Karachi’s great terror and the agony of its poor inhabitants continue unabated, actually mounting in frequency and intensity over the last few days – with the worst coming in the last two. This return of the Grim Reaper against the backdrop of a much-publicised rapprochement of sorts between the PPP and the MQM, with the latter’s long serving man returning to the governor’s mansion and the rest of the ministerial pack expected back to the fold before Eid, seems rather strange.
The desire of the PPP and the MQM to make up aside – obviously for self-serving reasons with the former wanting to bolster its position in the National Assembly and the MQM wanting its own pound of flesh – a spanner or three has been put in the works. This after it seemed that the deal had been all but stitched up once President Zardari overruled the Sindh parliament’s resolution in favour of the commissioner system and reintroduced the once -reviled Musharraf era local bodies system to accept MQM’s primacy in Karachi and Hyderabad – something that the latter was crying for quite some time.
Despite the display of camaraderie in the well attended Iftar party on Wednesday in the vicinity of the now most famous address in Karachi – the nine-zero – and the issuing of quite a few statements, that deal is not likely to go through, at least not in the manner it was originally conceived and arrived at.
And this only because the surprise package of Sindhi nationalists and ANP have combined to give a message to the PPP in no uncertain terms: it no longer has an absolute monopoly over the Sindhi vote. It is uncertain if the Sindh card can be flaunted or used as a threatening tool in the future.
The success of the strike in interior Sindh aside, the two strange companions – the Sindhi nationalists and the ANP – also put MQM on the run with Karachi too heeding to their call.
The PPP and its too-clever-by-half co-chairman had not bargained for this. In fact, none of El Presidente’s machinations in the last couple of years has backfired with such intensity. Threatened in this manner in its own bastion when the PPP in an obvious bout of jitters now wants to renegotiate and tinker with the original agreement, the MQM would have none of it.
And the MQM has responded to it in the only manner that it knows of: by a show of force that further heightens the insecurity of the people and sends shockwaves across the country.
By Thursday afternoon, at the time of writing, a leading news channel was reporting 47 people killed in the last two days. Still worse was taking place, and bodies were being found in gunny sacks. This was the tell-tale signature of the killer squads of a particular party in the 1990s, and the resurfacing of the phenomenon is a grim reminder of the things to come. For the moment many more are said to have gone missing, apparently abducted whose mutilated bodies might later be found in gunny sacks – like the unfortunate five Lyari Balochs the other day who were said to be victims of a gang war.
So far, the unflustered Mr Rehman Malik has not condescended to put forth any explanation for the latest deaths, not even of the ‘guys and dolls’ variety, choosing to keep his counsel to himself. While Karachi burns, the Sindh Governor for his part is busy in his version of the shuttle diplomacy, running from pillar to post in Islamabad and then communicating the result of his endeavours to London for approval – which apparently is not forthcoming.
Whether this stalemate continues, and Karachi continues to burn till things are smoothed out, is a point of conjecture. For its part, the MQM is not likely to yield until it gets what it wants: undiluted power in Karachi and Sindh on its terms and retention of its hegemony in the next elections as well, which means no change in the status quo obtained during the Musharraf era that favoured it against other political entities.
With the MQM adamant, the PPP is on the horns of a dilemma. It cannot ignore the radically changed sentiment in the interior Sindh and also its own ambition to recapture the space that once was its own in urban Sindh. The point to ponder for the PPP is, whether it has finally driven itself into a corner by its repeated flip-flops in wooing the MQM?
The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.