail that should embarrass anyone citing India as proof this can be done quickly. India’s Parliament can technically create a new state by simple majority the loosest bar of any major federation. Yet in nearly seventy years, Delhi has never used that power to impose a state the people or legislature concerned didn’t want. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Telangana, every one followed a genuine local demand and consent of the relevant assembly or parties before Parliament acted. Telangana traces to a 1956 “Gentleman’s Agreement,” made at merger, promising safeguards later felt broken and even then, its 2014 creation waited for proper consent. The part nobody wants to say out loud. India had the legal shortcut available for seventy years and never once took it unilaterally. That is not a system that supports “just announce it from a ministry.” It is a system that quietly proves the opposite.
Here is the historical inconvenience the enthusiasts never reach for: Pakistan exists today only because its provinces chose, through their own legislatures and people, to join together and form it. Under the Indian Independence Act, 1947, only the Muslim-majority provinces were given a direct choice, through a legislative or popular vote, on whether to join Pakistan at all. The rest of British India was never offered that choice; it simply carried on as it was. Pakistan’s provinces did not sign up to a country that already existed, their consent created the country. It is a curious amnesia that lets people invoke Turkey’s administrative map with total confidence while forgetting the one historical fact that actually governs how Pakistan’s provinces are supposed to be treated. (By, Shazia Nizamani)
>> Source: The Friday Times
There is a particular confidence that comes from reading half a Wikipedia page. For a month, that confidence has driven Pakistan’s province-splitting debate, where enthusiasts armed with a viral map and a calculator insist that dividing the country into thirty three pieces is simple common sense. Turkey has 81 provinces; they say triumphantly, Iran has 31. Surely Pakistan, with its four, is falling behind in some global league table. It would be funny if it weren’t said with a straight face on television: “Turkey has 81 provinces” is not the argument you think it is.
Start with the road-show of comparisons, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, China offered as proof that more provinces means better governance. None of these is a federation. They are unitary states, meaning their provinces are decorative. Every Turkish governor is handpicked by Ankara. Iran redrew three provinces in 2022 by cabinet order; no vote, no referendum. Afghanistan’s 34 provinces have been rubber stamps for whichever government happened to be sitting in Kabul, monarchy or Taliban, without much difference. China turned Chongqing into its own province in 1997 the way you might rename a folder on your desktop.
What these countries call a “province” is, in real terms, closer to what Pakistan calls a district. Nobody proposes Pakistan needs 81 districts to catch up with Turkey, because everyone understands districts are administrative housekeeping. The provinces in Pakistan have an elected assembly and constitutional standing the centre cannot erase on a whim. Iran’s ostans have none of that, comparing the two is not an argument, it’s a category error wearing a bow tie.
The “our province is bigger than Denmark” school of analysis, then the size argument, delivered by someone who has just discovered Uttar Pradesh has more people than most UN members. Yes, roughly 229 million, more than every country except China, India, the USA, and Indonesia and it has never been split. Bihar has about 120 million. West Bengal has close to 100 million. Madhya Pradesh, the size of Poland, has more people than Germany. Bavaria, one German state beats several dozen UN members combined. If “bigger than many countries” were a workable rule, a sixth of the planet’s provinces would already be in pieces. They aren’t because size was never the real variable. What decides these things is genuine local demand, not a functionary discovering a spreadsheet.
”The USA: everyone’s favourite example, nobody’s actual homework. No province-splitting argument is complete without a confident invocation of 'the American model,' from someone who has never asked how the US got from 13 states to 50.”
The USA: everyone’s favourite example, nobody’s actual homework. No province-splitting argument is complete without a confident invocation of “the American model,” from someone who has never asked how the US got from 13 states to 50. It wasn’t by taking a knife to Virginia or New York. It was by buying, annexing, or negotiating enormous stretches of outside territory, the Louisiana Purchase from France, Florida from Spain, the Mexican Cession after a war, Alaska bought from Russia and turning that land into new states. The only time the US split an existing state was West Virginia in 1863, under wartime conditions so irregular that lawyers still argue whether it was legal. That is the entire American record on cutting up its own states. Everyone else who has tried has been stopped by a rule requiring the affected state’s legislature to agree first.
Pakistan has no unclaimed Louisiana lying around, so the American example argues against the whole proposal. Even Brazil and Nigeria are more careful than this. In 2011, Brazilians in Pará, a state bigger than Peru, were asked whether to split it into three, they said no. Nigeria demands two-thirds support nationally, locally, in a referendum, and from every other state, why it hasn’t created a new state since 1996. These aren’t backward systems; they understand a principle Pakistan’s panels have missed: splitting a province is supposed to be hard, because it doesn’t belong to whoever currently holds a ministry.
Even India, the “easy” example, has never dared to impose one. Here’s the detail that should embarrass anyone citing India as proof this can be done quickly. India’s Parliament can technically create a new state by simple majority the loosest bar of any major federation. Yet in nearly seventy years, Delhi has never used that power to impose a state the people or legislature concerned didn’t want. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Telangana, every one followed a genuine local demand and consent of the relevant assembly or parties before Parliament acted. Telangana traces to a 1956 “Gentleman’s Agreement,” made at merger, promising safeguards later felt broken and even then, its 2014 creation waited for proper consent. The part nobody wants to say out loud. India had the legal shortcut available for seventy years and never once took it unilaterally. That is not a system that supports “just announce it from a ministry.” It is a system that quietly proves the opposite.
Here is the historical inconvenience the enthusiasts never reach for: Pakistan exists today only because its provinces chose, through their own legislatures and people, to join together and form it. Under the Indian Independence Act, 1947, only the Muslim-majority provinces were given a direct choice, through a legislative or popular vote, on whether to join Pakistan at all. The rest of British India was never offered that choice; it simply carried on as it was. Pakistan’s provinces did not sign up to a country that already existed, their consent created the country. It is a curious amnesia that lets people invoke Turkey’s administrative map with total confidence while forgetting the one historical fact that actually governs how Pakistan’s provinces are supposed to be treated. (By, Shazia Nizamani)
>> Source: The Friday Times
