The unseemly and dangerous tussle between the Centre and Sindh government over the Rangers’ mandate is taking on the shape of a slow moving train crash as far as the health of the federation is concerned. Last week, the Sindh Assembly (SA) passed a resolution where the Rangers’ deployment tenure was given an extension but with limitations placed on their mandate. Over the past weekend, Sindh’s Chief Minister (CM) Syed Qaim Ali Shah officially agreed to once again activate the Rangers, albeit within the new set of restrictions, and sent a summary to the federal interior ministry wherein he had also cut the prescribed extension period of the Rangers’ tenure by half. Given the hawkish stance maintained by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar on the issue so far, it came as no surprise that the summary sent by the CM was rejected. The interior ministry wrote to the Sindh government, informing them that the paramilitary force will continue their operations without any restrictions. This means that as things stand, the Rangers will continue to prosecute cases involving corruption, are free to coordinate with other federal agencies and can raid government buildings and hold people in ‘preventive custody’ for up to 90 days unencumbered. All these facets of the operation were never agreed to by the Sindh government, who feel as if the operation took on the character of a politically motivated affair rather than an effort to root out terrorism. Thus the SA redefined the purview of the Rangers’ mandate if they were to continue with the operation. In its defence, the PPP-led Sindh government has had a consistent stance that they are well within their constitutional rights, granted to provinces after the 18th Amendment in 2010, to put restrictions on the mandate of the federal forces they are inviting into the province themselves. And to be sure, the much touted Article 147 is unambiguously titled “Power of Provinces to entrust functions to the Federation” and clearly states that the onus is on the provinces themselves to willingly surrender some of their powers and can put conditions on the usage of said powers. The Rangers were of course invited, with the consent of the federal government by the PPP to Sindh to kick-start the much needed Karachi operation — a task for which the provincial police force, for various historical reasons, was deemed unsuited. Thus there is little doubt that the Sindh government itself is legally the prime mover of the Karachi operation and thus can set restrictions on the scope of the Rangers’ purview. So the question that arises is, once the powers are delegated by the province to the federal forces, does the provincial government forfeit its right to review the terms of invitation with evolving conditions? Another related question that has to be asked is does the federal government, whose entire constitutional role in this endeavour is merely to give its consent to the demands of the provincial government, dictate terms as far as the mandate of the invited federal force is concerned once the power delegation has commenced? A reading of the constitution suggests that the federal government is indeed overstepping its role in this case and is bulldozing the constitutionally protected provincial autonomy of the Sindh government. Perhaps cognizant of this, the interior ministry is trying to argue that Article 147 is not applicable in the Karachi operation and that the Rangers have been given their powers under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). The legal counsel of the federal government in this case, and the letter sent out by the ministry, claims that the ATA supersedes Article 147 and that under the ATA the powers granted to the Rangers cannot be abridged. The Sindh government however is sticking to its guns and has termed the new tactics of the Interior Minister an ‘invasion’ of the province. As a response, the CM called a cabinet meeting and the Sindh government is prepared to take the matter to court in case the federal government does not relent. While a judicial intervention in this matter can certainly clear the air about the divergent interpretations of the laws at work, such an eventuality will become a precarious spectacle. A dangerous confrontation is brewing that harkens back to the days of old when democratic governance in Pakistan was perennially under threat. There is only one way to resolve the matter before too much damage is done to the democratic setup, which has been carefully maintained since 2008. This overbearing attitude by the interior ministry should be checked and a mature process of negotiations and dialogue should be started at the earliest, or else everything threatens to fall apart. *