On the 28th August 2011 Senior Pakistan People’s Party leader Dr Zulfiqar Mirza resigned as vice president of the PPP and as the minster of Sind. Addressing a packed press conference at Karachi Press Club he outlined a number of issues that led him to take such actions. These included Interior Minister Rehman Malik siding with the killers as anarchy continues on the streets of Karachi. He expressed serious reservations on the policy of his government about the law and order situation in Karachi. He also leveled serious allegations on Muttahida Quami Movement and its chief Altaf Hussain. He termed the MQM and its head responsible for targeted killings in Karachi. Zulfiqar Mirza also alleged that during a meeting in London MQM Chief Altaf Hussain had told him that America and world powers had decided to break up Pakistan and he (Altaf Hussain) had supported their idea.
In just the last few months many hundreds of lives have been lost on the streets of Karachi as targeted killing increased, even in the month of Ramadan. Many accusations have been made with regards to the culprits these include the third hand – foreigners, terrorists, gangsters and drug/land mafia, while the Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM), a former partner of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) coalition government in Sindh and the Awami National Party(ANP) place the blame squarely at each other. The loss of life in Karachi has brought life to a virtual standstill. A closer and deeper analysis shows the failure of government is once again at the centre of the crisis.
Karachi: Past and Present
Most of the deaths that have taken place are from the Mohajir Urdu speaking community and the Pashtun community in Karachi. The killings are a result of ethnic and political tensions which exist in Karachi and have resulted in over 500 killings this year with over 400 people being killed within the first three months of 2011 alone.
Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city with a population of 13 million. More importantly it is Pakistan’s economic and trading hub. This has made Karachi a magnet for migration as people from inside and outside Pakistan have relocated there in search of employment. Many Muslims from Afghanistan moved there during the Afghan war and more recently many from the FATA region have moved there, including whole tribes due to operations by the Pakistan army. Mohajirs who migrated from India during the1947 partition make up the majority of the population of Karachi whilst the Pashtuns are the second largest community with significant numbers of other ethnicities such as Punjabis, Balochis and Biharis.
During the 1970’s the PPP led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declared Sindhi to be the main language in Sindh via the Sindh act 1972. This was an attempt by Bhutto to deal with the large Muhajir population; it also meant all teaching in schools, official documents etc was to be in Sindhi. This was seen as discriminatory by the Urdu speaking population, which eventually led to language riots for the second time in Pakistan’s history (the first being the Bangladesh language riots in 1952) between the Mohajirs and the Sindhis. A compromise solution was reached eventually which enabled both Sindhi and Urdu to be the official languages of the Sindh province. In 1978 a young student leader by the name of Altaf Hussain established the All Pakistan Mohajir Student Organisation (APMSO) and campaigned for the right of Mohajirs at Karachi University which in turn lead to the establishment of the MQM a few years later.
In 1984 the MQM lead by Altaf Hussain was officially launched with the aim of securing rights for Mohajirs and recognition as the fifth nationality in Pakistan. The MQM message resonated amongst the Mohajirs of Sindh’s largest cities Karachi and Hyderabad. In 1985 ethnic riots broke out after a bus driven by a Pathan ran over a student called Bushra Zaidi who was of Mohajir descent, Mohajirs attacked Pathans and Pathan interests such as businesses. The Pathans retaliated by attacking a bus load of students who were on the way to attend the funeral prayer of Bushra. Throughout the 1980’s, ethnic violence reverted from Pathan-Mohajir to Sindhi-Mohajir with tit for tat incidents occurring in Hyderabad and Karachi as the Sindhis felt the Mohajirs were becoming too dominant. This lead to an attack on the Mohajir mayor of Hyderabad and retaliatory attacks against Sindhis.
By the time the 1990’s came around the MQM was at war with the government and the army was called in to maintain law and order on the streets of Karachi. This continued with both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif when they were in power. It was in the early part of the 1990’s that Altaf Hussain and other MQM leaders went into self exile.
The past decade has seen violence erupt mainly between the majority Mohajir and Pashtun communities where members of rival political parties the MQM and Awami National Party (ANP) have been killed. The most recent examples are the killing of MQM member Raza Haider outside a mosque in august 2010. The MQM blamed the ANP and this led to attacks against the Pashtun community while there was more violence between ANP-MQM supporters on the eve of by-elections which culminated in an attack in October 2010 at the Sher Shah scrap market when attackers from the Baloch community sought out Urdu speakers and murdered them in retaliation for earlier attacks. This year has seen no let up in the killings and supporters of both parties have attacked each other.
Targeted killings are not only confined to Karachi but have taken place in Balochistan where the subject of attacks have been Punjabis known as “settlers” i.e. have migrated from Punjab to Balochistan.
Government Failure
The Mohajir’s sacrificed much to come to the new nation created in the name of Islam. Their demands like all of the Muslim that migrated was to be recognised, provided with security, honour and employment. However successive governments failed them again and again. The Mohajirs dreaming of establishing an Islamic state disappeared very quickly and even getting employment – a very basic objective was hard to come by. By the time the 1970’s came to an end the Mohajir’s felt the traditional inhabitants of Pakistan were not sympathetic to their basic demands. Today it is unfortunate none of their very basic demands have ever been fulfilled by any government.
