Indians Dominate Pakistan

8/14/2019 Indians Dominate Pakistan

1/4

IInnddiiaannss DDoommiinnaattee

PPaakkiissttaann

Exceprts From the Article

Sindhi-Muhajir Violence in Pakistan 1984-1992

State power was not always centered in the Punjab. After Partition, predominantly Urdu-speaking andurban middle-class Muhajirs took over the bureaucracy of the fledgling country and developedinto a powerful elite. Urdu, the language of this minority, was made the national language, and

until recently the Muhajirs were among the most vocal advocates of nationalist sentiments. However this sense of primary identification with Pakistan underwent a dramatic shift after the formation

of the MQM.

What has accounted for the sudden change in Muhajir political loyalties? Over the years, theMuhajir community saw a decline in its share of state power, as a Punjabi- dominated militaryincreasingly took hold over the state apparatus and strengthened its control over the formerly

Muhajir-dominated bureaucracy.

Almost all of the Muhajir members of the Jaamat switched their loyalties overnight.By 1991 the MQM, in partnership with the Sind provincial government, unleashed a reign of terror in

Karachi -- raids, witch hunts, and mass arrests of political opponents became the norm. Heavily armedMQM militants operated as an organized, government supported Mafia, and extortion and coercion

became the order of the day. Journalists who wrote anything critical of the MQM were hounded andnewspapers offices were raided. The dismal behavior of the MQM's political leadership and the Party's

turn towards bossism were part of a pattern that all political parties in Pakistan manifest to varyingdegrees once they control the state apparatus. The MQM's tenure in power became merely a new

group's opportunity to loot and plunder. Still, the MQM's incorporation into the ruling coalitionchallenged the almost total hegemony of the military and feudal elite.

Source:www.onwar.com
http://www.onwar.com/http://www.onwar.com/http://www.onwar.com/http://www.onwar.com/


2/4

Sindhi-Muhajir Violence in Pakistan 1984-1992

But the long-festering division between Sindhis and non-Sindhis exploded intoviolence in Sindh. The muhajirs formed new organizations, the most significant-being the Refugee People's Movement (Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz). The incendiarytensions resulted not only from Sindhi-muhajir opposition but also from Sindhi fearof others who had moved into the province, including Baloch, Pakhtuns, andPunjabis. The fact that Sindhi was becoming the mother tongue of fewer and fewerpeople of Sindh was also resented. The violence escalated in the late 1980s to theextent that some compared Karachi and Hyderabad to the Beirut of that period. Thegrowth of the illicit drug industry also added to the ethnic problem.

*****

State power was not always centered in the Punjab. After Partition,predominantly Urdu-speaking and urban middle-class Muhajirs took overthe bureaucracy of the fledgling country and developed into a powerfulelite. Urdu, the language of this minority, was made the national language,and until recently the Muhajirs were among the most vocal advocates ofnationalist sentiments.However this sense of primary identification with Pakistanunderwent a dramatic shift after the formation of the MQM.

What has accounted for the sudden change in Muhajir political loyalties?

Over the years, the Muhajir community saw a decline in its share of statepower, as a Punjabi- dominated military increasingly took hold over thestate apparatus and strengthened its control over the formerly Muhajir-dominated bureaucracy. During the first military dictatorship (1956-1969), thecapital was moved north from Karachi to Islamabad in the Punjab. Then when theSindhi feudal landlord Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, came to power, heinstituted a series of reforms which effectively cut back at an already diminishingbureaucratic base that was the source of power for the Muhajirs. During the mostrecent military dictatorship, General Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988) doled out many keygovernment posts and huge land allotments to Punjabi military personnel and

retired army officers.

This process of Muhajir disenfranchisement from the corridors of power wasaccompanied by the overall impoverishment of the middle-class. Clientelism,corruption, and inflation cut further into the pool of available jobs, frustrating theurban educated youth. This situation paved the way for the popularity of AltafHussain's MQM Party. The MQM's initial demands were dedicated to specificallyurban, middle-class concerns -- increased quotas in government jobs andeducational institutions, and a greater share of provincial revenue for expenditure


3/4

on urban development. But despite the Party's indisputable resonance amongstMuhajirs, it is now widely accepted that the MQM, after its formal establishment in1984, was supported and backed by the military dictatorship, in part to break theopposition to the military in province of Sind. A Sind-based movement opposingGeneral Zia's military regime had been gaining ground, and by promoting the MQM,the General had hoped to break the opposition by dividing it on ethnic lines.

During General Zia's dictatorship, the MQM had emerged as a highly disciplinedparty with a well-organized and widespread grassroots network. The party structurevirtually mimicked the organizational model of the previously dominant right-wingparty the Jamaat-i- Islami. Almost all of the Muhajir members of the Jaamatswitched their loyalties overnight, as the MQM effectively eliminated the Islamistparty's Karachi base. Tired of the traditional Muhajir stand which has usuallyrevolved around fundamentalist support for a strong center and army and staunchopposition to India, many saw the MQM as a means of solving local issues that hadbeen ignored by previous governments.

As a result, after the sudden and fortunate death of General Zia, the 1988 electionresults revealed the MQM's strong popular base. The Party won almost all the SindProvincial Assembly seats from Karachi, emerging as the third most important partyat the national level despite its extremely local base. However, once in power, MQMrealpolitik was marked by opportunism and a failure to address popular socialagendas.

By 1991 the MQM, in partnership with the Sind provincial government, unleashed a

reign of terror in Karachi -- raids, witch hunts, and mass arrests of politicalopponents became the norm. Heavily armed MQM militants operated as anorganized, government supported Mafia, and extortion and coercion becamethe order of the day. Journalists who wrote anything critical of the MQM werehounded and newspapers offices were raided. The dismal behavior of the MQM'spolitical leadership and the Party's turn towards bossism were part of a pattern thatall political parties in Pakistan manifest to varying degrees once they control thestate apparatus. The MQM's tenure in power became merely a new group'sopportunity to loot and plunder. Still, the MQM's incorporation into the rulingcoalition challenged the almost total hegemony of the military and feudal elite.

At the height of its power, the MQM began to lose much of its popular support, andwould have certainly lost the following elections if it was not for the massivedeployment of the army under the aegis of "Operation Clean- up." Afraid that themonster that they had supported had gotten out of control, the military juntaattempted to splinter the MQM by promoting a dissenting faction within the Party,led by former commanders of MQM's dreaded militant wing, the Black Tigers. At thecrack of dawn on June 19, 1992, three hundred MQM dissidents backed by thearmy rangers took control over key MQM offices.


4/4

In the months that followed, the MQM Party was crushed -- its workers arrested orforced underground, their families brutalized. An army press campaign against theMQM "exposed" MQM torture chambers, and stories of rape and extortion floodedthe front pages. That half of these stories were true made the exaggerated andfabricated claims all the more believable. Despite military backing the dissidentgroup, known as the "real" or Haqiqi faction of the MQM, failed to gain any followingat all. Since the Muhajir community as a whole bore the brunt of a program ofsystematic intimidation and harassment by the state, even those Muhajirs who hadpreviously not supported the MQM, or did not believed in the politicization of theirMuhajir identity, now felt that they had no choice but to support Altaf's MQM.

Documents

Indians Dominate Pakistan