Leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spent last week in Sindh’s capital, Karachi, hoping to repair the political damage inflicted by Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s declaration of carving a new province out of Karachi. The timing of Sharif’s statement and these visits, however, must be seen in the context of two important developments in Islamabad and Punjab: the new-found friendship between the PPP and PML-Q, and the increasing clamour for the creation of a Saraiki province.
Seemingly threatened with national developments, the lion and his cubs want to strike back at the PPP in its stronghold of Sindh. And to do so, the PML-N has turned to the Sindh card. Given the political landscape of our country, no one should have any objection to the PML-N using the Sindh card – after all, it has also been utilised by the PPP, MQM and nationalists parties. But certainly, there is a manner and timing to employ the strategy.
Sharif’s controversial statement had been issued Sunday before the last, and the PML-N leadership’s ploy to play the Sindh card came on the heels of the statement. The backlash was obviously not pretty: enraged protesters attacked the PML-N office in Karachi as well as a reputable restaurant run by a local PML-N leader. Sharif hastily clarified his statement, and a day later, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal rushed to Karachi to assuage his party’s leaders, especially the Sindhi-speaking ones.
Soon after his return, three other leaders of the party – Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, Mehtab Abbasi and Iqbal Zafar Jhagra – arrived in Karachi and spent three days in the city. Two of these leaders belong to the Saraiki and Hazara belts. The PML-N leaders, apart from dealing with internal party matters, made concerted efforts to get on the good side of Sindhi nationalists – many of whom are diametrically opposed to the politics of the PPP. Sindhi nationalists had, of course, issued a strike call for April 30 against the recently-completed housing enumeration.
The Census Monitoring Committee, comprising the Bashir Qureshi-led Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Rasool Bux Palijo-led Awami Tahreek (AT) and Dr Qadir Magsi-led Sindh Taraqipasand Party (STP), had declared the house count process as fraud and had argued that the Sindhi-speaking population was neglected in the process, and that the rulers were conspiring to declare the Sindhis as a minority in their own province.
Not one to let an opportunity pass to discredit the PPP, the PML-N supported the nationalists’ strike. But there is a history between the PML-N and the nationalists. The parties of Qureshi, Magsi and Palijo had rejected the population census conducted during Mian Nawaz Sharif’s last government in 1998 for the same reasons. The major difference between the nationalists’ protest then and now was their denunciation of the process was made soon after then finance minister, Sartaj Aziz, had announced its results; this time around, they rejected it during the initial stages.
In 1998, the PML-N had rejected the apprehensions of these nationalist parties, but this time, it has endorsed them. What the PML-N seems to have overlooked is that the PPP not only rejected the house enumeration process in Sindh back in 1998, it has also expressed serious reservations over the current process, at a time when it is in government. The PML-N perhaps expected to create goodwill on the issue of house enumeration, but beyond that, it should not expect too much too soon. Can a party that has virtually no political existence in Sindh get the sympathies of the Sindhi-speaking people when much controversy still exists over Shahbaz Sharif’s statement?
There is no doubt that nationalist parties in Sindh have always remained in the anti-PPP camp, but even they would also not be able to defend the PML-N among their own supporters in this situation. PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif had also made the same mistake in the past: he got an opportunity to create some political space in Sindh for his party because of some schemes that he had launched for welfare of poor, including distribution of wheat bags and introducing yellow cabs for unemployed youth. But he lost it all in one stroke by publicly supporting the controversial Kalabagh Dam project.
Before expecting support in Sindh, the PML-N must realise that Sindhis are sensitive to the issues of water, NFC Award, and provincial autonomy – these issues, among a host of others, draw emotional responses from the people of Sindh. The PML-N would be well-advised to understand Sindh before using the Sindh card.
The author is Chief Reporter at Pakistan Today, Karachi.