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.........

© The Friday Times