A sorrowful microcosm

If the events in Karachi during 2011 were to be read as a book, the narrative would have few sparks of hope, although plenty to keep the action moving along. Over 400 citizens were killed in the first six months of this year, and almost as many have been shot dead in the two months thereafter. There are multiple factors at the heart of the ongoing violence in the city – politics proper has been replaced with political parties providing cover to mafia groups to perpetuate their influence, gerrymandering has created ghettos of ethnic strife, the police force has become increasingly politicised, lacunae in the law allow those apprehended by the police to be out on the streets soon after arrest and, finally, the political leaders seem to have become even more short-sighted than earlier. As a result, the violence that the city has seen since the 1990s has now become entrenched in the very fabric of society.

There are multiple disputes between the various political actors of Karachi, with local, provincial and national politics all fanning the flames. The relationship between the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the largely Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) extends to the federal government, and any disagreement between the two parties ultimately affects politics at the Centre as well as in the city. The Awami National Party (ANP) is a minor partner in Sindh's coalition government, but plays a more critical role in the coalition governments at the Centre as well as in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Such an extended partnership should, in principle, have brought the parties closer together. In practice, what is being played out on the streets of Karachi is in part a form of score-settling between various stakeholders and in part a larger positioning in the national polity. One thing is clear: irrespective of whether the dispute is over a national-level issue, a provincial one or even a local problem, it is on the streets of Karachi that all these disputes are, currently, sought to be resolved.

The current violence on the streets of Karachi can be traced back to the conflict between the PPP and the MQM over elections that were scheduled to be held in Azad Kashmir during the last week of June. The Azad Kashmir legislative assembly has 41 seats, each of which is bitterly contested due to the numbers game that leads to the election of the Azad Kashmir prime minister. Two of those seats are reserved for Kashmiris settled in Karachi and its outskirts; polls take place in Karachi for these settlers. The polls in Azad Kashmir also need to be seen in a broader context. Despite the fact that the PPP has been doing much of the military establishment's bidding since democracy returned to Pakistan in 2008, there is also a sense that cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan (recently found to be the most popular politician in the country in a public poll) is being groomed by the military establishment to become a major player on the political scene.

The Azad Kashmir polls were then, in essence, an exercise for both the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz or PML (N) to drive home the point to the military establishment that they were the two main parties in the country, and that they could not be overlooked in favour of Imran Khan. Aggressive campaigning and lobbying subsequently took place across Azad Kashmir, with both parties mindful of the number of seats required to form a government. In that game, the PPP eventually asked the MQM to let them have one, if not both, of the Azad Kashmir assembly seats from Karachi. In return, once the elections were over and a government formed, the PPP offered not only to give up the seats but also to hand the MQM two official positions, one for a minister and one for an advisor to the Azad Kashmir prime minister.

For its part, the MQM hoped to use the two seats to prove that it no longer is a force restricted to Karachi and Hyderabad. It was because of this strategy that the MQM assumed that the two seats from Karachi would be theirs for another term. One of those seats is from a constituency that has been a MQM stronghold since its inception and, it is said, 'a place where the MQM doesn't even need to campaign to win.' The dilemma for the MQM was whether to keep up its campaign of projecting itself as a national party, or to give in the PPP's demand in return for long-term gains. MQM sources said that some argued at the time that if the PPP actually trusts them, they should let the MQM candidates win and bank on their support in the legislature. PPP sources, on the other hand, claimed that for the party to prove its dominance over the PML (N) – which has been campaigning against the PPP-led central government – a purely PPP victory was desirable.

Negotiations were well underway, stretching from Islamabad to London (where the MQM chief Altaf Hussain lives in self-imposed exile) via Karachi. But with time of the essence, and the MQM unwilling to relent, the PPP had the elections to the two seats in Karachi postponed on the pretext of the law-and-order situation. The MQM saw this unilateral step as not only an affront to its credentials as a coalition partner, but also as an effort to bulldoze it into compliance. On 27 June, then, the MQM quit the coalition governments both in Sindh and at the Centre. After more than eight years in office, the governor of the province, Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan, a member of the MQM, was also asked to resign – the first time ever, despite many acrimonious disputes earlier. The party's primary support base, Karachi, erupted in violence soon thereafter, with nearly 100 people being killed in just four days. Politics had officially moved from the corridors of power to the streets; Karachi is yet to recover.

Resignations and condemnations

After the MQM parted ways with the government, both the President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani attempted to woo the party back into the government. The Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid) – a long-time ally of the MQM but newfound support as far as the PPP was concerned – was roped in by the PPP to aid the cause. Many believed that the PPP had entered into an alliance with the PML (Q) in order to ensure that it did not have to depend on the MQM in the National Assembly or the provincial legislatures for numerical support. In essence, the PML (Q) was a safeguard against any no-confidence motion being tabled against the prime minister.