The real problem is the failure of successive governments and the political system in uniting the Muslims of Pakistan and addressing their concerns. A cursory glance at history shows us this when East Pakistan went on to become Bangladesh due to the fact the Muslims in East Pakistan felt the government in West Pakistan was discriminating against them. Similarly the Mohajirs also felt some form of discrimination otherwise why would a party (MQM) fight for their rights. Even when the NWFP was renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the Hazara’s rioted and called for a separate Hazara province as they were not Pashtun. Why is it that some in Pakistan call for Balochistan to become a separate entity?
It should also be borne in mind that each community is aligned to certain political parties. The MQM was set up initially as a Mohajir party but now tries to portray itself as a party for all Pakistanis hence changing its name from Mohajir Qaumi Movement to Muttahida (united) Qaumi Movement. The ANP is a party the Pashtun community support. Each party is vying for control of Karachi and to attain its own interests, not much different from the other political parties in Pakistan.
The Punjab province has historically dominated the other provinces whether in civil, political or military life. Over 55% of the military is Punjabi. Punjab has produced most of the country’s leaders; it is also the most developed province. All of this is seen negatively by the other provinces as they have been largely ignored and has led to resentment against Punjabis.
All this shows that since Pakistan’s inception it has been unable to bring its people together and the above has been a recipe for disaster. The people have never been presented anything upon which to unify and rally around as a nation. As a result of this they turn to the common factors between them such as ethnicity which has done nothing but cause further divisions and sets one ethnicity dominating the others.
As for the argument about a “third hand” being to blame for the violence, this is a weak position and one that is often used as a get out of jail card. Assuming it is true that there is a foreign element
involved, this can only happen due to the fact that such resentment and ethnic problems exists in the first place and is there to be exploited by those who wish to see Pakistan destabilised. Again it is the failure of government for discriminating against and dominating provinces.
The Pakistan government for the last decade has set out to deal with extremist ideas and terrorism yet can not tackle the nationalistic ideas and secular terrorists in Karachi? This problem has existed since Pakistan’s inception, long before the “War on Terror” was coined. In fact there have been targeted killings in Karachi on a near monthly basis in 2011 and these will continue while the current system is in place irrespective of whether the PPP, PML, ANP, MQM or other incompetent parties comes into power.
Islam and Governance
The Khilafah views all its citizens as humans, rather than Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi, Mohajir. More importantly the very ideas of nationalism/tribalism are forbidden in Islam.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: “He is not one us who calls for ‘Asabiyah, (nationalism/tribalism) or who fights for ‘Asabiyah or who dies for ‘Asabiyah.” [Abu Dawud]
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: “People should give up their pride in nations because this is a coal from the coals of hell-fire. If they do not give this up Allah will consider them lower than a lowly worm which pushes itself through khur (faeces).” [Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi].
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur’an:
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا ۚ وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءً فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا وَكُنْتُمْ عَلَىٰ شَفَا حُفْرَةٍ مِنَ النَّارِ فَأَنْقَذَكُمْ مِنْهَا ۗ كَذَٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
“And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allâh (i.e. this Qur’ân), and be not divided among yourselves, and remember Allâh’s Favour on you, for you were enemies one to another but He joined your hearts together, so that, by His Grace, you became brethren (in Islâmic Faith), and you were on the brink of a pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus Allâh makes His Ayât (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.,) clear to you, that you may be guided.” [Al Imran, 3:105]
So we can see from this that division based on ethnic background will not be allowed. Instead we can see from our Islamic history that people from different backgrounds became united by Islam e.g. Salman al Farsi (R.A) was Persian and Bilal (R.A) was Abyssinian yet both were brothers with the Muslims of Makkah and when the Islamic State expanded into new territories and the people accepted Islam they became brothers of one another even though they were from different backgrounds and had different cultures and norms.
As for political parties they will be based on the Islamic aqeeda and their role will not be like the political parties currently in Pakistan whose sole aim is to come to power and loot and plunder the country.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says
وَلْتَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ ۚ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ
“Let there arise from you a group (or Groups) who call to al-khair, i.e. Islam, who enjoin the good and forbid the evil and they are the ones who are the successful” [Al Imran, 3:104]
So the role will be to enjoin the good and forbid the evil and account the rulers as well as ensuring that the pure Islamic thoughts remain intact and that there is no foreign influenced thoughts being disseminated in the state. This means the abolishment of the current political parties in Pakistan who call for secularism and deal in politics based on ethnicity.
As a final point it should be remembered that a Muslim fighting or killing a Muslim is not allowed and that the current system has allowed this to happen starting with the Muslims of East Pakistan/Bangladesh to ethnic violence and targeted killing to the War on Terror where the pure blood of the Muslims is being spilled on a daily basis in order to please America.