22.09.2013 Genesis of violence
Karachi is no more a provincial or national issue now. A more complex regional and international vested interest operates behind what is unfolding in the city
By Naseer Memon
Karachi never evaded limelight during recent decades, albeit under a gruesome spotlight. The city has become an ever bleeding wound. Politics in the city is so fractious that a single incendiary statement can trigger death of dozens. An inflammatory rumour can ignite ethnic or sectarian inferno that may take days to douse. A single day strike call causes hemorrhage of billions to national exchequer and leaves millions of wage earners unfed.
Debilitated by unremitting violence, the city has descended into a quagmire of felony. Magnitude and complexity of fratricide in Karachi has proved that the prevailing malaise is far deeper and sporadic surgical interventions can only restore semblance of peace that may be also too ephemeral to rejoice. Long term socio-political solutions are already over due.
The ongoing turf war among different groups is embedded in years’ long inept politics of myopic minds. Ethnic and social stratification fueled by free movement of arms has made the city a fertile battleground for fiercely fragmented population. Genesis of the turmoil can be traced into unregulated migration and refugee settlement in 1947 that laid the foundation of the powder-keg called Karachi now.
Being the most developed port city in 40s, the smart, educated and socially advanced migrant community fastidiously chose Karachi and other developed towns to be their abode. To make it almost exclusively a migrant city, administrative steps were taken to keep other communities specially the natives at bay.
According to a report of Pakistan-Sindh Joint Refugees Council, by May 1948 more than 700,000 refugees entered Sindh and three-quarters of them settled in Karachi alone. Sindhi speaking made 61 per cent of the population of Karachi in the Census of 1941 against only six per cent Urdu speaking. Mass influx in the wake of partition, altered the demographic composition of Karachi. A corollary of unbridled emigration, Urdu-speaking population swelled to 50 per cent and Sindhi-speaking shrunk to only 8.6 per cent in 1951. This deluge systematically excluded Sindhis from Karachi through evacuee property laws and other administrative measures which created an ever yawning crevasse among the two permanent communities of Sindh. Baring few ruses hardly any serious efforts were taken to forge some meaningful bond among Sindhi and Urdu speaking population.
Being more educated, socially advanced and better penetrated in civil-military bureaucracy, urban leadership preferred bonhomie with Punjabi-led civil-military establishment. Streak of superiority and imprudent political arrogance of migrant community fueled an acrimony that jeopardized shared interest of both Sindhi and Urdu-speaking communities.
Enigmatic murder of Liaqat Ali Khan marked the decline of migrant’s supremacy in the state matters. Over the period, Punjabi-led establishment became the prime ruler and the migrants were reduced to a junior partner. After the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan, the politics of Urdu-speaking community was trapped in a pernicious mania of sense of insecurity. Outmaneuvering by Punjabi establishment sowed the seeds of insecurity among them. This sense of insecurity was fully exploited by their leadership while the false sense of superiority distanced them from native Sindhis.
Influx of Pakhtuns in 60s further multiplied the feel of insecurity. With the rise of Bhutto, rural Sindh strode from a predominantly feudal society to a gradually transforming middle class-based society. This middle class-led Sindhi society asserted its legitimate political share in the province and Urdu-speaking population already spooked by sense of insecurity construed them as yet another competitor.
Language riots and the movement against Bhutto in 70s further drifted Urdu-speaking population away from Sindhis as their leadership aligned with anti-Bhutto security establishment, thus paving the way for a dark decade. In the ensuing years, indifferent attitude of urban population during MRD movements of 1983 and 1986 was another lost opportunity to cement ties with local population.
Isolation of Urdu-speaking community was further sharpened when the MQM raised the slogan of Mohajir nation and entered into bloody confrontation with Pakhtuns, Punjabis and Sindhis in 80s and 90s. Gory incidents of September 30 and October 1st, 1988, perpetrated by hawks on both sides worsened the matters. This made Urdu-speaking population acrimonious to all other communities thus becoming more vulnerable to exploitation with a sense of insecurity. The irony was that a sense of insecurity was initially inculcated by urban leadership, then nurtured and ultimately exploited to its full at the cost of thousands of innocent lives.
In the meanwhile, an active social transition continued in rural areas of Sindh and during 90s a self-grown rural middle class made inroads into urban centres. Excruciating law and order situation and faltering agriculture economy forced rural Sindhis to migrate to urban enclaves of Hyderabad and Karachi. Ethnic riots in 80s and 90s virtually bifurcated Hyderabad and Karachi into Sindhi and Urdu-speaking precincts. Since then the short spells of peace were frequently punctuated by abominable bloodshed.
However, the major conflict in Karachi started when unabated migration of Pakhtun community started claiming their share in businesses and politics. Major influx of Pakhtun community from up country was witnessed after the army operation in tribal areas.
In 2008, ANP first time scrambled to wring out two seats and became shareholder in Sindh government. Baloch militancy further shoved the MQM from old Karachi and deprived it of sizeable extortion revenue from its areas of influence. Spook of false sense of insecurity and isolation has now attained a new peak among Urdu-speaking population as they feel that Karachi is no more a unilaterally regulated entity. Religious extremism is the latest entry that has added a new dimension to prevalent anarchy. An estimated three to four million illegal immigrants are also a contributing factor to the ongoing malaise.
Meanwhile, police department went through a rapid institutional decay due to mass recruitment of political loyalists by the PPP and the MQM. The recent years witnessed an unprecedented surge in crime and homicide as the police department has been paralysed. Gravity of the situation can be fathomed from the statement of former DG Rangers Sindh, Major General Aijaz, recorded before the Supreme Court on September 7, 2011. He made a startling statement by lucidly mentioning that “the problem in Karachi is very serious, rather more serious than that of South Waziristan. The political face of the city has been taken hostage by militant groups of political parties. Political parties are penetrated by the criminals under the garb of political groups who use party flags. The militants and criminals are taking refuge in the lap of political and ethnic parties which use the flags of these parties to commit illegal activities with impunity.”
Politics of violence and gun power that was induced in the city in mid eighties has now sprawled in other communities with an alarming ferocity. This has perturbed the ranks of the MQM who enjoyed almost unparalleled authority in yesteryears. The party leadership seems to have got fractious and committing fatal mistakes one after the other, thus making life tormenting for its own constituency.
The MQM’s ethno-centric politics that refuses to shun violent means and its addiction to power seat have impaired its cognitive abilities to take sagacious political decisions. Demanding new provinces and issuing irresponsible statements about integrity of Sindh at this juncture is a decision bereft of political prescience that may erode the residual scant affinity among the two permanent communities of Sindh. The MQM ought to realise that sense of superiority, appetite for sole proprietorship of Karachi and dictating terms through gun power would only heap more miseries for Sindh, specially for Karachites.
Also, Karachi is no more a provincial or national issue now. A more complex regional and international vested interest operates behind what is unfolding in the city.
The Nato’s exit from Afghanistan in 2014 and Sino-American cold war make Karachi an epicentre of the regional power race. A peaceful Karachi would only be possible if politics is detached from violence, streets are indiscriminately combed to flush out terrorists and their arsenal, police are purged of obnoxious Trojan horses and illegal immigrants are expelled. Dilatory cure has already perverted Karachi and any further laxity may culminate in a meaningless mourning. All this requires a firm political will that is not subdued by machinations of power politics.
The author is a writer and analyst; nmemon2004@yahoo.com