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Ansari Commission

In the early eighties a commission was constituted under the chairmanship of Maulana Zafar Ahmed Ansari, popularly known as the 'Ansari Commission'.

The main term of reference was “Does Islamic polity permit formation of political parties to come to power?” It was open for other recommendations if the commission felt it was necessary for good governance. The commission's findings were

1. There was no place for political divergence in Islamic polity, i.e. the commission was against the formation of political parties to contest an election to come to power.

2. In order to create cohesiveness/unity in the nation it is essential that Pakistan must have smaller autonomous units/states based on administrative convenience and not on ethnic basis.

He had pointed out during discussion that the British demarcation of the provinces was based on colonial interests. With the construction of canals, which included headworks and barrages, mainly in Punjab and later in Sindh, it was to the ruler's convenience that those areas should be controlled and administrated by a single administration.

As such, Punjab during the pre-independence period was kept as one administrative unit.

Similarly, after the construction of the Lloyd Barrage (Sukkar Barrage) in 1932, the Quaid-i-Azam demanded that the Muslim majority area of Bombay presidency should be given the status of a province.

Conceding this demand based on reality, the British government of India created the province of Sindh, which was first ruled by a lieutenant-governor and later accorded full status of a province headed by a governor.