Last year more than 1,100 people were killed and thousands maimed in the mayhem that ravaged Karachi. Pakistan’s economic citadel has been in the throes of ethnic strife, communal frenzy, state brutalities, religious bigotry and sectarian killings for decades. Violence and turmoil have become a norm in this beleaguered city. Being the only major port of the country and with a certain level of industrial feasibility most of the Muslim bourgeois who yearned for an independent market with the protection of the state had supported the creation of Pakistan and the bloody partition. They had flocked to Karachi from Bombay, Madras and other industrial cities of united India to set up industries and businesses. This nascent bourgeoisie had a dream of setting up a modern industrialised state where they would enhance their rates of profit. However, 63 years on that dream has gone bitterly sour. They were historically belated and economically feeble to carry out the tasks posed by history. Today’s Karachi is a graphical illustration of the real character of Pakistani capitalism. Tax evasion, theft of electricity and gas, loan default and rampant corruption are the hallmarks of Pakistan’s oligarchy. State corruption inevitably flows from this. Having been incapable to produce enough surpluses to comply with their taxation obligations, reinvested in technology, provide health and other basic amenities to the workers and sustain their rates of profits, this comprador bourgeoisie tried to bribe their way out of their financial crimes. Ultimately the state became a part of this evil nexus. The military and civilian bureaucratic elite have made substantial gains in the ownership of vast portions of the economy. With the massive influx of workers from the north and other parts of the country, the population explosion in Karachi became a huge burden on the already creaking infrastructure. This situation has worsened in subsequent years. At present more than 60 percent of Karachi’s inhabitants live in shanty towns. Water, sanitation, electricity, sewerage, gas and other basic infrastructural facilities are either absent or rancid. The patterns of the city’s expansion are distorted and chaotic. These hazardous and appalling living conditions are one of the factors behind the excruciating violence tearing the city apart. Land grabbing and drug mafias rule the roost. Involvement of the police and other state organs in this orgy of crime and violence has become notoriously blatant. In the last few decades, this black capital generated from land grabbing, ransom, extortion, drug trade, robbery and other crimes has penetrated the dominant political parties in Karachi. Although these mafias have developed on ethnic and religious lines, their modus operandi is the same. Devoid of any ideological or political differences, these parties have become subservient to the dictates and operations of this Mafiosi. It is difficult to ascertain the real support of these parties. The mobsters acting in the guise of party workers forcibly lock up whole buildings and neighbourhoods, snatch identity cards from the voters and use them to cast fraudulent ballots. Hence they toughen their stranglehold on these parties. The MQM excels other parties in this electoral usurpation. After being in the corridors of power for the most part of the last 20 years, it has severely eroded its support as it has only worsened the plight of the masses in Karachi. It dominates through naked terror to instil fear in its own membership and the voters in general. With the intensification of the economic and energy crisis, industries are rapidly closing down and workers rendered redundant. There are around 10,000 large and medium scale industrial units that employ approximately seven million workers. More than 30 percent workers are on a daily contract basis. Hardly half of the workforce gets the official minimum wage. Karachi has seen better times. During the 60s there was massive industrialisation and growth in its economy. This growth instead of a harmonious development created new social contradictions that erupted into the mass revolt of 1968-69. Although the proletariat in Karachi entered the movement a bit late, yet it was the one that played the decisive role in creating a revolutionary situation in Pakistan. The movement lasted the longest in Karachi. The industries and institutions that were occupied under workers’ control and management boosted production and created huge surpluses. It was Karachi’s finest moment. The masses had united on a class basis, cutting across the ethnic, nationalistic, religious, lingual and communal prejudices of the past. As the movement receded in other parts of the country the state brutally crushed the agitating workers in SITE, Landhi and other areas, killing several people. The isolation of the class struggle in Karachi helped the state to re-impose the nationalist, religious and ethnic prejudices among the workers of Mohajir, Baloch, Pashtun, Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri and other backgrounds. The alienation of the Mohajir masses was manipulated by the agencies of the state and this led to the formation of the MQM. So was the case with the masses of other ethnicities and nationalities. But the formation and the social base the MQM attained was also the failure of the ruling classes to create an integrated and unified Pakistani nation. The wounds of partition and migration were still festering. The brutal dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq continued this policy of dividing the working class on ethnic, religious and nationalistic lines in Pakistan’s Petrograd. Zia’s military despotism ferociously perpetuated religious and ethnic hatreds to preserve the rule of capital. The MQM and other ethnic and religious groups were sponsored by the agencies of the state to shed innocent blood that has soaked Karachi for three generations. The subsequent PPP governments had the chance of uniting the workers and youth of Karachi. But as its leadership abandoned the party’s programme of class struggle and socialist principles, the ethnic strife and violence worsened. Mutilated human bodies were traded in sacks in this ethnic madness. The incumbent PPP regime has embarked upon class collaborationism in the name of reconciliation. This fragile and disastrous policy has been exposed by the breaking away of the MQM and leaving the government in the lurch (this column was written before the reconciliation with the MQM — Editor). According to The Economist, “Karachi could even descend into a civil war.” Religious terror and ethnic frenzy have already wreaked havoc in Pakistan. The only way to avert this disaster is to unite the working classes of Karachi in a class struggle with a clear programme of socio-economic transformation by overthrowing this system doomed to a future of barbarism and misery. The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com