Karachi Cauldron

Karachi has been in flames for past ten odd days, not that it was peaceful before, but even going by Karachi’s turbulent past last few days have seen the city life coming to a grinding halt far too often.  The frequent violence and targeted killings clearly indicate that the ethno-political jostling for supremacy has not yet reached a state of equilibrium and various ethnic, political and sectarian stakeholders in Karachi are still trying to nudge each other out.   In recent past the entire city had to pull down shutters for three days within a space of five days to mourn the victims of ongoing ethno-political war. Twice it was at the behest of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which has been ruling the roost in Karachi for over two decades and is known for its strong arm tactics, while once it was at the behest of Awami National Party (ANP), which represents the new migrants to the city the Pakhtoons and matches MQM’s violence bullet for bullet and still claims to believe in the concept of non-violent struggle propounded by Frontier Gandhi.

The new violence is nothing but an attempt by the new migrants to force the authorities to recognise the new ground realities of Karachi while the older migrants are trying to maintain the status quo.  Despite constituting a quarter of Karachi’s population (today Karachi has more Pakhtoons than either Kabul or Peshawar), the ANP has only two seats in provincial assembly and none in the parliament. On the other hand MQM, through collusion with successive governments has gerrymandered the constituencies in such a way that despite constituting less than half the population of the metropolis, it controls it politically.  It has twenty plus seats in the parliament from Karachi and 51 seats in the provincial assembly, an overwhelming majority. It also controlled the local government in Karachi since 2002 and the Nazim of Karachi belonged to MQM, till the post was abolished in 2010. 

For long Mohajirs dominated the landscape in Karachi and the original Sindhi residents had silently acquiesced to Mohajir domination.  With the continuing influx of Pakhtoons the dynamics has changed, the new migrants are as willing to resort to violence as the previous migrants if not more and have found support from original residents of the metropolis, the Sindhis and Baloch.   For long MQM has been trying to check the unhindered movement of Pakhtoons to Karachi under the garb of fighting Talibanisation, but has failed to control the ingress, which has only picked up momentum with the continuing violence in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). To compound the problem, the birth rate amongst Mohajirs, who are better educated, has been falling consistently vis a vis Sindhis, Pakhtoons and Baloch.  With both ANP and MQM being part of PPP led federal and provincial government in Sindh, they are both able to arm twist the administrative machinery to suit their objectives.  However, with the abolition of the institution of Nazim, the MQM is on a relatively weak wicket as many leaders within the Sindhi dominated PPP have latent biases against the Mohajirs and MQM.  To aggravate the problem Afaq Ahmed, the leader of Mohajir Qaumi Movement – Haqiqi (MQM-H), a break away faction of MQM was released in December 2011 after being locked up on various charges for over seven years. Afaq, a known Altaf Hussain basher is trying to reorganize his faction, which had been decimated during Musharraf era at MQM’s behest. 

Along with ethno-political violence, a sectarian conflict also goes on in Karachi.  Being a huge metropolis, it has followers of every single denomination in large numbers and this gives even the sectarian minorities the requisite strength to demonstrate and retaliate.  As a result there have been a large number of sectarian killings in Karachi.  Generally those targeted by the Sunni militants apart from Shia religious processions are eminent Shia personalities, Shia clerics and identified members of Shia organizations.  Shia reprisals are by and large confined to rabidly anti-Sunni clerics and members of sectarian outfits.  However, Shia Sunni violence is not the only sectarian conflict affecting Karachi. There is an even bigger faultline within the Sunni fold between Deobandis and Barelvis, which is getting aggravated by the day.  Generally disorganized and docile Barelvis are better organized in Karachi and Sunni Tehrik is a force to reckon with, but this has not prevented Deobandi and Wahabi radical outfits from targeting Sufi shrines as well as Barelvi leadership.  In 2006 , the entire Sunni Tehrik leadership was wiped off by a suicide bomber in Nishtar Park on the holy day of Milad-un-Nabi and on 29 Jan 12, when Sunni Tehrik had organized a mammoth gathering to commemorated its departed leaders, two of its activists were killed on their way to the venue of the gathering.   Milad processions have been used to target the Barelvis, in the same manner as Ashura and Chehlum processions have been used to target the Shias. Taliban has been actively involved in many cases of sectarian violence against both the Shias as well as Sufis.    

In recent past even the religious political parties which had been eclipsed in the past by the MQM phenomenon, have started making deep inroads in Karachi.  Jmiat Ulema-i-Islam- Fazal (JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami have had mammoth rallies in the city.  Even Sunni Tehrik has also formed a political party.  Both Sunni Tehrik and Jamaat have historical animosity with ‘secular’ MQM and there have been violence between the cadres of MQM and the religious parties.  The student bodies affiliated to MQM have been frequently clashing with the student body of Jamaat in various educational institutions.  As the influence of religious political parties increase, there is likely to be increased violence across this faultline as well. 

Continuing violence in Karachi, the financial capital of Pakistan, which alone contributes to a quarter of Pakistan’s GDP, could be dangerous for the precarious economy of Pakistan.  The city alone contributes more than half the receipts of Federal Board of Revenue.   It collects close to half of direct taxes, one third of federal excise, quarter of domestic sales tax, four fifth of sales tax on Imports and three quarters of custom duty collected across Pakistan. It participates in 30 per cent of all large scale manufacturing activities in Pakistan.  Despite the commissioning of Gwadar Port, Karchi-Bin Qasim port complex continues to handle virtually the entire maritime imports and exports of Pakistan. The city houses the largest stock exchange in Pakistan and has the headquarters of most multinational corporations operating in Pakistan. Its future would determine the destiny of Pakistan.  Already foreign countries with sizeable investments in Karachi are sending in their envoys and delegations to MQM headquarters, to meet the leadership and assess for themselves the prospects of returns on their investments in the turbulent metropolis.

As neither the ethno-political nor the sectarian dominance is likely to be established soon, the violence is likely to be a long drawn one, with significant presence of Taliban within the city that could be catastrophic.  The reports already indicate that the city has as many fire arms as Waziristan.  For Taliban, the fractured city provides a unique opportunity to embroil the security forces in a classic urban guerilla war to reduce pressure on FATA.  Karachi is the financial nerve centre of Pakistan and implications of continuing turmoil in Karachi can be extremely grave for the economy of Pakistan.  If Pakistani state is not able to bring in order, one could see Karachi turning into Beirut of the eighties within a ‘Lebanonised’ state.

Alok Bansal is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS)