In the early 90’s, after Benazir Bhutto’s first government was toppled by Ghulam Ishaque Khan and Nawaz Sharif was anointed as the new kingpin by the powers, my friend Sardar Shah, who had recently got his degree in engineering and had been hunting for a job, found himself in the National Assembly building in Islamabad in front of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who happened to be a powerful minister then.
After Sardar pleaded with him to help him get a job, Chaudhry looked at Sardar Shah’s face and asked if he was a Sindhi. Sardar replied ‘yes’. At which Chaudhry Shujaat said contemptuously “You Sindhis should wait for the Peoples’ Party’s government.”
One can hardly blame Chaudhry Shujaat for being candid.
Look at any quota-wise list published by a federal government department or ministry, you will find the number of employees from rural Sindh way below the allocated quota, even at the non-skilled jobs, even when the offices are situated in Sindh.
And the situation is worse now than ever.
There are very deep-rooted prejudices in the non-Sindhi mind against Sindhis. The situation becomes worse when someone completely ignorant about the history and culture of the country, especially Sindh, is artificially hoisted to power, like the current czar.
Just the other day, the mouthpiece of the current government parroted the old mantra “Sindhis are taking away all the money earned by Karachi… Karachi is being deprived of its due share by the Sindh government…”
Does he know the history of the province?
When Pakistan came into being in 1947, Karachi, the capital of Sindh, was the main source of bread and butter for the people of the province. The federal government immediately took it over as its capital with a promise to pay the rent to Sindh for the resources the federal government used. Sindh never got the promised rent.
In 1948, the federal government implemented a strange quota system for the disadvantage of the indigenous people of the smaller province, especially Sindh, where the migrants were granted 15% share of the total jobs, and Sindh, NWFP and Baluchistan jointly got only 17%. The quota for the three provinces was further trimmed to 15% in 1949. On top of it another 2% quota was reserved for Karachi, which again was meant for immigrants.
Sindhis had to fight the might of dictators and the wrath of the real powers to get the things changed. It was through a bloody struggle of Sindhi people that the One Unit was dismantled and quota systemwas amended in the 1970’s to make it somewhat judicious. The truth was then twisted to call it Bhutto’s quota system. Bhutto did not impose quota system. He just rationalized an unfair quota system originally implemented by Liaquat Ali Khan.
For three decades MQM, a representative party of the Karachi, called the shots in the city. During Musharraf era, the party was allowed to rule virtually the whole province of Sindh unquestionably -even though the party was openly involved in extortion, blackmailing, and even sedition and subversion.
So, what excess against Karachi are Imran Khan and his minions talking about day and night? One wonders whether Mr. Khan realizes he is talking about the capital of Sindh when he talks about Karachi.
Karachi is not just about a few national assembly seats which the PTI has been able to grab courtesy the powers that be and gerrymandering, done initially for the benefit of MQM, and now PTI, by the real rulers of the country.
Karachi, the heart and soul of Sindh, with hundreds of years of history as a Sindhi settlement, is surrounded by Sindhi villages even today. A large number of Sindhis, Baloch and Pashtuns as well as Punjabis live in the city. Muhajirs, who were welcomed by the Sindhis at the time of partition of India constitute alarge part of the city. But all of them are Sindhis, regardless of the language they speak.
When Sindhis see Imran Khan and his minions continually parroting “Sindh and Karachi, Sindh and Karachi” and official notifications issued by his federal government referring to Sindh and Karachi as two separate entities, they immediately sense the nefarious designs of the small people sitting at high positions attempting to divide and rule an ethnically sensitive province.
When Sindhis see the federal government suddenly warming to the most corrupt of the province and then trying to topple the elected government of the province on the pretext of corruption with their help, they immediately see the duplicity behind the conspiracy to deprive the province of its elected representatives and foist an artificial regime comprising worse politicians on them just like the rest of the country.
Sindhis understand it full well that Mr. Khan and his handlers are not sympathetic to them.
In them Sindhis see a bunch of landgrabbers who are interested in the geography more than the people and their culture and history.
As for the government of Mr. Imran Khan, nothing describes it more precisely than a Sindhi saying “andhaa Ghorra, ghaibana shahswaar” (blind horses ridden by witless riders).
P.S. while no Sindhi finds a respectable ministry in his cabinet, the Prime Minister of Pakistan failed to find even one suitable Sindhi to sit on his Economic Advisory Council! Also, while withholding 90 billion rupees allocated for the province, the federal government has decided that all the federal projects in Sindh will be managed by the governor and not the elected representatives of Sindh. Talks volumes about Mr. Khan’s regard for Sindhis and the democratic norms.
The writer is an independent political analyst based in the US
Published in Daily Times, January 8th 2019