Politics without vision

Eqbal Ahmad

IN ALL but one respect the Mohajir Qaumi Movement appears different from Pakistan's other political parties. Unlike them, it is entirely urban. Its constituents are middle and working class people, mostly literate, hard-working, and free from the constraints of Pakistan's feudal social order. It is a hardy formation with a demonstrated abihty to kill, get killed, and survive. It is skillfully organized and served by dedicated cadres whose loyalties rarely wavered during the years of terrorism and repression. It has proved to be as good in the battle of ballots as it has been with bullets. Yet, like our other parties it too suffers from a lack of vision, an absence of purpose.

Hence the MQM is failing just when it had succeeded. The results of this last election handed it a set of historic opportunities which its leaders have all but lost. With their backs to history and ears glued to London, they sought high offices and transient gains and won nearly all they wanted dominant presence in the Sindh cabinet, choice portfolios, speakership of the provincial assembly, and privilege to name the governor. The MQM's coalition partners have promised redress and compensation for violations its cadres suffered during the period of confrontation with the previous government. Understandably, the MQM'S unilateral power grab has aroused resentment among the Sindhi people. To make matters worse, the Muslim League has brought in as chief minister a Sindhi politician of dubious past and ill-repute. The road ahead has to be rocky.

During the last decade how many times had one heard from the MQM's leaders and supporters of their dream to turn Karachi into another Singapore, or Sindh into another Malaysia? I doubt that they ever inquired as to how Singapore/Malaysia got where it did. Else they would know that the key to Malaysia's economic transformation was a historic compromise reached between Malaysia's Chinese community and its original Malay inhabitants. This development was spearheaded by a wise Chinese leadership and on the Malay side by a great statesman in Tengku Abdul Rahman who led the Alliance Party. In a word, this compromise entailed Malay predominance in the exercise of poUtical power in return for structural reforms which allowed for rational governance of urban areas and an environment favourable to the growth of commerce and industry, a sector dominated by the Chinese. As a result, the Chinese played a key role in the economic transformation of Malaysia and, over the years, the alliance between the two communities has been reinforced by beneficial interdependence.

Analogies are approximations at best. Malaysia's story offers, nevertheless, important lessons for Sindh's future. The Chinese were relative newcomers, urban-based, generally landless as they were immigrants from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and largely middle and working class with a minority owning commerce and industry. In 1955, they had constituted 37% of the population. Literacy rate was high among them and, as immigrants the world over tend to do, they were prone to work hard and take initiatives.

By contrast, the Malays lived largely in rural areas where ownership and social relations were defined by the dominance of the landed aristocracy, especially the royal clan. As the forces of social change worked their way into Malaysia, and urbanization proceeded, the indigenous Malay people began to seek opportunities in the modern sector and found their way blocked by the new immigrants. Resentment among them grew against the Chinese who occupied the urban spaces including jobs in government and industry which the Malays were needing to occupy in increasing numbers. Cultural differences and prejudices added to ethnic tensions. The Malays, being Muslims, viewed the pork-eating immigrants with suspicion and disdain. "The Chinese in turn", wrote Richard Butwell in 1961, "displayed an unmistakable air of superiority toward the Malays, whom they regarded as an inferior people."

political developments favoured the Malay majority. The early 1940s witnessed the mobilization of Malay nationalism, a time that saw also Britain's retreat from colonial rule. Malay power and privileges grew as Britain began the process of preparing toward Malaysia's self-rule, and this rendered the Chinese less favoured by the state and more vulnerable as a community with shallower roots in Malaysia. These insecurities underlay the start in 1948 of the protracted insurgency in Malaysia, known to the world as Malaya's "CT problem." The British appellation was for Communist Terrorists (CT) but for most Malays, it stood for Chinese Terrorist. The insurgency, which had its stronghold in the working class Chinese population, lasted for four years, and was comparable in some respects to the recent MQM-versus-govermnent warfare. It was at the end of this bloody affair that Tengku Abdul Rahman forged an alliance with Chinese leaders including Lee Kuan Yew, then a young leader of Singapore's People's Action Party. The rest is known, and a matter of envy to many Pakistanis.

The Sindhi-Mohajir divide has, of course, a different history, and the alliances they make will differ in detail from the ways in which Malays, Chinese, and Indo-Pakistani immigrants have built a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual polity in Malaysia. Yet, it is possible to draw at least three lessons from the Malaysian experience. The first is that Sindh's future and by extension Pakistan's lies in a meaningful reconciliation between its two major communities, one old and the other new, one indigenous and the other immigrant, one urban and the other linked to rural areas. Second, Sindhi and Urdu speaking people ought to recognize each other, as the Malays and Chinese eventually did, to be allies as natural and necessary as sun and rain, soil and water, village and city. The two must be joined and collaborate for each to prosper and serve the common good. Third, throughout history power has been held by those who hold the land, and economies have been oiled and energized by those who work the cities.

It follows then that the future of the Urdu-speaking community of Sindh and also of the Sindhi people will be better served if the MQM and the Muslim League, being the parties that now hold the reins of power, will seek a stable relationship between Sindhis and Mohajirs. In a sense, it entails finding also a balanced relationship between town and country. Unfortunately, in the political doings following the elections there is no evidence that the MQM had either an inkling of the opportunity before it or the

inclination to exploit it.

We cite only two examples: Although it was in a position to do so, the MQM has to date made no significant gesture of reconciliation towards the Sindhis. It could have nominated a credible Sindhi candidate to Sindh's governorship. Highly distinguished persons were there Abdullah Memon, Hamida Khuhro, and lqbal Akhund come to mind who may have played a crucial role in creating a relationship of trust and cooperation between the two estranged communities of Sindh. The MQM'S failure to make such a nomination appears to me a monumental mistake.

Similarly, their bargaining with the Muslim League leaders could have been focused on offerring more ministerial chairs to its coalition partners in return for a viable statute for the governance of Sindh's cities. After all, Karachi is the only major metropolis in the world which lacks a city administration comparable to those of London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and even Bombay. When it has an elected mayor, which is not often, Karachi's mayoralty functions as a Merovingian cipher. It collects none but octroi taxes. It does not control large portions of city lands and properties. Most city services the police force, schools, many hospitals, even water and electricity are beyond its regulatory powers. The political Pir's London reveries notwithstanding, no city so governed will ever become another Singapore or Hong Kong. Of course, one can argue that now that they have the chairs, they will swing, and invest Karachi and Hyderabad with the wherewithal of efficient governance. That would be sheer arrogance, and ignorance too of politics which has a way of playing cruel jokes with those who fail to link power with purpose, and join vision to realities in ways that can move the hearts and minds of friends no less than adversaries. After a while Pir Sahib. I fear, will end up in London again. And the Urdu-speaking people of Sindh may pay yet another price for the choices their elected representatives are now making.

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