Meanwhile, the MQM lodged a petition against the postponement of the Azad Kashmir polls in Karachi. As many as three federal ministers, 13 provincial ministers and one advisor also tendered their resignations, while the party moved to formally assume its role in opposition in the Sindh assembly. But even while these democratic measures were being tried out, the mood on the streets was turning increasingly confrontational. Although targeted killings of political activists are routine in Karachi, the numbers spiked considerably during the first week of July. One area in particular, Qasba Colony, erupted with ethnic strife between Urdu-speakers (supported by the MQM) and the local Pashtun community (supported by the ANP). Slowly these skirmishes spread to much of the rest of the city.

Political actors issued hollow condemnations, and the state came to the aid of the affected only after hundreds had been killed. Adding fuel to the fire were statements made by a PPP leader in Sindh, Zulfiqar Mirza. An ethnic Sindhi, Mirza was the province's former home minister and is also a close confidante of President Zardari. On 13 July, Mirza publicly abused the MQM, calling its chief Hussain a goon and terming the Urdu-speaking populace 'hungry, unclothed and shelterless' when they arrived in Pakistan in 1947. With the city already tense, MQM supporters came out in large numbers to protest Mirza's statement. The situation became so precarious that Mirza had to be summoned by the president to Islamabad, and an apology issued to the Urdu-speaking community. Despite the apology, Mirza's act was clearly deliberate: The former home minister is seeking to oust the MQM from not just Karachi but from mainstream politics in Sindh. Undoubtedly this would be very difficult, given the numerical strength of the Mohajirs – but Mirza is willing to give it a try anyway, through violent means.

With the MQM out of government and Karachi burning, another issue returned to the forefront. The PPP quickly restored a system of magistracy as the form of local governance across Sindh – a colonial heritage works well for traditionally powerful stakeholders and brokers in interior Sindh, who rely on traditional patron-client relationships to perpetuate their rule. This system had continued until General Pervez Musharraf replaced it with a form of elected local governments. (Since Musharraf's government stepped down, there has been something of a state of flux in this governance system.)

In Sindh, new districts had been carved out of old ones and gerrymandering was resorted to in order to ensure that the pro-Musharraf parties did not lose out. In Karachi, for example, gerrymandering took place in the PPP-dominated Lyari area of Karachi, in such a way that Lyari lost all of its revenue-generating areas – and that too, to an MQM-dominated area. Hyderabad, the province's second-largest metropolis, was divided into several smaller districts. As a result, the MQM could claim governance of those areas of Hyderabad where Urdu-speaking people lived in a majority, while other areas, with native Sindhi-speakers, were left to the throes of under-development, neglect and poverty. The PPP sought to reverse this, working with other political parties to build a consensus to restore the old system of magistracy, thereby cornering the MQM and forcing it into compliance with the framework laid out by the PPP.

Brute politics

While this politicking was taking place in Karachi and Sindh, politics at the national level was revolving around the creation of new provinces. Much of the talk was about carving new provinces out of Punjab. Prime Minister Gillani has been leading the charge for lower Punjab to be broken up into smaller provinces; partly because of his Seraiki background and affiliation to lower Punjab, and partly because the PPP would be able to consign the PML (N) to ruling northern Punjab. The PML (N) in turn argued that carving out new provinces was not a bad idea but that the process should be extended to Sindh as well; Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif claimed that Karachi, in particular, should be converted into a separate province. Around the same time as Zulfiqar Mirza's statement, graffiti had emerged all over Karachi calling for a 'Mohajir province'.

These developments rang alarm bells in the PPP. The division of Sindh would lead to the opening of a Pandora's box since Sindhi nationalists – not an insignificant group – would get the opportunity to finally break the hold of the PPP over Sindhis and argue for the separation of Sindh from the federation of Pakistan. This realisation ultimately propelled President Zardari into action, phoning MQM chief Hussain and asking him to bring his party back into the government. By 20 July Governor Ebad had returned and re-assumed gubernatorial responsibilities. With Sindh seemingly united again, the game shifted back to Punjab.

President Zardari's decision to persuade the MQM to rejoin the government did not go down well with within his own party, however, nor among the PPP's allies in Karachi. Although the terms of the MQM's return to government were being negotiated at the national level, local politics dictated that the MQM be told in no uncertain terms that it could not throw its weight around without expecting retaliation. Thus began the latest round of violence in Karachi, with more than 100 killed in the three days preceding the MQM's expected date of return to the government. (At Himal's deadline, the MQM was expected to make a formal return to government in another day or two.)

Politics is the art of the possible. In the tangle in Karachi, however, there are few viable political solutions because democratic politics is accorded low priority by all political parties. Therein lies the dilemma: Will the political parties actually give a chance to the political process, or will all disputes continue to be negotiated through the barrel of the gun? For now, it is all about guns and grenades.

Against this backdrop, there have been growing calls for the army to step in and conduct an operation to de-weaponise the city. Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani claims that the army is prepared to do so, adding that the paramilitary Rangers force already stationed in Karachi is more than capable of handling the situation. The tragedy is that if the army does step in, the inability of democratic forces to resolve matters peaceably will have provided the military establishment with an opportunity – again – to arbitrate matters that are political in nature.

~ Ahmed Yusuf is deputy city editor at Pakistan Today, in Karachi.