Fated to fail?

Just before Ramazan began, there was an interaction between some members of Karachi’s intelligentsia and the city’s elected local government representatives at the Arts Council. This was an occasion to take stock of Karachi’s current situation and ponder about the way forward. And the situation did inspire hope against the backdrop of the continuing operation to restore law and order.

As an old chronicler of a city that has forever been in a state of flux, I spoke about the occasions to celebrate Karachi and, more frequently, to mourn it. But now Karachi seemed poised to make a new beginning. So, has that promise been thwarted by what has happened this week? What is certain is that the city has been shaken by the kidnapping of the son of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court on Monday and the target killing of Amjad Sabri, a distinguished qawwal, on Wednesday.

Besides, there is already a spurt in crime and violence in the city, apparently under the cover of the holy month. Since the rhythm of life changes and there is a kind of night life juxtaposed with deserted streets at Iftar time, criminals have their windows of opportunity. Crime tends to increase every Ramazan. But the impact is being felt more deeply this year.

This is so because the operation, underway for more than two years, has visibly improved the law and order situation. Most critically, the pall of fear that had hovered over the life of the city has greatly lifted. This, one has to concede, has happened after very sustained and formidable endeavours of the law enforcement agencies. Entire networks of terror, also in a political context, have come under attack. This has also generated controversies that relate to the tussle for power in the province.

It is also possible to argue that the gains made by the Karachi operation had to be somewhat tenuous because it could not effectively attend to the fundamental transgressions that are rooted in Karachi’s physical, social and political development. The more you think about what has gone wrong in Karachi, the more you are puzzled about a viable strategy to set it right. There is this thought that lurks in the shadows: is there no hope for this city?

You may have some idea of why I am so bewildered about all this if you read friend Naeem Sadiq’s article in this newspaper and these pages on Thursday. With reference to the fact that the getaway car used in the kidnapping of Owais Ali Shah, son of the SHC chief justice, had a fake police number plate, he has cited a constitutional petition filed in the Sindh High Court two years ago to raise the issue of unregistered vehicles used by the Sindh government and the police and how unlawful and unregistered vehicles play a role in incidents of crime and militancy.

What emerges is the futility of the efforts of concerned citizens for a straightforward enforcement of law through standard bureaucratic measures. About the petition, Naeem Sadiq recounts that it came up for hearing seven times. “Twice the hearing was adjourned, twice it was heard and three times it was discharged. Ironically, it was the chief justice who discharged the last three hearings”.

Look at the figures mentioned in the petition. The Sindh government has between 4000 to 6000 vehicles that are not registered with its own Excise and Taxation Department. The provincial government has also been asked to “take practical steps to eliminate the 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles that use fake, unlawful government or police look-alike number plates in Sindh”.

After Monday’s incident, Naeem Sadiq sent me this message: “Do you recall my taking pictures of fake police cars during our Sindh tour? I have been regularly sending dozens of pictures to senior police officials but they refused to move an inch. The son of the chief justice of Sindh HC was kidnapped in one such fake vehicle”.

This is only about one sector in the extensive administration domain of the Sindh government. I have some information about corruption involved in the building of high-rise apartment buildings in congested residential areas. In fact, the shady and manifestly corrupt dealings in the real-estate sector that are officially endorsed – and not all within the purview of the Sindh government – subvert the principles of social justice and promote crime and disorder.

There have been some comments that Karachi may be suffering a relapse in law and order because the operation is shifting its sights from crime to corruption. A justification for this shift would underline the nexus between crime and corruption. Political patronage of violent crime is the most dominant theme in Karachi. Such, really, is the magnitude of the misdemeanours of those who have shared power in the province that it may be safe to bet that the Karachi operation will soon run out of steam.

Is that beginning to happen, with a high-profile kidnapping and the target killing of a leading citizen serving as a warning sign? It is something to be carefully probed. Furthermore, we have no expert assessment of the capacity of the Rangers, the outfit that is leading the operation, to handle the cases it has already opened. When so much else in the system is rotten, it sometimes becomes very difficult to even protect one’s sense of purpose.

Talking about the system, we have some insights from an insider. Economist Kaiser Bengali, also a friend, has in the past served as adviser to the chief minister of Sindh and has also worked for Abdul Malik’s administration in Balochistan. On Wednesday, he spoke at a session on the politics of development budget in Karachi. The published report quoted him as saying that what the people need is a political leadership that is intellectually and morally honest.

Why are we so deficient in such leadership? Dr Bengali said: “The political leadership does not want development because they benefit from under development and misery of the general public”. Among other things, he recalled a World Bank team telling Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah that malnutrition in Sindh was so severe that an entire generation might not be able to take part in modern economy.

These observations, potentially so shattering, have been floating in the air for so long. The reality is so glaring. And Karachi enjoys no immunity from the provincial or national state of affairs. On the contrary, the nation’s fate could be decided in Karachi. That is why this week’s relapse in Karachi is so important.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com