The crime-politics axis

The top MQM leadership is in thick soup these days. While the startling statements made by the party’s self-confessed ex-hit man Saulat Mirza, the MQM seems to be knee-deep in questionable activities, it would be a capital mistake to suppose that the crime-politics axis is exclusive to one political party.
Crime and democracy seem to be at once strange and natural bedfellows: strange, because the basis of democracy is rule of law, which is an antithesis of crime; natural because stripped of its moral garb, all politics in essence is a power game in which ethical and legal questions are at best of secondary significance. The actual strength of the crime-politics nexus in a polity depends to what extent rule of law holds in check power politics, which in turn is a function of the social forces – political, economic, cultural – at work.
These social forces are at once normative and distributional. Social norms prescribe what’s right and what’s wrong; what’s lawful and what’s unlawful; what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable. At the same time, society is a system of power and privileges – and social institutions define who gets what and how.
Crime and abetment of crime may fall into the category of bad behaviour. But what if it helps a person or a group preserve or add to their power and position? At times, a group’s bare survival may be contingent upon employing heavy-handed tactics; or it may find socially acceptable means impeding the attainment of what it considers to be its legitimate goals. In such circumstances, the fine line between legal and illegal political behaviour obliterates. And once it begins to be rewarded, indulgence in criminal activities becomes a matter of course.
Coming to our society, the crime-politics nexus can be attributed in the main to two factors: feudal culture and institutional instability.
As the dominant mode of production, feudalism may be dead but feudal culture remains a potent force in the country. As a set of social relationships, feudalism has three distinctive characteristics: One, central to it is the notion of the fief – a piece of land held by a lord or overlord, where he reigns supreme. His word is law. He holds his own court to settle disputes and dispense ‘justice’, and maintains a private army and prison. Since all work is done by the peasants or the landless, the feudal’s favourite pastime is show of strength.
Two, the concept of equality before law is foreign to feudalism. Though in theory everyone is answerable to law, the law is applied in accordance with one’s rank and status. Thus there is a fundamental discrepancy in the way the same law is applied to the baron and the landless.
Three, feudalism is based on authoritarianism or uncritical acceptance of authority. It believes in force and coercion as the mechanism of dispute settlement. Kidnapping, murder, and land grabbing are common devices used to call opponents to heel. Resort to debate and argument as methods of conflict resolution is frowned upon as a mark of cowardice.
A similar situation exists in Pakistan where, with few exceptions, all the major political parties are essentially autocratic organisations, with all power securely vested in one person or a single family. Just as waging war was the favourite pastime of the feudals in their heyday, politics is the favourite pastime of the feudal class in Pakistan. Their enormous wealth and influence place them in a perfect position to win elections and enter the corridors of power. Anyone opposing them will do so at their own peril. Political power, in turn, acts as a multiplier of the feudals’ wealth and influence, and so on.
The same feudal psyche prevails in urban areas, where raw power is replaced with monetary power. Since there is no match between wealth that is legally accumulated and wealth that is illegally amassed, the crime-politics nexus gets a tremendous boost.
As a result, the superstructure of politics rests on the foundation of feudalism. State institutions are regarded as fiefdoms, where the whims of the people in power reign supreme. Public functionaries are looked down upon as no more than personal servants, who are there only to serve their masters; dissent is considered an inexcusable sin. Subservience to the law is subject to one’s rank and status, power and position. In such an environment crime goes viral.
Institutions are difficult to take root in such a society. Institutional instability provides a fertile ground for the armed forces to step in the political arena. Now, military rule is fundamentally rule by force. When a military regime is installed, rule of law and constitutionalism is the first casualty. Such a regime is not interested in building institutions, for that will weaken its foundation.
There is thus a reciprocal relationship between institutional stability and military rule – the one scratching the back of the other. Such a situation only perpetuates and strengthens the culture of power and patronage. And none is in greater need of political patronage than gangs and mafias.
It was in this culture that the MQM, at present Pakistan’s fourth largest political party, was founded in 1984 by Altaf Hussain, a former student leader. At that time, strongman Gen Ziaul Haq was at the helm and the country was placed under martial law. It is widely alleged that the MQM was fathered by Zia’s regime with a view to further polarising society – a charge the party vehemently brushes aside.
The MQM was created to champion the rights of the Urdu-speaking population (the Mohajirs) of urban Sindh. The party has had two overriding characteristics that have been both its strength and weakness.
In the first place, the MQM was the first, and to date remains the only, political party to have raised voice for Mohajirs exclusively. Before the MQM, there were parties that worked essentially for other minority ethnic groups, such as Sindhis, Pakhtuns and the Baloch. It’s essentially Mohajir credentials, notwithstanding the change of name from the Mohajir Qaumi Movement to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, that have enabled the MQM to maintain its electoral edge over urban Sindh. But at the same time, this has held the party back from expanding its support base to other areas of the country. And so it remains largely an ethnic outfit.
Two, the MQM gave political representation to the urban middle class, which hitherto found it enormously difficult to reach the popularly elected assemblies in view of the cardinal role that money plays in national politics. Altaf Hussain has made no bones about his hatred of the ‘tyrannical’ feudal and ‘blood-sucking’ capitalist classes.
But the power of money and political patronage has not been lost on the MQM either. It has as jealously guarded its urban Sindh constituency as a feudal lord would defend his fiefdom – by means fair or foul. Add to this Karachi’s status of being the nation’s commercial and financial capital with a large underground economy, thus providing a strong incentive for maintaining a politician-criminal nexus. In the past, this nexus worked to the MQM’s, as that of other parties’, advantage. But now it seems the chickens are coming home to roost.
The author is a graduate from a western European university.
Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com