Press Release
Political patronage of tactical alliances comprising criminal, ethnic and commercial interests, as well as extremely poor governance have all combined to sink Karachi in administrative chaos and political violence. Those supposed to fix problems are themselves part of the problems, thus transforming Karachi into a battlefield of multiple interests. Encapsulating his experience of Karachi as an outside observer, Laurent Gayer, a French political scientist, said a lot insecurity and misgovernance is rooted in the threats that the MQM perceives to its hegemony of nearly three decades.
In his lecture on ¿Ordered Disorder: Thinking through Karachi’s State of Permanent Warfare– at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad on February 20, 2013, Mr Gayer likened Karachi to Beirut– due to the fragility of law and order situation and patchy governance in the mega city.
He observed that Karachi today has drifted into administrative and political chaos because political parties running it themselves to benefit from the privatization of service delivery. His research is based on to see what is next to this permanent ordered disorder in his forthcoming book on Karachi. Historically, the role of illicit trade, the criminalization of Karachi is essential elements of the growth of this city, he said. In this regard he compared Karachi with Mumbai which has similarity with Karachi in the sense of social leadership. According to him violence in Karachi is not existential but it is instrumental. What makes Karachi different from Mumbai is the kind of violence which escalated in Karachi with the arms influx after Afghan war, i.e. modern weapons which are used for violence. He also talked about the transformation of conflict after the rise of religious parties in Karachi. Islami Jamiat Talaba is now much stronger militarily than the student faction of Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The thing which also makes Karachi different from Mumbai is the scale of violence in Karachi city which is embedded in the social and political life of the people.
Mr. Gayer believed that the proliferation of political armed groups started in 2007 after the involvement of Awami National Party (ANP) and Aman Committee. The way how violence is transforming is very difficult for people to handle it. Weapons are used indiscriminately in which civilians lose their lives, the last few years saw extremely important transformation of violence and the decline of MQM are more violent, he observed. He observed that state indeed is a strong element and a failure of a state is a political illusion. The power of MQM is changed with devolution. MQM delivers to its constituencies. It provided thousands of jobs and lands to the people. However MQM also used violent practices. State is also not completely out of the picture, state, political actors and criminals are actors in this situation. Sinhdhi population is increasing and the Urdu speakers are no more in majority in Karachi. The pre-violence history of Karachi shows that clustering of Karachi happened after shifting of people from mixed areas but groupings started on the basis of ethnic, linguistic and sectarian basis. Hegemony of MQM is increasingly under threat which it is trying to project as Talibanization of the city, the speaker noted. Sunni Tehreek has also been trying to gain influence imitating the MQM model of violent governance that is a combination of political governance, buying, bullying and use of force.
Karachi situation became more violent after the involvement of Sunni Tehreek and Sepah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). There is violence within Sunni groups however Taliban have low profile there. MQM left ground for Taliban, because MQM tried to evict ANP from Karachi and it is facing threat from Taliban everywhere. Ethnic polarization was there for MQM, but by characterizing, transcending linguistic identities because ethnicity was not a source of legitimization. There was peace in Karachi at the time of Musharaf from 1999 to 2006 when MQM was allied with other groups, stated the French scholar.
On the contrary, participants noted that Karachi is different from Mumbai, because Mumbai is a part of a country where state institutions are strong but in Pakistan state control is weak in Karachi. A classic political theory says that when a political party lacks large ethnic representation, they use other violent acts to increase their influence there.