The ANP wants the MQM banned. The MQM wants the ANP banned. The MQM’s demand was only in response to the ANP’s and the latter’s demand was, one assumes, only rhetorical. But a surprisingly large number of people espouse such views in earnest. There is much wrong with that.
For starters, banning political parties never works. There is a history to this. The ANP might ask for the MQM to be banned but they would do well to remember their own past. The ZAB regime had outlawed the National Awami Party, the party’s earlier avatar. It was the one decision that even the most die-hard of Bhutto-followers admit to be a mistake. But it was a mistake not because the government had isolated this other leftist, secular and pro-democracy party, one that could have been a natural ally. Nor was it a mistake because the charges against the NAP have now almost clearly been proven to have been trumped up. It was a mistake, rather, because the party enjoyed genuine political support from where it fielded candidates.
Similarly, the MQM’s rather colourful methods notwithstanding, even those with a most visceral hatred against the party would not deny its vote bank. True, as anyone who has witnessed an election in Karachi would attest, this vote bank, even in Mohajir constituencies, is nowhere as large as is thought, it is still present. The idea is to conduct elections in a freer and safer environment, not to stop elections (because that is what banning parties means) to begin with.
Banning specific political parties risks yielding a Gramscian subaltern, of sorts. The creation of a demographic that does not really find meaningful representation in any of the other parties does not bode well for democracy, least of all one as nascent and shaky as ours.
Activists and leaders within political parties are not above the law. They should be tried and in Karachi, the law enforcement agencies and judiciary have their work cut out for them. Let us leave the parties themselves out of this.