While the residents of Karachi may have had to bear with soaring temperatures in the past couple of days, the city’s biggest political party and the main power broker, the Mutahhida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has been feeling the heat for the past several weeks. Ever since the targeted counter-terrorism operation was launched in the wake of the National Action Plan (NAP) in Karachi, the party has been under strict scrutiny and investigation due to its alleged links with the deteriorated security situation in the former capital.
In an effort to completely dismantle the city’s networks of terror, not only have the MQM’s workers and cadre members faced investigations and detentions from the Sindh Rangers, but the party’s operational activities and funding have also taken a hit. If only for the duration of the operation in the city, the party seems to find itself in situations where it cannot enjoy the impunity with which it had grown accustomed to over the years.
Despite the party’s efforts to be on its best behaviour, incriminating evidence linking the party to entities as unlikely as Indian intelligence agencies has come to the fore and the MQM has been unable to either explain or completely shake off such accusations that it adamantly portrays as baseless. The unrelenting pressure on the party has driven the MQM into inhospitable territory, where the only ways out are almost always sub-optimal, demanding sacrifice and compromise.
Desperate and out of viable options, the MQM has now tendered an appeal for clemency to elements of the ‘establishment’ that are behind the drive against the party. The rationale behind such a thin apology, we are made to believe, is that the party has finally recognised the wrong in its ways and is now trying to initiate a clean break from its chequered past by pleading for amnesty. Trying to build on the sentiment of ‘forgiveness’ permeating the corridors of powers in Pakistan vis-à-vis the estranged Baloch, the party that derives its base from a sizeable ethnic population wants the investigators hot on its heels to forgive and forget, and look forward to future days.
Keeping in mind how the noose has been slowly tightened around the MQM’s operations, perhaps this appeal was only the next logical step. The appeal, however, does not elaborate as to what steps are going to be taken by the party to completely shun its links with terror activities in Karachi. It is one thing fro the party to distance itself from the activities of some disgruntled members but completely another to vow to take responsibility for its future actions.
Additionally, the party has been unable to come up with workable compromises that would allow it to maintain its identity and presence in the city of Karachi. Without a doubt, the community and citizens it seeks to represent will not be ready to break all ties with the party and, for this reason, some sort of compromise/solution will have to be worked out. So far though, word on the grapevine is that the security agencies are unwilling to let the MQM chief, Altaf Hussain, keep his control intact. The MQM leadership, on the other hand, is not ready to withdraw support for the self-exiled Edgware resident out of fear of repercussions, or loyalty, or both. But this means that the security agencies and the MQM are stuck in a dangerous pas de deux that could potentially unravel the strands of the country’s political structure.
It is no secret that the asymmetrical status quo that has been obtained in Pakistani politics favours the security apparatus of the country to exert more control over domestic policy. Recognising its inability — and perhaps even unwillingness — to act decisively, the current PML-N government has been comfortably numb in relinquishing substantial chunks of decision making authority to the khakhis. And it is not like they are running into adverse opposition on this front either: the popularity graphs of the army chief are through the roof at this point and seeing his imprint on the pro-active counter-terrorism policy, perhaps rightly so. But the fundamental tension of external intervention that chips away at the sovereignty of democratic institutions still remains. We may have found a way to make things work for now by conceding power here and there, but this ultimately leads us down a slippery slope at the end of which justifying a military coup would be absurdly easy.
Furthermore, this raises the question as to whether or not such targeted drives against political parties by the security agencies are the way we should go about building accountability into the system. The supporters of the dedicated targeted campaign posit that the operation was started only after realising that accountability is not going to spring up from the corrupt or weak institutional structures itself but that is precisely why there must at least be a recognition of the reform that is so desperately required to overhaul the justice system in the country.
No matter how this current campaign against bringing the culprits to justice ends, it will be interesting to see if such operations will become the norm in Pakistan from now on. At this point, even the parties in power would not be completely wrong to be concerned about their future, since the only common strand running through all political outfits is their complicity and corruption in devious affairs. The MQM, in the coming days, will try to clear its name by pointing to its appeal and hoping for some collective forgiveness but it is not clear whether or not this will bring about the end of its quandary.
The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations