Just think of any civic problem, such as water scarcity, encroachments, sanitation issues, inadequate transport infrastructure, unaffordable electricity with frequent power outages, an unsatisfactory law and order situation, or any other, and you will find it in Karachi in abundance.
However, it has not always been like this. In fact, when I moved to Karachi from Lahore in January 1959, I found the city to be nice and welcoming, with friendly people, a moderate climate, and pleasant evenings. One could drink water straight from the tap. Public transport was no problem, and neither was security.
One big advantage the city then had was that, being the capital of Pakistan, it was being developed at a fast pace. Also, because of its mild climate and better employment opportunities, it became a preferred destination for Urdu-speaking migrants from India and skilled and unskilled workers from the rest of the country. Yet, there were no ethnic tensions.
Perhaps among the only good deeds of Gen. Ayub Khan was establishing the Karachi Circular Railway, which, at its prime, ran more than a hundred trains a day. The other was to build the Korangi Colony, which provided additional housing for the fast-growing Karachi population, and the good General Azam Khan completed the job in record time.
Unfortunately, the revenge action of the illegal power-grabber Ayub Khan - to punish Karachi and Karachiites for supporting Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, who contested against Ayub Khan - wiped out whatever good he did. The worst thing that the father/son team did was to create ethnic tensions in Karachi by forming various alliances against the Urdu-speaking people, whose lives were made hell. This marginalization of Urdu-speaking people by different ethnic alliances under government patronage continued unabated and forced them to unite for survival. This eventually gave rise to the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in 1978 and to the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984 under Altaf Hussain. The MQM finally brought under control the widespread humiliation and mistreatment of Urdu-speaking men and women in public places and even on buses. Unfortunately, Altaf Hussain went a bit too far and had to be cut down to size. Eventually, he had to leave Pakistan. The present Muttahida Qaumi Movement is a restructured urban-Sindh-based political party with a change not just in name from Mohajir to Muttahida but in its attributes as well, and it now embraces people of all ethnicities.
The bias by the ‘sons of the soil’ against the Urdu-speaking people - which term lumps together migrants from India who were not Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, or Baluchi speaking - continues till this day in varying degrees in nearly all provinces but is most pronounced in Sindh, especially in Karachi. For example, considering their population proportion, the presence of real Karachiites - domicile certificates notwithstanding - in the Sindh government departments is negligible.
There was a similar bias against Bengalis, who, despite their larger population, did not get their proportionate share in government. Even while Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had won nearly twice as many seats as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) did, Bhutto refused to accept Sheikh Mujib’s clear mandate. The then military dictator Gen. Yahya Khan, instead of pressuring ZAB, moved against Sheikh Mujib, and the rest is a shameful history.
The bias was also displayed post-1971. While ZAB did manage to bring back the soldiers and civilians belonging to West Pakistan, no real effort was made to bring to Pakistan others belonging to the nearby Indian territory who had migrated to East Pakistan in 1947. They were very much Pakistanis and ought to have been brought to West Pakistan, which was the only Pakistan left then. However, over the years, some were brought to Pakistan while a lot more were abandoned and left to languish in subhuman conditions in Bangladeshi camps.
The issues I have raised above may appear to be unconnected with the subject under discussion, which is the future of Karachi. However, if we look at things honestly, we will see that the separation of our eastern wing and the exploitation of Karachi are both the results of a certain mindset.
That means the situation in Karachi can improve only if the city—with its population exceeding that of many states—is made a separate province, with its governance handed over to its real stakeholders, the residents of the city. However, the present rulers are unlikely to do that. We have already seen that despite agreeing in principle and even passing some resolutions, they have not created additional provinces in Punjab. Please also look at the figures extracted from Wikipedia.
The writer is a freelance contributor with interest in regional, South Asian and international affairs. He can be reached at hashmi_srh@hotmail.com
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