Daily Times

Earlier this week, Karachi Rangers Director General (DG), Major General Bilal Akbar, announced that the paramilitary force under his command had formulated a plan in conjunction with the Federal Government and the Sindh Provincial Government to create jobs for the youth in the largest city of Pakistan. The program addresses three different areas including a Skill Development

Center, which would focus on the provision of vocational training to young people who can, then, be hired as qualified workers and draw higher salaries; a Victim Support Program, which would provide assistance to the kin of victims of target killings amongst other violent crimes in securing jobs; and a Rehabilitation Scheme, which would help those convicted individuals who have not committed major offences get back on track, find employment, and stay away from additional criminal acts.

Would these measures help to improve the law and order situation of the city? Even in the best case scenario, they might boost the youth’s morale by a little amount. Otherwise, like many similar projects foundered in the past, chances of their failure remain high. Why? Because, even though these programs look perfect and cover a wide range of issues on paper, they still fail to consider the elephant in the room: the political isolation of the people of Karachi and their lack of participation in the decision-making process.

Aside from violence, target killings and a widespread collection of protection money, what further sets Karachi apart from other large cities is its consistent, en-bloc voting 30-year-old-pattern in which almost all national and provincial assembly seats are secured by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Under its controversial leader, Altaf Hussein, MQM represents a large group of heterogeneous people who migrated to Pakistan and settled in Karachi from the non-Punjabi parts of India — mainly Utter Pradesh and Bihar — either in 1947 or after the fall of Dhaka in 1971.

This pattern can be considered by looking at how some Urdu-speaking people would even elect a person who may not be considered mentally stable by any means; is allegedly associated with violent crimes, including the murder of his own associate; disparages his own military; and might also have worked with the not-so-friendly foreign intelligence agencies against Pakistan’s interests. Although these charges have not yet been proven in the court of law, they do represent the predominant view of the people of Punjab — if not the whole Pakistan. Doubt it? Look at the voting pattern that has emerged in the last elections: the two most popular Punjab-based

political parties, the PTI and PMLN, carry similar negative views about the MQM and its leadership. Mian Nawaz Sharif had publicly vowed never to forge an alliance with the MQM and Imran Khan a few years ago, and we all know his derogatory remarks based on the skin colour and his approach towards the party, its members and the voters.

If the MQM and its chief are so unreliable, then questions emerge: are the voters of such a party equally patriotic as the people of Punjab? Should the local workers of MQM be regarded as criminals, target killers or considered as political activists? Is there a difference between a sector in-charge and a ringleader of a criminal organisation? Where is that distinction and who will draw that line? The operation in Karachi currently cannot differentiate between the two.

But this picture, which is largely based on accusations and suspicions, also has another side that explains why people in Karachi do not feel secure so much so they only vote along ethnic lines. Even if Altaf Hussein used to make sense earlier, he does not anymore. Then why would anyone in his sane mind vote for him? Leaving our own biases and presumptions aside, we should consider that these people face the same problems as people in the rest of the country; poverty, unemployment, and a lack of support programs. Furthermore, people in Karachi also feel that ‘someone’ has usurped their right-to-rule — the elephant in the room that the program rolled out by the General fails to address. By saying this, I do not wish to imply that right-to-rule is limited to voting for a few corrupt individuals once every few years or listening to the nonsensical telephonic address of an ailing politician. By right-to-rule, I mean that they would like to have an equal representation in the Army, the Air-Force and in the Navy from lowest to the highest ranks. They wish to be respected and trusted like officers from Punjab or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in these institutions, not humiliated as a persona-non-grata or an intruder in the ‘old boys club.’ The right-to-rule means representation in the police and judiciary with respect to their education, talent and, of course, population size. The right-to-rule means selection in the Central Superior Services in accordance with their actual percentage of the population in place of the quota system. Along with all this, what right-to-rule actually means is that they, not General Akbar, come up with a plan to reduce crimes in the city and rehabilitate its youth.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com