by Nadia Khan

 

Gerrard Khan in his work paper, published under UNHCR website, mentioned that, "By the 1980s, militant Mohajirs had formed the separatist Mohajir MQM party calling for an autonomous Mohajir province within Sindh." With this approach MQM has started its journey, there were many ups & downs but by then they had matured themselves, after two decades. This famous port city of Pakistan, is a deeply complicated dilemma. Since long the unrest in this city is visible, date back to Mumtaz Bhutto's actions in 70s against Muhajirs & later in 1985 with Bushra Zaidi's road accident. Each action had provoked a bigger & severe set of multiple currents linked to each other. Finally in 1992 when the situation has reached where Karachi was theoretically assumed out of Pakistan.

Communities such as Muhajirs, Punjabis, Pathans, and illegal Bengalis constitute the main stream of society. Each one claims to be dominant but last 2 elections have shown the strength of MQM, PPP, and JI only. PPP & JI strength only when MQM boycotted the then elections leaving ground available for them. MQM recaptured the ground since Musharraf's era, though he was personally against of Altaf Hussain (ref Hamid Mir in Nadia Khan's morning talk show - "I wish I would kill him!") but in political reality, an Army General & MQM became close allies hands in hands for many years.

The turbulent time for MQM was over in 2002 since when they received fresh blood to recapture its lost strength and validated it on 12th May 2008 when Musharraf's utilized them against Justice Ifthikhar Chaudhry in Karachi. Pakistani history writers will identify the role of Pervaiz Mushraff in destabilizing Karachi (ultimately Pakistan) by patroning MQM for his ulterior political motives. Does this mean - that MQM is not a patriotic political party like others? Few fingers could be raised, like in 1992 the then Army leadership identified various elements (probably their sector in charges) played tactical tricks and those were possibly not in favour of Pakistan, such as city-wide continuous strikes, relation with Indian consulate, links with exile political figures famous for their Pakistan-hatred attitude etc. However, since then Musharraf started supporting MQM, they returned back to mainstream path and started playing positive role contrary to what
had been foreseen in 1992 & later by army and political leaderships.

Altaf Hussain's soft corner for Qadiyani's in last couple of months also raises suspicion among religious circles. Later, the departure of Aamir Liauat Hussain has raised various doubts about MQM and its founder. It is observed that Aamir Liaquat has been forced to leave MQM (he resigned from his religious ministry and national assembly seat too) due to his tough stance over Qadiyanis & UK-based Salman Rushdi. Similarly Altaf Hussain's tough stance over religious parties especially about Karachi's Jamat-e-Islami members were seen since long & termed as political rivalry between two political parties during elections over constituencies. Many lives have lost due to this fierce tension and city has witnessed various strikes in recent past.

MQM current tone over Jihadi's group under the banner of arriving-Pathans from North-West Frontier province and its rejection by the ruling PPP, where MQM is a coalition too, is yet to be known to many political analysts & alarming towards start of fresh round of violence in coming days. Iffat Idris of AlAhram Weekly rightly wrote, "Karachi is no stranger to violence. It has witnessed many serious incidents -- the murder of Daniel Pearl and the suicide bombing that killed 11 French engineers outside the Sheraton Hotel are just two examples."

She added. "The current round of violence, however, is intense even by Karachi's bloody standards. It has prompted conspiracy theories about orchestrated attacks designed to fuel Sunni-Shia rivalry, or to bring down the provincial government. As the attacks go on, more and more people are giving credence to such theories."