Spats does give some good points that West Punjab (and by extension her Indus peripheries) were outside the pale of Vedas.
However the key question is the question of the Siraiki language.
* More than Urdu being an “Indian linguistic invasion” into the Indus; the Punjabi language also seems to be a Hindawi pushback from the East into the Lahnda speaking West.
* The remnants of Lahnda, which descends from the same Prakrit as Sindhi, are Hindko and Seraiki.
* In a way Lahore functions a bit like Delhi in diffusing a more Gangetic/Indic bias to the Indus region; one Seraiki leaning website claimed that the invading Sikhs brought Punjabi into the Punjab.
* The Punjab and Sindh are disproportionately influential provinces and “Seraikistan”/Bahawlapur would dramatically rebalance the federation (Pak Punjab hasn’t had its Haryana moment yet).
* The question of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hindko and Pathans in Baluchistan raise up more dilemmas as to provincial rebalance.
* The historic Indo-Gangetic axis, the GT road, is Kabul-Lahore-Delhi-Dhaka. Perhaps if our great British overlords had adopted a more sensible approach to the Subcontinent we could have seen many Indias based on these great cities. I don’t know what would have been equivalent cities in the South; Mysore, Hyderabad?
Some interesting links:
A language buried by Partition
WIKITONGUES: Lillotama speaking Seraiki
Can you approve my post ?
Punjab is not going to be divided into a “Seraiki province” and Northern Punjab. This would have to be approved by the Punjab Assembly sitting in Lahore and they will never agree to diminish their own power. Administratively, I think it would make sense to have a province with its capital in Multan (not because I believe Seraiki is a different language than Punjabi) because then people could get their issues addressed in Multan without having to come to Lahore.
Gilgit-Baltistan cannot be made a province as it is part of the Kashmir Dispute. If we make G-B into a province, we are giving up our claim on the Valley. Not going to happen. Because of the Kashmir Dispute, the people of G-B cannot even vote in Pakistani elections. This despite the fact that all they have wanted since 1947 is to be incorporated into Pakistan.