There is a Punjabi proverb, “Passions have no price” (there is no price for one’s passion), and if this passion belongs to kings, maharajas, emperors, or the powerful, then many times this passion becomes a part of history. From fifty to sixty thousand years ago, ever since the current human species Homo Sapiens emerged, the donkey, horse, elephant, dog, and cat are the first animals in its history that humans domesticated. Repeated mentions of humans and these animals are found in history, pictures, stories, and battles. Among these animals, the dog and the horse have played a particularly prominent role in human life. The horse has been side by side with the brave, kings, and generals in wars and expeditions. Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucephalus, was his companion over thousands of miles of travel and stay, and then, after being wounded in the war against Porus, was buried in Phalia, a town in Mandi Bahauddin district; Alexander the Great himself joined the funeral procession to bury him. Napoleon Bonaparte’s horse’s name was Marengo, while Maharaja Pratap Singh’s loyal horse was named Chetak. There have been such horse enthusiasts around the world who earned great fame, but the most famous among them all was Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the state of Punjab; his royal stable had more than 1,000 horses of every breed. In the Maharaja’s era, keeping good horses was a hobby, but it was also the military equipment of that time; you may liken it to today’s aircraft, armored vehicle, missile, or whatever weapon you choose. In fact, at that time, a soldier’s ride was also part of the war, and it had to show bravery far greater than the soldier itself. That is why the horse was the most important.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s 3 famous horses were named Laila, Gauhar Bar, and Safaid Pari; however, Laila became the most favorite and famous. Laila, a deep grey horse of about 14 or 15 feet [hands] tall, is considered the most valuable horse in history after the Trojan Wars of Greece. In Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s own words, the price of this horse was equal to a kingdom. To acquire this horse, Ranjit Singh had to fight a war against his Peshawari governor, Yar Muhammad Khan Barakzai, on which 60 lakh rupees were spent and 1,200 soldiers were also martyred in the battlefield. Maharaja Ranjit Singh proudly showed Laila, adorned in gold jewelry, to the British Governor-General William Bentinck as well. The Austrian traveler Hügel not only saw this rare horse in the royal stable of Lahore but also described its height, facial features, and age of 13 years in his writing.

There is a tradition in the area of my birth that Maharaja Ranjit Singh also took a liking to a mare belonging to Ghulam Muhammad Bandial of the former Shahpur district and the current Khushab district. Ghulam Muhammad Bandial was not as powerful as Governor Yar Muhammad Khan, but his mare was very dear to him. Therefore, he hid her, and when the Maharaja’s soldiers arrived to take the mare by force, Ghulam Muhammad Bandial gave them another mare. However, the Maharaja’s soldiers got information through espionage and recovered the hidden mare from where she was kept and took her to Lahore. The famous legend in our area is that the espionage on the Maharaja’s soldiers was a trick, and Ghulam Muhammad Bandial had saved the real mare by giving a different one. Obviously, Bandial was not Yar Muhammad Barakzai who would fight a war for a horse; he could only escape the Maharaja’s wrath through tricks, excuses, deception, and fraud. Politics is the name of this very give-and-take; if both parties are powerful, they can fight for their stance and their respective rights, but if one party is powerful and the other party is weak, time is bought, and excuses are made. These were the ways and manners in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s era, and this is the practice of today’s new politics as well.

The country’s two major political parties are certainly against creating new provinces, but like Ghulam Muhammad Bandial, they are not in a position to fight. They are weak, have interests, and cannot bear the damage caused by a fight; therefore, the best approach is to stall for time. The N-League thinks that the PPP should fight first, while the PPP wants the N-League’s blood to boil. Let us see what happens!

The Maharajas of Punjab had a passion for horses; the rulers of Pakistan have a passion for introducing new systems and changing everything. A passion is a passion; whatever price has to be paid for it, is paid. Field Marshal Ayub Khan was seized by the passion for Basic Democracies and a presidential system, and he implemented it as well. The Basic Democracy system received great acclaim. People in village after village and city after city connected with this system, but when this system was wrongly used politically, everyone became disheartened, and then in the Round Table Conference, President Ayub himself agreed that the presidential system and Basic Democracies should be abolished to bring a parliamentary system. President Zia-ul-Haq conducted local body elections for the first time in his era in 1979; people participated in them enthusiastically. The Pakistan Peoples Party also formed panels everywhere under the name of Awam Dost (People-Friendly); when Awam Dost gained a majority in the cities of Punjab, General Zia-ul-Haq’s real agenda came to the fore. All councillors who refused to bow down and leave the Peoples Party were disqualified. Such an atmosphere of mistrust was created that the non-party general elections of 1985 further murky-ed it. Excellent public welfare work was done through General Zia’s local government system, but since its foundation was based on political hypocrisy, this system died its own death after General Zia’s rule. The local government system given by General Pervez Musharraf was close to an ideal Western system, but General Musharraf’s opponents and incoming provincial chief ministers did not like it, and thus that system also fell victim to the provinces’ desire for dictatorship over districts. The systems of Ayub, Zia-ul-Haq, and Musharraf were not bad, but their political objective was not to transfer power to the lower level, but to cause damage to their political opponents; therefore, all these systems eventually went to the graveyards. Now the idea of new provinces has come up; may this passion not prove to be as expensive as the hobby of horses, as there is a risk of bloodshed in Sindh in it as well. If a few flaws of General Musharraf’s local government system are removed and the district or division is made the center of local powers, it will benefit the public. But if new provinces are insisted upon like the Maharaja’s passion, what else can weak people like me, like Ghulam Muhammad Bandial, do except swallow the bitter pill of patience? However, if someone stands up like Yar Muhammad Barakzai, many new troubles will descend. The Maharaja’s era could tolerate hobbies and passions. Today is not an era of hobbies, experiments, and new exercises; walking on the constitution and agreed-upon paths is the absolute best way forward.