As the local bodies’ elections fever grips Karachi, arguably the most reviled and hated party by most non Karachi-ite Pakistanis as well as the military establishment would be the Mutahda Qaumi Movement or the MQM.
Universaly denounced as terrorists, extortionists and cold blooded mass murderers and even traitors and Indian (RAW) agents, the party should have been dead and buried by now in the sheer avalanche of negativity and its corresponding media trail.
This particular party has borne the brunt of numerous operations against it by both the political and the military hierarchy. It has seen its rank and file murdered in EJK (extra judicicial killings) and its cadre imprisoned by the thousands.
In fact throughout the 90s it was made to go through multiple ‘operations’ euphemistically referred to as “ Clean ups” by the powerful military.
To be fair though, it had created a state within a state and had its armed wing taking over enture parts of the sprawling mega polis.
The party is mocked for being run by a self exiled man known derisively as “Humpty Dumpty”. A man whose utterances are more often than not, just a cause of extreme embarrassment for the party leaders but also have given rise to charges of high treason.
But time and again just as it was thought to be dead and buried for good, the party managed to rise phoenix like from the ashes.
The question is why?
Why do the people of Karachi still continue to vote for this party in spite of the media’s repeated highlighting of its various crimes and misdeeds?
The answer is simple. It empowers the people who vote for it. And gives them a sense of belonging.
Take for example the area of Bath island. This area used to be inundated repeatedly in every monsoon down pour because the rich and the powerful encroached upon and blocked up the storm water drains and made gardens, annexes and even swimming pools over the drains.
Things came to such an impasse that this so called ‘posh’ locality was actually worse off than even slum areas. Thigh deep stagnant water (mixed with mosquito larva infested raw sewage) for weeks at a time made the life of the denizens of this unfortunate locality a living nightmare. Once in the 90s in the neighboring Rethi lines slum area, Edhi centre’s mobile food kitchens had to distribute food to the disaster hit locality.
While youngsters used to wade to the markets and bring much needed supplies to the elderly who were stuck in their homes.
Till one fateful day, a fire brigade truck came to pump out the water from the area and due to the roads becoming liquid mush it got stuck. A bulldozer was then sent by the city administration to rescue the stricken truck. The unfortunate bulldozer also suffered the same fate.
On that day this scribe personally witnessed the city Nazim Mustafa Kamal and the Sindh governor Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ibad walking in the knee deep sewage on main Chaudary Rehmat Ali Road sans all protocol. Screaming obscenities at the local administration that regularly allowed this locality to turn into a disaster hit area.
Within a fortnight the homes of the rich and the powerful were being bulldozed and the storm water drains cleaned of all encroachments. Regardless of the encroachers’ ties to the corridors of power.
More ever another storm water drain was built throughout the locality on a war footing. Instructions were given to the KWSB in August 2006 andtThis miles long drain empties directly into the Arabian sea and moreover, was completed in record time.
No other political party before or since has done this much for this locality. And that is why the people who live here choose to vote MQM time after time.
