for safer shores. The party had already bifurcated, both in general perception and in daily discourse, into two – MQM-Karachi and MQM-London. To a narrative there was a counter-narrative that was only succeeding.
Till we did what we did. Why? That today remains the most intriguing question especially after a federal minister ended up goofing with an international TV channel on civil-military relations relating to haughtiness of some military players of the past. Of the past – being raked now to what end, one might ask? Only a 47 percent cumulative progress in the operation has turned Karachi around from a precipice. What befell then this leadership to pre-empt the dawn of greater promise with unnecessary meddling, inevitably emplacing again the traditional face of the MQM – tarnished by recent tales of crime and exploitation.
Imagine what else Altaf Hussain has achieved by ordering his party members to resign en bloc from the assemblies. Any in-house move to replace him with a current member of parliament by has been checked in its tracks. Chances of a parallel, newer mutation composed of the majority of the current MQM members of parliament has been effectively neutered. If the resignations go through and the party were to contest again, Altaf has re-appropriated to himself the power and the flexibility to purge those disloyal and unreliable in his recent experience. Within his party then a slipping Altaf has regained his centrality. His support base which may have found relief from a coercive embrace built on imposed passion may yet have to rekindle the flame of their ethno-nationalist rejuvenation. To the Urdu-speaking ‘Mohajir’ it is back to Bhai’s pervasive presence.
Altaf Hussain hopes to force an image of an MQM in plight through a resignation process that also serves other objectives. While it forces a political crisis on a nation desperate for stability in its struggle against the toxic mix of terror and crime, it also aims to enable the MQM to maximise its returns from a nervy state. The MQM’s pound of flesh will include: inhibiting the Rangers operation in Karachi totally or against the MQM at the least, and then seek compensation in the name of fair share of resources for urban Sindh that the MQM claims to represent.
In a political settlement that the government and the MQM will have enacted together, any give and take is likely to agree to some proscription of the Rangers operation in Karachi. If it also means that the plan to expand such scrutiny to Punjab too may be circumscribed, that will be a windfall for a government equally apprehensive of the military’s expanding reach. Mushahidullah, it seems, was just another pawn to add to the civilian space on the back of a major MQM initiative.
Forty-seven percent down the line on the mission, this is no time to give up or regulate and redirect the operation. General Raheel Sharif and his commendable team in Karachi should stand up to any effort that might impact the operation’s progress and Karachi’s survival as a decent city. The shenanigans of the political establishment are only meant to put the military back in its shoes through contrived theatrics.
I now understand why Altaf Hussain was so comfortable and confident the day his people resigned en masse. Rather than placate the political sensitivity against the military’s remarkable rise in public opinion it is time to dovetail the political initiatives complementing such success by evolving a consensus on retaining the momentum in the military’s operations and forging a common ground on a code of conduct in the political parties that will bring back the deviant into the fold of patent politics only. No militancy – period.
Karachi should be permitted to have its peace. Peace must be instituted all across Pakistan without fear or favour bringing to book those who have plundered and devastated this nation in a terror-crime nexus. On their part, the Rangers and the army must ensure that the operation is across the board and justly and uniformly applied against crime that feeds into instability and terror in the shape of extortion, land-grabbing, kidnapping and target-killing. No terrorist of any hue should be allowed to shelter under one or the other political or religious denominations.
In tennis ‘forcing an error’ is the key to winning a game. The recent political developments are meant to force the military into one such error that can restore the balance in favour of the political establishment.
The perception of a competitive civil-military relationship is misplaced but dangerously entrenched. The military must watch out for such notion to gain strength in the coming days. A more complementary interface with the civilian leadership in this combined national response is in this nation’s prime interest. Reacting disproportionately in any fashion to such offensive caricatures will fail the mission that the military has undertaken to pursue. It will take an even grander sense of balance and proportion with a single-minded objective to clean the stables in the face of these challenges.
So far, so good. As an aside, raising the chief to a demi-God is loaded with the possibilities of a catastrophic misstep that will need to be avoided for the sake of this nation. To beware will help.
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