Power Dynamics In Ethnic Politics And Federalism In Pakistan

Abstract

The paper examines that how ethnic politics shaped and dominated the power dynamics of federalism in Pakistan. Federalism was implanted in Pakistan, which was considered a best possible solution for ethnic diversified country. However, it can be argued that the alternate outcome was totally opposite which was in the form of imbalance as power saturation at one ethnicity can destabilize the true essence of federalism. The discrimination in the term of language or political representation created the sense of marginalization of the specific ethnic group, for instance Bengalis, which in itself shows the notion of power dynamics too. Even though Bengalis were in majority ethnic group but the power dynamics does not just rely only on the number of people belonging to certain group. The concept of power has been adopted from the power theory of Foucault. The Power in any form resides in every ethnic politics whether it is in the form of language, political representation or economic. Moreover, the economic powers always overlap the politics which strengthens the whole concept of federalism. Due to central power dominating tendencies, before the 18^th amendment, mirrored the power disparity in the ethnic politics.