Agent provocateur?

Karachi was pulled back from the brink but only after Sindh Senior Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza’s inflammatory remarks against Altaf Hussain had claimed 15 lives. You can’t expect any decency from Dr Mirza when it comes to putting the MQM on the mat but it was his outburst against the entire Urdu-speaking community which cannot be condoned.

The perception that he could not have made such a provocative statement without the consent of his top leadership doesn’t seem misplaced. That he retracted his words immediately after being summoned by the Presidency was no surprise. There have been instances in the past when Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and Interior Minister Rehman Malik visited Nine Zero with the PPP’s enfant terrible in tow to make him apologise for his uncontrolled outbursts against the MQM.

There is no doubt that the language Dr Mirza used against his political opponents was unbecoming of the holder of a public office. What was actually reprehensible on his part was that his unwise diatribe triggered a fresh spate of violence when the restive city had just started limping back to normality. President Asif Zardari’s timely intervention coupled with Altaf bhai’s call to his workers to end ‘peaceful protests’ helped calm down the situation but only after the damage had been done.

The two leaders seem to have realised, albeit belatedly, that the country’s financial capital, which has been going through a horrifying spell of violence, cannot afford to let the crisis continue. This realisation may cause a huge disappointment to naysayers who started predicting that the situation would worsen in the weeks and months ahead. And equally perturbed would be those who could now clearly see the so-called grand opposition alliance collapse under its own weight much before it could take off.

Driving wedges between the opposition parties was obviously not the PPP’s main aim; the real objective was to end the MQM’s gerrymandering in Karachi and Hyderabad along with a fresh legislation on local government. Everything was going according to a well thought out plan but before it could be accomplished the Sindh Senior Minister got unleashed. His remarks that Afaq Ahmad was the true leader of the Muhajir community rather than Altaf bhai were seen as a deliberate attempt at smashing the MQM and reviving the Haqiqis.

Did Dr Mirza deviate from the real goal while trying to bring the Sindh card into play? It seems so. By challenging the MQM’s political might in Karachi and Hyderabad, the PPP actually wanted to consolidate its vote bank in interior Sindh which now appears to be eroding because of its alliance with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. And when it comes to rhetoric he is pretty good at it. “Sindh will be divided over my body”– his comment aimed at presenting the PPP as a true defender of the rights of Sindhis. But what he might have ignored while launching his diatribe against the MQM at a reception organised by the ANP was that his friendly overtures towards another ethnic group did not sit well with the Sindhi nationalists whom he had been trying to appease.

Notwithstanding the Sindhis’ reservations against the settlers usurping their rights, Muhajirs have been their pet aversion; Pakhtuns aren’t. The factor which might have brought the PPP and the ANP closer to each other was that they had been the victim of the MQM excesses during General Musharraf’s repressive rule. About a decade that the despot had been in power, both the parties had seen the Muhajir Qaumi Movement riding roughshod over them in a bid to marginalise them politically. Their workers were subjected to the worst kind of victimisation one can ever think of.

There would be few to disagree with the fact that the MQM, which had been given a free hand during the Musharraf era to consolidate its position, can go to any extent to settle its scores with the political opponents. The party has the history of being part of every ruling alliance as long as it could manage to exact concessions from its senior coalition partner and once out of power it would turn violent in no time. A case in point is over 100 fatalities during the past two weeks since the PPP finally decided to jettison the MQM from the corridors of power rather than putting up with its blackmail.

Altaf bhai has done well by asking his workers to exercise restraint but he could have done himself a great favour by having disowned the mafia within his ranks which has once again started clamouring for a separate province for Muhajirs. A message he needs to put across to his workers: Those who don’t learn to coexist, perish.

The writer is Executive Editor, Pakistan Today