At long last, politics in Karachi is beginning to come to terms with the stark realities of the city. Or that certainly is the prospect presented by the changing fortunes of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. While the upheaval caused by the incendiary outburst of the party’s ‘quaid’ on August 22 had served as some kind of a catalyst, the defeat of the MQM candidate in a Sindh Assembly by-election is very likely the tipping point.
But to interpret this development is still a challenge. So much is happening on many different fronts and the possibility of unforeseen consequences remains formidable. The big question is: how will the cult following of Altaf Hussain, pathological in its reach and intensity, play itself out? A kind of detoxification may have begun with the concerted campaign against militant activists but the network is very extensive, as the astounding number of party offices that are demolished or sealed would indicate.
A time, hopefully, will soon come when the entire phenomenon of how the MQM was born, nurtured and allowed to function as a political mafia in Karachi and urban Sindh will be investigated and explained. There has to be some way of driving out the demons from the body politic of the nation and this will involve the entire gamut of our policies.
Meanwhile, though, we have to attend to the unfolding stories against the larger backdrop of increasing confusion on the national scene in the wake of Imran Khan’s ceaseless exertions to destabilise the present arrangement. One wonders if the law of diminishing returns would apply in this case. In any case, confrontational politics has distracted the attention of the populace.
Irrespective of all this, Karachi deserves particular attention. A meaningful transformation of its politics and establishment of peace and order in the city will have across-the-board aftermaths. If the MQM is in retreat, the failure of identity politics in the most plural and diverse accumulation of people in an urban setting should provide salient lessons and ample opportunities to the mainstream parties.
It is instructive that the MQM has lost its seat in the PS-127 constituency on the rural edge of the city to the Pakistan People’s Party – and it did belong to the PPP more than a decade ago. As Pak Sarzameen Party’s Mustafa Kamal – who defected from Altaf Hussain in March this year – has gleefully noted, it is the visible decline in the vote bank of the MQM that signals the change. This was the first electoral encounter of the Farooq Sattar led MQM Pakistan after publicly disengaging from the leadership based in London.
But there are serious doubts about how genuine this parting of ways has been. Because of Altaf Hussain’s pronouncements on August 22, in his telephonic address to a hunger strike camp at the Karachi Press Club and because of his incitement to violence, the MQM leaders based in Pakistan had little option but to disown him. Still, Altaf Hussain personifies the party and his followers have been blind to his diabolical antics. There is no reason to believe that the MQM workers’ faith in their leader has faltered. That is how cult of personality operates in a low political culture.
One had known about it all the time. However, a string of revelations about the involvement of the MQM’s militant wing in target killings, extortion and other crimes have tarnished the party’s image. A very large number of its activists have been arrested. This has been the most striking outcome of the Karachi operation in which the Rangers have a leading role. The operation to restore law and order in the city completes three years this month and there have been repeated resolves to continue with it.
Farooq Sattar and his largely suave and well-meaning colleagues present the political – and human – face of the party. Hence, there is general appreciation of the role they have played in articulating the grievances and expectations of their Urdu-speaking following, in spite of the fact that the share of the ‘mohajirs’ in the burgeoning population of Karachi has diminished to a great extent. There is this talk about the MQM’s vote bank. Many observers believe that it is there and will remain a factor in the city’s and Sindh’s politics.
This formulation deserves to be carefully examined. Elected members of the party may have had nothing to do with the use of force and intimidation that flowed in a separate channel. But they may be seen as the creatures of the entire outfit. The MQM’s electoral victories had a lot to do with the authority and the climate of fear it had so skilfully established. This may also explain why its tally fell so short in this week’s by-election.
When we count the sorrows of Karachi, the great regret is that the mainstream parties had almost abandoned the city. Most of the blame would naturally fall on the PPP since it is the ruling party in the province. To try and heal Karachi’s wounds was the PPP’s mandate. Instead, it almost retreated into the confines of being a party of the interior. The ethnic as well as the urban-rural divide was extended to the PPP-MQM divide.
Another tragedy was the inability of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to provide the alternative that the citizens of Karachi were desperately seeking. In fact, the votes that the PTI candidates had unexpectedly received in deep MQM territory were, in a sense, a cry for help. From that high point, we saw the PTI fall to the lowest depth of how one of its candidates in a by-election not only withdrew from the contest but joined the enemy hours before the voting was to commence.
Be that as it may, Karachi at this time is very much a place for political opportunity. Mustafa Kamal had made his preemptive move to harvest the growing disillusionment of the potential MQM supporters. But breakaway factions seldom prosper. The MQM’s destiny is wedded to the person of Altaf Hussain.
There are some signs that the PPP is gearing up for some new initiatives, the recent change in the province’s executive leadership being its dominant example. The by-election victory has prompted Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to claim that Karachi is Bhutto’s city. Not yet, by any stretch of imagination.
As I said, Karachi has yet to exorcise itself from Altaf’s influence and it could be a bloody and painful experience. But there is surely the promise of a new beginning.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Email: ghazi_salahuddinhotmail.com